On the new essay by Jürgen Habermas: What drives this man? – Culture

The philosopher Jürgen Habermas is 93 years old and a young spirit: why his thoughts are still so important today, in the age of neo-heroic sensitivity.

Actually, Jürgen Habermas, born in June 1929, would have had enough reasons to relax in his house near Lake Starnberg. He is the world’s most famous living German philosopher. In 1949 he began his studies in Göttingen; he was the young among the old of the Frankfurt School; his major works “Structural Change of the Public” (1962), “Theory of Communicative Action” (1981) and his late “A History of Philosophy” (2019) were and are formative for the humanities of this country – maybe even for the mind. His books and essays form a library of critical thinking against the background of the history of the Federal Republic of Germany from the ruins of war through restoration and awakening between 1950 and 1980 to the post-national, but neo-heroic sensitivity of the 21st century. One can live well without having read Habermas, especially since he often does not make it easy for his potential readership. But if you have read some of his work, you will understand many things, including the fact that the word is at the beginning of being – and probably also at the end of being.

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