Norms appearing in the form of law entitle actors to exercise their rights or liberties. However, one cannot determine which of these laws are legitimate simply by looking at the form of individual rights. Only by bringing in the discourse principle can one show that each person is owed a right to the greatest possible measure of equal liberties that are mutually compatible.
—Between Facts and Norms (1996)
Jürgen Habermas (born June 18, 1929, Düsseldorf, Germany) is widely regarded as one of the most important European philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, as well as the continent’s leading contemporary public intellectual. A highly influential social and political thinker, Habermas is generally identified with critical social theory, a Marxist inspired movement that…
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Jürgen Habermas is widely acknowledged as the most important European philosopher living today. Bridging continental and Anglo-American traditions of thought, he has engaged in debates with thinkers as diverse as Gadamer and Putnam, Foucault and Rawls, Derrida and Brandom. His extensive written works address topics ranging from social and political theory to aesthetics, epistemology, language…
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