Critical theory of Jurgen Habermas

A book of this length on a contemporary thinker calls for some explanation, especially when its subject is still relatively young and his work has only recently begun to be discussed in the English-speaking world. Jurgen Habermas is the dominant figure on the intellectual scene in Germany today, as he has been for the past decade. There is scarcely an area of the humanities or social sciences that has not felt the influence of his thought; he is master, in breadth and depth alike, of a wide range of specialized literatures. But his contributions to philosophy and psychology, political science and sociology, the history of ideas and social theory are distinguished not only by their scope but by the unity of perspective that informs them. This unity derives from
a vision of mankind, our history and our prospects, that is rooted in the tradition of German thought from Kant to Marx, a vision that draws its power as much from the moral-political intention that animates it as from the systematic form in which it is articulated.