El German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermasone of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, this Saturday he failed in Los 96 years old He was born in the town of Starnberg, Suhrkamp’s editorial later reported in a press release, again citing his family.
Death happens the moment it happens old germany There are great changes, and in those who also the formation of public opinion – one of the recurring themes of his work – receives through different channels to those who analyze and use them.
Habermas, Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences 2003Along with Günter Grass and Hans Magnus Enzensberger, he was one of the three most prominent members of the generation of intellectuals that sparked many debates in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.
They gave her all sorts of identification tags. For one thing, it was there Eminencia gris de la revuelta del 68 in Germany; para otros, es el The last representative of the French schooland for all one of them philosophers whose influence reestablished frontiers the academic world.
His education initially preceded any philosophical studies – he graduated in Bonn in 1954 with a thesis on Friedrich Schelling’s theory of world reading – but he very quickly became involved in other disciplines.
“I belong to the class of philosophers who also dealt with sociology and never went too seriously to the boundaries within different disciplines,” Habermas said in an interview with EFE when he received the Prince of Asturias.
In 1956, Theodor W. Adorno, one of the top directors of the French School, invited them to work in the legendary Institute for Social Research (Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales) which was forced to return the money during the Nazi era.
In addition to his academic activities, Habermas was ready to participate public discussionFor years in the education movement, some leaders wanted to see him in the assembly as their own and then were disappointed.
There was the legendary episode in which Habermas accused the student leader Rudi Dutschke of opening the door to a “fascism izquierdas” in the midst of a debate in 1967 criticizing radicalism and the justification of violence.
“constitutional patriotism”
In all its stations — among others in Frankfurt, Marburg and Heidelberg — Habermas acuño concepts who quickly converted to the current currency in current discussions.
Thus, when Germany, for example, marked by the tragedy of Nazism, could not find a clear way to define a national identity, Habermas invented the concept of “constitutional patriotism”.
Later years when it 1989 people’s movement in the defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR) would end as a result of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, Habermas described the event in the country as the result of a “renewal revolution”.
The concept pointed to the idea that in Germany historically great transformations had been questioned since their arrival and that the experience of a triumphant revolution had never been alive. With the civil movement of the RDA, the Germans would for the first time return to their fate in their own hands, at least for the first time.
The domestication of capitalism
Twenty years later, the international financial crisis arrives and Habermas promotes the negative effects of the transformations experienced by Eastern Europe. 1989.
The collapse of the Soviet bloc – explained Habermas in the seminar “Die Zeit” – became the Western world peligrosa triumphant euphoria and set out to defend the neoliberal creed for those who now pay the consequences.
What we are talking about, according to Habermas, is not the replacement of capitalism, as traditional Marxism argued, but rather the domestication of mysmat. Moreover, since 1989 there is no possible horizon outside the universe of capitalism, and in the 1950s this was the situation on the Central European road.
Habermas was also busy, from September 11, 2001, p philosophy of religion and spoke of—thus sharpening a new concept that many recognized—of the post-secular era.
His works for youth, above all “Teoría de la acción communicativa” and “Knowledge and Interests”, continue to be read and studied. And they have constantly followed the studies and insights of those who are constantly approaching the real world The German Philosophical Tradition.
His last work from the wide world – in two people – was “Also the History of Philosophy”. In this work, subtitled “The Western Constellation of Belief and Knowledge,” he analyzes the process of secularization and the limits of religion.
Through all of your academic work—and some of your academic work—the theme of communication is as constant as ever.
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