Jürgen Habermas [1929–] (born...in Düsseldorf, Germany) is a philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory. His work has been called Neo-Marxist, and focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalist industrial society and of democracy and the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary (especially German) politics.

Habermas has integrated into a comprehensive framework of social theory and philosophy the German philosophical thought of Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Dilthey, Husserl, and Gadamer, the Marxian tradition— both the theory of Marx himself as well as the critical neo-Marxian theory of the Frankfurt School, i.e. Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse—, the sociological theories of Weber, Durkheim, and Mead, the linguistic philosophy and speech act theories of Wittgenstein, Austin, and Searle, the American pragmatist tradition of Peirce and Dewey, and the sociological systems theory of Parsons. He is well known for his work on the concept of the public sphere.

Habermas considers his own major achievement the development of the concept and theory of communicative reason or communicative rationality, which distinguishes itself from the rationalist tradition by locating rationality in structures of interpersonal linguistic communication rather than in the structure of either the cosmos or the knowing subject. He carries forward the tradition of Kant and the Enlightenment and of democratic socialism through his emphasis on the potential for transforming the world and arriving at a more humane, just, and egalitarian society through the realization of the human potential for reason.

Habermas burst onto the German intellectual scene in the 1950s with an influential critique of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. He studied philosophy and sociology under the critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno at the Institute for Social Research at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, but because of a rift over him between the two, he took his Habilitation in political science at the University of Marburg under Wolfgang Abendroth. Very unusual in the German academic scene at that time, he was called to an extraordinary professorship of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg (at the instigation of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Löwith), which he held until moving back to Frankfurt to a full Chair.

He accepted the position of Director of the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg (near Munich) in 1971, and worked there until 1983, two years after the publication of his magnum opus, The Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas then returned to his chair at Frankfurt and the directorship of the Institute for Social Research. Since retiring from Frankfurt in 1993, Habermas has continued to publish extensively...." (from Wikipedia.com)

"He is currently [Permanent Visiting] Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. He was recently awarded the 2004 Kyoto Prize for Arts and Philosophy by the Inamori Foundation. The Kyoto Prize is an international award to honor those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural, and spritual betterment of mankind." (from MIT Press)

"...[Habermas] is the best-known contemporary proponent of critical theory, which is a social theory with Marxist roots developed in the 1930s by the Frankfurt School. In the spirit of his Frankfurt School predecessors, Habermas has criticized modern industrial societies for excessive emphasis on instrumental action, i.e., on doing whatever is necessary to attain given ends. This emphasis, he argues, has prevented them from appreciating the importance of communicative action, which is understanding and coming to agreement with others. Habermas has also constructed a theory of “discourse ethics” according to which moral judgments would have validity if agreed to by agents in an ideal speech situation...." (from The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.  2001-05 quoted on bartleby.com)

His publications include The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962), Knowledge and Human Interests (1968), Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (1981), and Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (1983), Between Facts and Norms (1992), The Inclusion of the Other (1996), The Postnational Constellation (2001), and The Future of Human Nature (2002).