4 ms·

Philosoph Jürgen Habermas Gestorben

153 points by sebastian_z 7mo ago

PaulHoule 7mo ago
I love his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation_Crisis_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation_Crisis_(book) but feel this ponderous two-volume set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Communicative_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Communicative_Ac... is thoroughly refuted by our last two decades of experience with electronic communications.
- jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
  Perhaps the missing component is that not only is rationality communicable, but so is irrationally. The memetic material out there has had an incredible and tumultuous era of rapid evolution. Theres been such radical pressure to get better at consuming our attention, at trying to get ideas to spread. The means have perhaps outstripped the Humana ability to communicate & make sense of so much highly weaponized memetic systems.
- biggestlou 7mo ago
  Thoroughly refuted? Sorry, but no
- myrak 7mo ago
  [dead]
FabHK 7mo ago
[flagged]
- gr__or 7mo ago
  I find this to be vile political posting, moving responsibility for Trump's rightwing fascism to a social theorists is just misguided, banal and does not belong here. Don't you have X for that?
  - lmf4lol 7mo ago
    Wait until you discover that Alex Karp is a (Neo-)Marxist… Philosophical insights and methods can be used for politics of any color. I do agree that its wrong to say that Habermas would be responsible(!) for any of that though. As if thinking up stuff would make you responsible for the misuse of those ideas down the road.
  - LocutusOfBorges 7mo ago
    It fits in with the contemporary mainstream on this site, unfortunately. Whenever politics comes up on HN, it invariably brings all the cranks out to play.
  - FabHK 7mo ago
    1. "Responsibility" was indeed too strong. Involved in the chain of causality, maybe. 2. I'm not blaming Trump's rightwing fascism on social theorists. I wondered whether a backlash against overbearing postmodernism enabled Trump's election victories. Sorry if you find that question vile and banal; I find it rather consequential and important to avoid further fascists.
    - panagathon 7mo ago
      It just comes off a bit victim-blamey, I think. If it's not intended, you should certainly be aware that it can.
    - parodysbird 7mo ago
      Trump is the most postmodern politician, and MAGA the most postmodern of political movements
  - atmosx 7mo ago
    In all honesty that’s not even the worst part. He signed that “never again” letter, completely buying into the exceptionalism of one group over all others… They kind of threw the baby out of the water and moved into Heidegger territory quickly. They seemed to put “who” over “what” very, very hastily. One would expect an enlightened mind to understand the difference and maybe phrase his concerns a bit more “inclusively”. But let’s be honest, it wasn’t a mistake. Anyway, we’ll take the good parts and move on. RIP.
- lmf4lol 7mo ago
  Yes very interesting topic and HIGHLY relevant. Here is a good essay from Moira Weigel that you might want to read: https://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/moira-weigel-palantir-goes-to-the-frankfurt-school/amp/ https://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/moira-weigel-palantir-goes... It is called „ Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School“ and analysis Karp‘s PhD thesis. Which, even though he didnt write it under Habermas supervision, was highly influenced by the Frankfurt school (Adorno et al). The author also provides some thoughts on your question. The connection between Critical Theory and Trumpism
- calf 7mo ago
  Very much so, I hold this view as someone who reads a bit of Critical Theory; Catherine Liu recently makes a case for this as well as disparate other public intellectuals from Chomsky to Zizek have also generally critiqued CT academics, postmodernists, etc. The basic argument is something like, Frankfurt School itself had a tension over their primary text (Dialectic of Enlightenment) by Adorno and one faction basically got totally divorced from Marxist ideas, and the result of that was bad theories and bad praxis and then even worse being coopted as a capitalist intelligentsia. See also Thomas Picketty's Brahmin Left. I'm oversimplifying but there is a continued strain of this criticism (albeit largely on deaf ears).
- bwestergard 7mo ago
  "Frankfurt School Critical Theory" went through several generations with different commitments and each of those generations was quite politically and theoretically diverse. The only true statements that hold for all writers at all times are largely uninteresting. What can be said with confidence is that Frankfurt School theorists were not "counter-enlightenment". Adorno and Horkheimer were explicitly trying to explain why the ideal of the enlightenment - greater rationality in social and political affairs and a fuller realization of individual moral autonomy - had not been achieved in their time. They saw themselves, rightly, as more faithful heirs to the tradition in their attempt to "rescue" it than those who insisted it did not require rescue. You may disagree - many within the tradition of critical theory have - but I don't think readings of their texts which see them as "counter-enlightement" can be sustained. "I wondered to which extent Habermas with the Frankfurter Schule and Critical Theory could be held partially responsible for postmodernism's march through the institutions, identity politics, and indirectly for Trump's two election victories." With all due respect, this sentence betrays a complete unfamiliarity with "postmodernism", "the long march through the institutions", and "identity politics". It wildly anachronistic to conflate these. It makes about as much sense as saying that Mitterand was an Avignon pope.
- tsss 7mo ago
  Maybe he was critical, but he was also a part of them.
- zozbot234 7mo ago
  The Frankfurter Schule was politically conservative, the "leftism" of present-day identity politics is a rehash of radical 1970s Maoism that simply coopts the Frankfurter Schule lexicon in agitating for a new "Great Cultural Revolution" throughout the West, consequences be damned. This is the "counter-enlightenment" part: the Maoist "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" saw Enlightenment values as reflecting "bourgeois privilege", and identity politics has wholly inherited this point of view. Frankfurter Schule members would have disagreed quite sharply with that position, their outlook was defined by a whole lot of nuance.
Tomte 7mo ago
SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/habermas/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/habermas... My favorite quote of Habermas ist about Luhmann’s[1] theory: "It‘s all wrong, but it‘s got quality". [1] the Zettelkasten person
- smooc 7mo ago
  I like Luhmann’s theory better. What i like about it is that Luhmann argues that the smallest denominator of a social system is a realation between two. Habermas says it can be brought down to an individual. Which in my mind defeats the “social” part.
  - goodmythical 7mo ago
    Havin not read the underlying theory, is the society of one constructed with the belief that one has relations to one's self? That is, I could see that the idea of a society of two could be derived from a society of one in that I could extend my desire to be kind to my past, present, and future selves, to a desire to be kind to selves that are not my own. Kind of like a computing network being a generalisation of the network that exists inside anyone one machine in that networking is just i/o with more steps and more wire?
  - biggestlou 7mo ago
    Where exactly in Habermas is such an idea expressed?
shevy-java 7mo ago
96 years old. He lived a "full life".
sombragris 7mo ago
RIP. He was a giant among philosophers.
the-grump 7mo ago
Rick Roderick on Habermas. The series "Self Under Siege" is one of my favorite things on YouTube. Highly recommend watching all 8 in order. https://youtu.be/aXkmmfaZhEg https://youtu.be/aXkmmfaZhEg
- prydt 7mo ago
  +1 These are incredible lectures and there's another series from Rick Roderick on the history of western philosophy that I also love: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxPmwaGMOAvsZp9vavFkyxYFZDDgKy807&si=J8WvJxny3INuBaBW https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxPmwaGMOAvsZp9vavFkyxYFZ...
- CamperBob2 7mo ago
  For the benefit of those like me who haven't heard of Roderick, some further digging leads to this: https://rickroderick.org/max-roderick/ https://rickroderick.org/max-roderick/ Major, major rabbit hole warning. You think you're about to read something about a philosophy professor, and what you get is an Alice Munro/Larry McMurtry mashup. His son seems to be a pretty amazing writer in his own right.
minebreaker 7mo ago
I have to say I'm quite disappointed by his attitude against Palestine. RIP, but not with the victims. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/22/israel-hamas-war-opens-up-german-debate-over-meaning-of-never-again https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/22/israel-hamas-w...
- nwellnhof 7mo ago
  The majority of Germans is completely biased towards Zionism because of their history, so it's more of a cultural than a personal thing.
  - submeta 7mo ago
    No we are not. 80% of us are against what Israel does in Palestine. But the Goverment and media will tell you otherwise. It's got nothing to do with our history. Konrad Adenauer--first chancellor--once said: "The power of the Jews even today, especially in America, should not be underestimated. And therefore I have very deliberately and very consciously — and that was always my opinion — put all my strength, the best I could, to bring about a reconciliation between the Jewish people and the German people." It was never about guilt, still is not. Germany has learned nothing from its past.
  - throw310822 7mo ago
    This is well known, but isn't this exactly what you ask of a great thinker, to be able to transcend the biases of the culture and provide clarity and guidance? (Though of course at that age is hard to expect much from anyone).
  - chmod775 7mo ago
    Berlin perspective: It really doesn't feel that way. Germany's official political stance is very much "pro-Israel" and somewhat intentionally deaf and blind towards what is happening in Palestine (though not completely). Public opinion and discourse is much more nuanced though.
- submeta 7mo ago
  Totally disappointing. But coming from Germany, no surprise. German intellectualls and media totally ignore the suffering in Palesine. And fully suppress any solidarity with Palestine. By defunding, by cancelling, by smear campaigns (look up how they--overnight--deligitimised Greta Thunberg), by basically not reporting about what's going on there. And if you are state employed, you can basically bet on it losing your job once you show soliarity with Palestine.
nkurz 7mo ago
"Jürgen Habermas is dead. The philosopher and sociologist died on Saturday in Starnberg at the age of 96." https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/kultur/philosoph-juergen-habermas-mit-96-jahren-gestorben-a-8be73ac7-e722-4543-8344-4515c4040363?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/kultur/philosoph-juerg...
doener 7mo ago
Obituary: https://archive.is/gQ3HB https://archive.is/gQ3HB
jhoho 7mo ago
He regularly wrote essays for "Süddeutsche Zeitung", commenting on the world's political situation. The last one I read was published in November 2025. Sharp as a knive, as always. I'll miss them. What an accomplished life.
throwaway260124 7mo ago
[flagged]
- biggestlou 7mo ago
  What an absolutely idiotic statement
  - throwaway260124 7mo ago
    On what respect? He didn’t have the moral clarity not to join a nazi organization when he was young. He was given a chance to redeem herself but he failed. In fact, he pushed for a doctrine that directly led to widespread harassment of anti-genocide activists and illegal travel bans and malicious prosecutions of them.
bwestergard 7mo ago
Habermas was truly a giant. Regardless of your political outlook, some engagement with his texts is time well spent. For an accessible on-ramp to his work, I recommend: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/#PublSphe https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/#PublSphe
Xunjin 7mo ago
In a time in which Democracies are being threatened by authoritarians governments, such a loss is a reminder Democracy is not guarantee, you have to fight for it, every single day.

153 points by sebastian_z 7mo ago

I love his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation_Crisis_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation_Crisis_(book) but feel this ponderous two-volume set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Communicative_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Communicative_Ac... is thoroughly refuted by our last two decades of experience with electronic communications.

jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
Perhaps the missing component is that not only is rationality communicable, but so is irrationally. The memetic material out there has had an incredible and tumultuous era of rapid evolution. Theres been such radical pressure to get better at consuming our attention, at trying to get ideas to spread. The means have perhaps outstripped the Humana ability to communicate & make sense of so much highly weaponized memetic systems.
biggestlou 7mo ago
Thoroughly refuted? Sorry, but no
myrak 7mo ago
[dead]

FabHK 7mo ago

[flagged]

gr__or 7mo ago
I find this to be vile political posting, moving responsibility for Trump's rightwing fascism to a social theorists is just misguided, banal and does not belong here. Don't you have X for that?
- lmf4lol 7mo ago
  Wait until you discover that Alex Karp is a (Neo-)Marxist… Philosophical insights and methods can be used for politics of any color. I do agree that its wrong to say that Habermas would be responsible(!) for any of that though. As if thinking up stuff would make you responsible for the misuse of those ideas down the road.
- LocutusOfBorges 7mo ago
  It fits in with the contemporary mainstream on this site, unfortunately. Whenever politics comes up on HN, it invariably brings all the cranks out to play.
- FabHK 7mo ago
  1. "Responsibility" was indeed too strong. Involved in the chain of causality, maybe. 2. I'm not blaming Trump's rightwing fascism on social theorists. I wondered whether a backlash against overbearing postmodernism enabled Trump's election victories. Sorry if you find that question vile and banal; I find it rather consequential and important to avoid further fascists.
  - panagathon 7mo ago
    It just comes off a bit victim-blamey, I think. If it's not intended, you should certainly be aware that it can.
  - parodysbird 7mo ago
    Trump is the most postmodern politician, and MAGA the most postmodern of political movements
- atmosx 7mo ago
  In all honesty that’s not even the worst part. He signed that “never again” letter, completely buying into the exceptionalism of one group over all others… They kind of threw the baby out of the water and moved into Heidegger territory quickly. They seemed to put “who” over “what” very, very hastily. One would expect an enlightened mind to understand the difference and maybe phrase his concerns a bit more “inclusively”. But let’s be honest, it wasn’t a mistake. Anyway, we’ll take the good parts and move on. RIP.
lmf4lol 7mo ago
Yes very interesting topic and HIGHLY relevant. Here is a good essay from Moira Weigel that you might want to read: https://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/moira-weigel-palantir-goes-to-the-frankfurt-school/amp/ https://www.boundary2.org/2020/07/moira-weigel-palantir-goes... It is called „ Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School“ and analysis Karp‘s PhD thesis. Which, even though he didnt write it under Habermas supervision, was highly influenced by the Frankfurt school (Adorno et al). The author also provides some thoughts on your question. The connection between Critical Theory and Trumpism
calf 7mo ago
Very much so, I hold this view as someone who reads a bit of Critical Theory; Catherine Liu recently makes a case for this as well as disparate other public intellectuals from Chomsky to Zizek have also generally critiqued CT academics, postmodernists, etc. The basic argument is something like, Frankfurt School itself had a tension over their primary text (Dialectic of Enlightenment) by Adorno and one faction basically got totally divorced from Marxist ideas, and the result of that was bad theories and bad praxis and then even worse being coopted as a capitalist intelligentsia. See also Thomas Picketty's Brahmin Left. I'm oversimplifying but there is a continued strain of this criticism (albeit largely on deaf ears).
bwestergard 7mo ago
"Frankfurt School Critical Theory" went through several generations with different commitments and each of those generations was quite politically and theoretically diverse. The only true statements that hold for all writers at all times are largely uninteresting. What can be said with confidence is that Frankfurt School theorists were not "counter-enlightenment". Adorno and Horkheimer were explicitly trying to explain why the ideal of the enlightenment - greater rationality in social and political affairs and a fuller realization of individual moral autonomy - had not been achieved in their time. They saw themselves, rightly, as more faithful heirs to the tradition in their attempt to "rescue" it than those who insisted it did not require rescue. You may disagree - many within the tradition of critical theory have - but I don't think readings of their texts which see them as "counter-enlightement" can be sustained. "I wondered to which extent Habermas with the Frankfurter Schule and Critical Theory could be held partially responsible for postmodernism's march through the institutions, identity politics, and indirectly for Trump's two election victories." With all due respect, this sentence betrays a complete unfamiliarity with "postmodernism", "the long march through the institutions", and "identity politics". It wildly anachronistic to conflate these. It makes about as much sense as saying that Mitterand was an Avignon pope.
tsss 7mo ago
Maybe he was critical, but he was also a part of them.
zozbot234 7mo ago
The Frankfurter Schule was politically conservative, the "leftism" of present-day identity politics is a rehash of radical 1970s Maoism that simply coopts the Frankfurter Schule lexicon in agitating for a new "Great Cultural Revolution" throughout the West, consequences be damned. This is the "counter-enlightenment" part: the Maoist "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" saw Enlightenment values as reflecting "bourgeois privilege", and identity politics has wholly inherited this point of view. Frankfurter Schule members would have disagreed quite sharply with that position, their outlook was defined by a whole lot of nuance.

Tomte 7mo ago

SEP: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/habermas/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/habermas... My favorite quote of Habermas ist about Luhmann’s[1] theory: "It‘s all wrong, but it‘s got quality". [1] the Zettelkasten person

smooc 7mo ago
I like Luhmann’s theory better. What i like about it is that Luhmann argues that the smallest denominator of a social system is a realation between two. Habermas says it can be brought down to an individual. Which in my mind defeats the “social” part.
- goodmythical 7mo ago
  Havin not read the underlying theory, is the society of one constructed with the belief that one has relations to one's self? That is, I could see that the idea of a society of two could be derived from a society of one in that I could extend my desire to be kind to my past, present, and future selves, to a desire to be kind to selves that are not my own. Kind of like a computing network being a generalisation of the network that exists inside anyone one machine in that networking is just i/o with more steps and more wire?
- biggestlou 7mo ago
  Where exactly in Habermas is such an idea expressed?

shevy-java 7mo ago

96 years old. He lived a "full life".

sombragris 7mo ago

RIP. He was a giant among philosophers.

the-grump 7mo ago

Rick Roderick on Habermas. The series "Self Under Siege" is one of my favorite things on YouTube. Highly recommend watching all 8 in order. https://youtu.be/aXkmmfaZhEg https://youtu.be/aXkmmfaZhEg

prydt 7mo ago
+1 These are incredible lectures and there's another series from Rick Roderick on the history of western philosophy that I also love: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxPmwaGMOAvsZp9vavFkyxYFZDDgKy807&si=J8WvJxny3INuBaBW https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxPmwaGMOAvsZp9vavFkyxYFZ...
CamperBob2 7mo ago
For the benefit of those like me who haven't heard of Roderick, some further digging leads to this: https://rickroderick.org/max-roderick/ https://rickroderick.org/max-roderick/ Major, major rabbit hole warning. You think you're about to read something about a philosophy professor, and what you get is an Alice Munro/Larry McMurtry mashup. His son seems to be a pretty amazing writer in his own right.

minebreaker 7mo ago

I have to say I'm quite disappointed by his attitude against Palestine. RIP, but not with the victims. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/22/israel-hamas-war-opens-up-german-debate-over-meaning-of-never-again https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/22/israel-hamas-w...

nwellnhof 7mo ago
The majority of Germans is completely biased towards Zionism because of their history, so it's more of a cultural than a personal thing.
- submeta 7mo ago
  No we are not. 80% of us are against what Israel does in Palestine. But the Goverment and media will tell you otherwise. It's got nothing to do with our history. Konrad Adenauer--first chancellor--once said: "The power of the Jews even today, especially in America, should not be underestimated. And therefore I have very deliberately and very consciously — and that was always my opinion — put all my strength, the best I could, to bring about a reconciliation between the Jewish people and the German people." It was never about guilt, still is not. Germany has learned nothing from its past.
- throw310822 7mo ago
  This is well known, but isn't this exactly what you ask of a great thinker, to be able to transcend the biases of the culture and provide clarity and guidance? (Though of course at that age is hard to expect much from anyone).
- chmod775 7mo ago
  Berlin perspective: It really doesn't feel that way. Germany's official political stance is very much "pro-Israel" and somewhat intentionally deaf and blind towards what is happening in Palestine (though not completely). Public opinion and discourse is much more nuanced though.
submeta 7mo ago
Totally disappointing. But coming from Germany, no surprise. German intellectualls and media totally ignore the suffering in Palesine. And fully suppress any solidarity with Palestine. By defunding, by cancelling, by smear campaigns (look up how they--overnight--deligitimised Greta Thunberg), by basically not reporting about what's going on there. And if you are state employed, you can basically bet on it losing your job once you show soliarity with Palestine.

nkurz 7mo ago

"Jürgen Habermas is dead. The philosopher and sociologist died on Saturday in Starnberg at the age of 96." https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/kultur/philosoph-juergen-habermas-mit-96-jahren-gestorben-a-8be73ac7-e722-4543-8344-4515c4040363?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/kultur/philosoph-juerg...

doener 7mo ago

Obituary: https://archive.is/gQ3HB https://archive.is/gQ3HB

jhoho 7mo ago

He regularly wrote essays for "Süddeutsche Zeitung", commenting on the world's political situation. The last one I read was published in November 2025. Sharp as a knive, as always. I'll miss them. What an accomplished life.

throwaway260124 7mo ago

[flagged]

biggestlou 7mo ago
What an absolutely idiotic statement
- throwaway260124 7mo ago
  On what respect? He didn’t have the moral clarity not to join a nazi organization when he was young. He was given a chance to redeem herself but he failed. In fact, he pushed for a doctrine that directly led to widespread harassment of anti-genocide activists and illegal travel bans and malicious prosecutions of them.

bwestergard 7mo ago

Habermas was truly a giant. Regardless of your political outlook, some engagement with his texts is time well spent. For an accessible on-ramp to his work, I recommend: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/#PublSphe https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/#PublSphe

Xunjin 7mo ago

In a time in which Democracies are being threatened by authoritarians governments, such a loss is a reminder Democracy is not guarantee, you have to fight for it, every single day.