Only those rules and communicative presuppositions that enable universalization in the sense of reciprocal consideration of all parties' interests can claim consent.

Nur die Regeln und kommunikativen Voraussetzungen, die eine Verallgemeinerung im Sinne der beidseitigen Beachtung der Interessen aller ermöglichen, können auf Zustimmung rechnen.

Jürgen Habermas

Philosophers

Jürgen Habermas

Born in 1929 in Germany, Juergen Habermas is a philosopher and social theorist representing the second generation of the Frankfurt School. In The Theory of Communicative Action he proposed a dialogical rationality as an alternative to instrumental reason, and in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere he traced the rise and decline of the bourgeois public sphere. He laid the theoretical foundations of discourse ethics and deliberative democracy, defending the Enlightenment as an 'unfinished project.'

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