What position did he play?
Posted on 03/14/2026 2:51:20 PM PDT by nickcarraway
He was regarded as one of Germany's most influential contemporary philosophers. Jürgen Habermas has now died in the Bavarian town of Starnberg, aged 95.
One of Germany's most influential postwar philosophers Jürgen Habermas died at the age of 96 on Saturday, according to his publishing house, Suhrkamp.
Habermas' work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the most important contemporary German philosophers and a leading figure at the Frankfurt School, besides Marxist thinkers like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.
The philosopher made an international name for himself for reworking the famous "Critical Theory" developed by Adorno and Horkheimer, a theory that analyses society, politics and culture and often calls into question existing power structures, ideologies and relations of domination.
Habermas was the last surviving representative of the Frankfurt School and spoke out on current political issues for as long as he could.
His best-known works included the two-volume "Theory of Communicative Action," published in 1981.
Habermas was born in Düsseldorf in 1929 and had been enrolled in the Hitler Youth at a young age, as did many German boys, but soon became deeply marked by the collapse of Nazism when he was 15 years old.
He later recalled that the Nazi atrocities were a formative moment that ultimately guided him toward philosophy and social theory, recalling that "you saw suddenly that it was a politically criminal system in which you had lived".
The philosopher had an ambivalent relationship with the German left-wing student movement in the 1960s. While he engaged with it, he rejected any radicalisation and the use of violence, as well as warned against the danger of what he called “left-wing fascism".
Later, however, he acknowledged that the movement had contributed to a "fundamental liberalisation" of German society.
Habermas was born with a cleft palate and had corrective surgery several times as a child. He later said the experience helped shape his thinking about language.
His wife, Ute Habermas-Wesselhoeft, died last year. The couple had three children: Tilmann; Rebekka, who died in 2023; and Judith.
Huge figure from the mid-20th century. One of Roger Scruton’s Fools and Frauds.
Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin and Carl Raspe improved (in his view) German society?!
Not in the real world!
Says all about Herr Habermas's philosopy.
I know at one time he was very anti-religion, but he changed about 35 years ago, and is particularly pro-Christian.
Didn’t someone make a movie of his early life…Jojo Rabbit?
We had a remote Nike Hercules battery about 5 miles from our motor pool. When they had a Nuclear Surety Inspection, we were called out to provide a support team of 40 soldiers, and two towed Vulcans.
It was serious, we issued live ammunition and loaded the Vulcans to the breech with 20mm rounds. In the four hours we had to make our mission time, I took at least two for infantry refresher training (we were ADA).
Fortunately, we never had any injuries or saw a round fired accidentally. There were always observers from the nearest town, I had no doubt a few Gang members were there, too.
And Scruton's disdain is plenty damning.
Oh my yes, and one of the worst. Others include Horkheimer, Marcuse, Lukacs, Adorno, and Fromm, not to mention a fellow who did jail time for selling sex boxes, Wilhelm Reich. The level of sheer intellectual kitsch is staggering.
Re “ philosophers”
Greek for “never held a real job”…
What was your ROE on that mission?
What position did he play?
Of what use are “philosophers”, anyway? They strike me as just another form of “academic”.
ACADEMIC (ak-uh-DEM-ik): An individual educated beyond his intelligence who, being unable or unwilling to create anything of value, pontificates while hiding out in a college, university or think-tank and expects to be paid for it, usually from public funds.
I remember reading one of his book. But I can’t remember the title or what he said.
My soldiers responded well, several minutes after we were in place, the exercise was concluded. The most important thing was to meet the mission time.
Thanks.
“What? Me Worry?”
Beckenbauer is nice.
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