JH
Thinker
Jürgen Habermas
German philosopher of the Frankfurt School's second generation; theorist of the public sphere, communicative action and a discourse theory of law and democracy.
Source attached · not independently reviewedLast verified 2026-10-01 · revision 1 · 1 reviewersRevision historyЧитать на русском
Key ideas
TheoryTheory of communicative actionHabermas's theory that social coordination can rest on mutual understanding reached by exchanging and contesting reasons, free of coercion, rather than on strategic calculation or power alone.TheoryDeliberative legitimacyThe view that collective decisions are legitimate to the extent that free and equal citizens could accept them after public deliberation, rather than merely because preferences were aggregated.ConceptDeliberative democracyThe view that democratic legitimacy depends on informed public deliberation, often organised through randomly selected mini-publics.
Revision history
- 2026-10-23rev 1 — Seed import