Habermas and the roles of a post-metaphysical and democratic philosophy

Abstract

In view of the recent publication of the last systematic work of the German philosopher J. Habermas entitled Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie (and its forthcoming translation into Spanish), the text aims to show the fundamental characteristics of Habermas’ understanding of philosophical activity itself. For this purpose, first of all, it describes the theoretical basis on which Habermas constructs the sense of his philosophical reflections, that is, the post-metaphysical character from which Habermas develops his philosophical thought. Subsequently, it presents the three roles that Habermas assigns to philosophical activity and concludes by showing the connections between Habermas’ post-metaphysical philosophy and democracy; connections that enable us to characterize Habermasian post-metaphysical philosophy as a democratic philosophy, and, on this basis, to develop a better understanding of the alleged “religious turn” in Habermas’ philosophy.