The Legacy of Jürgen Habermas

The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas died on Saturday March 14th, 2026, aged 96. With his passing the public lose a philosopher, social theorist and public intellectual who has arguably done more than any other to explain, protect and promote the ideals and actuality of universal morality, liberal democracy, and democratically legitimate law. He was honored…

Jürgen Habermas, one of the most influential philosophers of the last half-century, died last March at the age of 96.  Despite his many important contributions to philosophy and social theory, he will perhaps most be remembered as a theorist of the public sphere.   This was the topic of his first book, The Structural Transformation of…

“it is evident that melancholia too may be the reaction to the loss of a loved object. […] one can recognize that there is a loss of a more ideal kind. The object has not perhaps actually died, but has been lost as an object of love.” – Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholy” Early Frankfurt…