German philosopher Jürgen Habermas dies at 96
Jürgen Habermas, one of Germany’s most influential modern philosophers and a leading figure in European intellectual life, has died at the age of 96.
Habermas died on Saturday in the Bavarian town of Starnberg, his publisher Suhrkamp Verlag told dpa, citing his family.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his country had lost “a great Enlightenment thinker”.
In a letter of condolence to Habermas’s children, Steinmeier wrote that the philosopher “taught us the ethos of democratic discourse and made the emancipation of humanity an indispensable goal.”
Steinmeier added that Habermas made a decisive contribution to the intellectual opening of West Germany after World War II, helping to lay the foundations for a consolidated democracy.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that “his analytical acuity shaped democratic discourse far beyond our country’s borders and acted as a beacon in a stormy sea.”
Habermas was born in Düsseldorf on June 18, 1929. He studied philosophy, psychology, German literature and economics in Göttingen, Zurich and Bonn.
His major works were developed in Frankfurt, where his career began in the 1950s at the Institute for Social Research under the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno.
His political theories helped shape the postwar German intellectual climate, beginning with the publication of “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” in 1962.
“The Theory of Communicative Action,” published in 1981, is also considered a fundamental philosophical work.
Habermas’s studies frequently examine the concept of the public sphere and explore the forms of discourse best suited to organizing democratic societies.
In 1964, he succeeded Max Horkheimer, another leading philosopher and sociologist associated with the Frankfurt School, as chair of philosophy and sociology at the University of Frankfurt.
His inaugural lecture was turned into a book entitled “Knowledge and Human Interests” and published in 1968.
Habermas was a supporter of the massive student protests that shook West Germany that year, but later rejected what he saw as a radicalization of the movement.
Habermas moved to the posh town of Starnberg, near Munich, in 1971, where he worked for the Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Scientific and Technical World until 1981, the same year he published his major work, “The Theory of Communicative Action.”
He returned to Frankfurt in 1983 where he remained chair of philosophy until the end of his academic career in 1994.
Spending his retirement at Lake Starnberg, he continued to comment on political affairs, causing controversy when he supported NATO intervention in the Kosovo War.
Habermas was married to the historian and teacher Ute Wesselhoeft, who died last year. He leaves behind three children.
