Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a philosopher and sociologist. He studied German literature, philosophy, economics and psychology at the universities of Göttingen, Zürich and Bonn. He is considered a member of the Frankfurter Schule and was a Professor of Philosophy and Sociology in that city. Habermas studies social ethics and the relationship between individual and state, for instance in his Theory of Communicative Action (1981) and in Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1992). His debate with Joseph Ratzinger, the former pope Benedict XVI, on the importance of religious beliefs in our post-secular society was published as The Dialectics of Secularization (2005). In 2011, he published Zur Verfassung Europas. Ein Essay. In 2013, Habermas was awarded the Erasmus Prize.