Universalism in Habermas (A reading in the light of the Kantian Horizon)

Abstract

The concept of universalism is among the important notions that have occupied human thought since its Greek age, embodied in the attempts of Plato and Cicero and accompanying the course of modern philosophy beginning with Kant, for whom universalism represented an expression of individual moral reason grounded in duty and goodwill. Although it took the form of salvation in an age crowded with materialities, it nevertheless remained imprisoned within its formal world, as the course of modernity revealed a profound paradox between, on the one hand, universal aspiration and, on the other hand, a stricken, noncommunicative reality. On the basis of this critique, Habermasian pragmatics emerged as a dialectical overcoming that does not abolish the Kantian striving to find a universal ethics, provided that it is founded on argumentation and communication rather than individual isolation. Hence, Habermasian universalism is a critical extension of Kantianism, leading it from narrowness to participation and from abstraction to concrete realisation. Accordingly, it is impossible to understand Habermas's communicative project outside its Kantian context, which constitutes its philosophical foundation.