Among the many things that remain of the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who died on 14 March 2026, are two things: firstly, that the crisis of capitalism – a word the social-democratic master philosopher hardly used – is the normal state of affairs; secondly, that Jürgen Habermas retained a strong belief in reason, particularly in moral reason – a Kantian notion rather than a Hegelian concept, even though Habermas liked to feature himself as a Hegelian.

Following Immanuel Kant rather than Hegel – and God forbid: Marx – Habermas saw modernity as an unfinished project that is defined by one crisis after the other. In his later years, he also thought that what he called the “new media”, and what in reality are corporate online platforms run by US monopolists – Facebook, Twitter (X), etc. – are not really “revolutionary”.

Meanwhile, Habermas kept a sharp look at himself until old age. He might be correct to compare these so-called “new media” to the printing press. Yet corporate online platforms strengthen the power of corporate media rather than weaken it, as he hoped in one of his more illuminating works: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) – leading to media capitalism.

Corporate online platforms might well be a structural transformation of the public sphere – giving bigots, racists, the far-right and outright neo-Nazis rafts of options – but they did not transform the public sphere for the better. If anything, they enhanced the corporatization of the public sphere into an instrument where profit maximisation meets algorithmically driven sensationalism.

Yet in many of Habermas’ writings there is always a crisis. As traditional worldviews are dissolving – not only on the Internet but elsewhere as well – the freedom of anonymous comments and hate speech on online platforms has, so far, not led to gains in freedom for people or to a movement towards more democracy. Democracy is a term two of Habermas’ philosophical heroes – Kant and Hegel – hardly mention. One wonders why.

For Jürgen Habermas, what the German philosopher Husserl called the lifeworld is always threatened by corporate power and politics. Worse, Habermas was not without a mild critique of capitalism. Yet he was no Adorno, no Horkheimer, and definitely no Marcuse.

Meanwhile, philosophical thinking about crises was by no means exclusive to him. Yet his analyses were based on the diagnosis that “modernity” – a central keyword in Habermas’ philosophical thinking – is itself structured in a crisis-like manner. He correctly diagnosed modernity to be an “unfinished project”.

There are a lot of good reasons that make his thinking special. For one, there is the persistently held conviction in the power of reason. It was not only that he reconstructed the social-philosophical conditions of discourse itself that got Habermas an entry on one of the world’s foremost websites on philosophy: plato.stanford.edu.

What aided this is, without a doubt, his unswerving view of the potential possibility of reasonable communication, however deeply it may be buried in social reality. This is the central idea of his seminal masterpiece The Theory of Communicative Action (1981).

For him, understanding is built into language itself. The fact that Habermas envisioned the ideal discourse to be something like a university seminar links his philosophy of rationality to communication. But one can see from his theory of a broken public sphere that tech billionaires can simply buy and manipulate newspapers and social media. Today, ultra-right strategists can “flood the zone with shit” – as they call it.

Under such conditions, the power to distort communication prevents the necessary free self-reflection within modern societies. Yet for Habermas this is the prerequisite for the emancipation of its members. Unlike – at least in part – Adorno, despair was never an option for Habermas.

In one of his last major texts – A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics (2023) – Habermas reflected on the new media and acknowledged their potential, writing that just as printing turned everyone into potential readers, digitization is turning everyone into potential authors today.

To achieve this, the structures of the public sphere must be freed from power imperatives and their participants must learn to argue. This is a rather radical program. Meanwhile, what impressed many was Habermas’ Knowledge and Human Interests (1968) and Theory and Practice (1988).

On the whole, Habermas’ philosophy was not a dry school philosophy but a way of thinking that combined serious philosophy with the big social and political issues. That is exactly what many are looking for. In this respect, Habermas’ real impact came when more of his texts were translated into English. Thomas McCarthy’s The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas was very important, providing a general overview of Habermas’ philosophy.

When teaching philosophy, Habermas was able to moderate discussions very carefully by bringing people together, listening carefully, and working out differences precisely. Yet he was not a classical Frankfurt teacher and not even a classical philosophy professor who simply stands at the front and lectures.

At the same time, however, Habermas strongly expected you to know the traditions of Critical Theory: Kant, Hegel, Weber, Lukács, Horkheimer and Adorno. Overall, Habermas was less interested in a sociological perspective than in the broader philosophical perspective.

Yet Habermas wanted to separate rationality, rhetoric and emotionality – sometimes too neatly, perhaps a sign of Kantian thinking in neat boxes. As for Habermas’ communicative action, a conversation can be formally correct and yet still be unreasonable because certain perspectives remain excluded. Habermas warned us about this.

Habermas’ formula of the “better argument” has never convinced everyone. In politics and even in law, it is often not about everyone sharing the same reason. Yet there can still be a reasonable compromise. Habermas himself saw that the public sphere is broken. That is a depressing statement – especially for Habermas. Perhaps not so much for Adorno, who saw this early on.

For Adorno as for Habermas, there is no democracy without the public and without an open public debate. On this, Habermas was right. For him, the responsibility as a public intellectual was philosophically justified. Habermas had a very special talent for quickly and accurately formulating things and publicly intervening at the most crucial moment.

For Habermas it remains abhorrent to realize that we live in a time of political nihilism. Seemingly, a whole epoch – the epoch of democracy – might be moving towards its end. What is coming is extremely scary in many respects. This alone makes reading Habermas all the more important. Habermas still has the power to give younger people the courage to rethink the basic principles of our coexistence.

As envisioned by the great Kantian – Jürgen Habermas – the world will not get better if the United Nations disintegrates, if the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is undermined, if the multilateral global order breaks up and if international law no longer applies, as envisioned by Donald Trump and many others.

There will be no better world emerging from such a deeply reactionary plan. That is precisely why we have to argue emphatically for the principles outlined by Habermas. Philosophy must never simply follow the spirit of the times – it needs to reach beyond the Zeitgeist. Instead, philosophy must remain critical and insist on standards even if – or better, particularly when – reality contradicts these philosophical standards.

Many students of philosophy today might be depressed by the rise of the far-right, Trumpism, wars, etc. But Nietzsche was wrong: nihilism comes neither from within nor from philosophy. Instead, nihilism and resentment come from the elites, from reactionary political leaders and from a culture that has been manipulated by propaganda.

Yet young people still want to get involved. That is exactly what Habermas has left behind: a guide for the rebellious mind. Today, it is our moral responsibility to carry this philosophical-emancipatory legacy forward.Email