Few thinkers earn the highest respect both as master theorists and public intellectuals. But Jürgen Habermas was one of them. The renowned philosopher has died aged 96.
Habermas remained extraordinarily productive even at an advanced age. In 2019, he published a work spanning 1,750 pages – modestly titled Also a History of Philosophy – in which he explored the tension between faith and knowledge. Experts described it as “an impressive late-career work”, “hardly surpassed in systematic rigour”, though equally “a challenge for any reader”. That same year, the magazine Cicero ranked Habermas as the second most important intellectual in the German-speaking world, after Peter Sloterdijk.
“Lively, alert, mentally razor-sharp”
“He is always busy with some kind of work,” noted the author Roman Yos, who published a collection of conversations with Habermas on the occasion of his 95th birthday, together with sociologist Stefan Müller-Doohm. Yos described him to dpa as “lively, alert, mentally razor-sharp.”Habermas’ career began in the 1960s. He produced his most important works in Frankfurt am Main, where he had been a research assistant at the Institute of Social Research under Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. He completed his doctorate in 1954 in Bonn with a thesis on the philosopher Schelling (1775–1854), and his habilitation thesis in 1961 in Marburg with The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, a work still considered groundbreaking and highly relevant today. In it, Habermas analysed the foundations or principles of socially critical thought and action grounded in democratic traditions.
In 1964, he succeeded Horkheimer as professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Frankfurt, a position he held until 1971 – during the era of the student protests. In the 1970s, he worked at two Max Planck Institutes in Bavaria before returning to Frankfurt in 1983. In later life, he lived near Lake Starnberg. Habermas married in 1955 and had three children.
A Guide for Modern Society
In his magnum opus The Theory of Communicative Action (1981), Habermas developed what might be called a guide for action in modern society. According to his theory, the normative foundations of a society are rooted in language – that language, as a means of communication, makes social action possible in the first place. In Knowledge and Human Interests (1968), he argued that there is no such thing as “objective” knowledge: in science, politics and society alike, knowledge is always shaped by the interests that surround it.Born in Düsseldorf on 18 June 1929, Habermas experienced World War II as a young man. According to his biographer Stefan Müller-Doohm, living under a criminal regime sparked a deep political awareness and laid the foundation for his lifelong commitment to democracy. What gave Habermas his “high news value”, Müller-Doohm explained, was that “this man repeatedly left the protected space of the university to step into the role of a pugnacious debater, in doing so, influencing the intellectual climate of this country”.
He embodied the role of the political intellectual almost to an unusual degree, said Yos: “Whenever the state of national sentiment or the present and future of Europe looked bleak, one could count on him to speak out publicly.”
“He cannot help but think politically”
The student movement, reunification, NATO missions, terrorism, stem cell research, the banking crisis, Europe – on such issues, no single phrase could do justice to the complexity of his positions. In recent years, he turned his attention to COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East. “He cannot help but think politically,” stressed Yos.Central to his work, according to those who knew it best, was always a positive view of humanity and a belief in the power of reason – in the strength of the better argument. By his 80th birthday, Habermas had already decided to donate his archive to the University of Frankfurt. His records have been available to researchers since his 85th birthday.
“The Frankfurt years were the most satisfying period of my academic life,” he said in a lecture at his old university, delivered one day after his 90th birthday. Habermas was received like a pop star. Three thousand listeners hung on his every word, and the lecture was broadcast from the main auditorium to five additional halls. When a false fire alarm interrupted proceedings and the building had to be evacuated, the 90-year-old was not in the least perturbed. He thanked the audience “for increasing the complexity” – and continued unfazed.
March 2026