ABSTRACT
The social figure of the intellectual is without doubt one of the most significant cultural innovations of the nineteenth century. Ever since the Dreyfus Affair in the France of the Third Republic, when Emile Zola created a sensation with the publication of his open letter J'accuse in the widely read newspaper L'Aurore, people have classified certain thinkers as intellectuals on the basis of the nature of their public interventions in writing and speech. The comparison between Adorno and Habermas shows sufficiently clearly that the older representative of Critical Social Theory embodies an anti-consensual style, makes use of hyperbole and looks to the productive force of negation for salvation. In contrast, the protagonist of the linguistic turn in Critical Theory puts his trust in the illuminating force of non-coercive argument, in the productive force of communication.
