ABSTRACT
In the contemporary Western debate about culture and politics, Jürgen Habermas occupies a relatively clear place: he is viewed as defender of reason or rationality against the forces of obscurantism, emotivism, and counter-enlightenment. This chapter examines Habermas's notion of rationality – especially communicative rationality – as it is portrayed in his magnum opus, The Theory of Communicative Action. It turns to an essay written almost contemporaneously and which clarifies some of the points made in his magnum opus: the essay "Philosophy as Stand-In and Interpreter". Habermas's notion of rationality, it is true, is not restricted to references to the objective world but extends – through a kind of analogical transference – to other modes of knowledge or other forms of rational "validity claims". Habermas's portrayal of rationality is clearly impressive in its coverage and intellectual verve; communicative rationality, in particular, appears as a sprawling edifice encompassing a great variety of cognitive and linguistic acts.
