ABSTRACT
Discourse theory attempts to reconstruct this normative self-understanding in a way that resists both scientistic reductions and aesthetic assimilations. The three dimensions of cognitive, evaluative, and normative validity that have Been differentiated within the self-under standing of modernity must not be collapsed. Communicatively acting individuals are thus subject to the 'must' of a weak transcendental necessity, but this does not mean they already encounter the prescriptive 'must' of a rule of action–whether the latter 'must' can be traced back deontologically to the normative validity of a moral law, axiologically to a constellation of preferred values, or empirically to the effectiveness of a technical rule. In spite of the distance from traditional concepts of practical reason, it is by no means trivial that a contemporary theory of law and democracy still seeks to link up with classical concept formations at all.
