ABSTRACT
Jurgen Habermas has been the most prolific and influential representative of the second generation of the Frankfurt School. Habermas began his university studies in Gottingen in 1949 and finished a dissertation of Das Absolute und die Gesckickte in 1954. Habermas resolved to work with T. Adorno and Max Horkheimer because he believed that they were establishing a dialectical and critical theory of society from within a creative and innovative Marxist tradition. Habermas also contributes his own analysis of the importance of communicative action and rationality for contemporary social theory. Postmetaplrysical Thinking contains articles that articulate Habermas's attempts to reformulate modern theory in terms of a theory of communicative action that overcomes the metaphysical presuppositions of the philosophical tradition. In addition, Habermas has published collections of essays commenting on contemporary political, cultural and historical events such as The New Conservativism and he edited a collection of Observations on 'the spiritual situation o/ our time'.
