ABSTRACT
Habermas (1981[1980]) and Benhabib (1995: 25) counter postmodernist criticisms against the Enlightenment and modernity, arguing that modernity is still an incomplete project. They maintain that the emancipatory undertaking of modernity should not be given up hastily, and that the Enlightenment cannot be condemned and rejected as a whole by the simple and undifferentiated contention that modernity has contributed substantially to the development of the very different forms of social discrimination, racism being just the tip of the iceberg. Moreover, the fair, humanist and cosmopolitan potential of the Enlightenment – including its self-reflective, self-critical and self-corrective capacity – has to be recognised, and its legacy has to be critically renegotiated.
