ABSTRACT
Jurgen Habermas was born in Dusseldorf. After studies at Gottigen and Bonn, he taught at Heidelberg, then Frankfurt. He is heir to the titular leadership of the German school of critical theory which is evident in his many writings that engage the continuing question of how the modern world, having survived the terrors of the mid-twentieth century, can recover both a deep critical attitude and the better side of the dialectic of Enlightenment. Anthony Giddens taught for many years at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was professor of sociology in the Faculty of Economics and Politics. Giddens argues that modernity opens new and different opportunities for human fulfillment. Moderns may be displaced from local communities, but they are reembedded in world culture in ways that can be liberating. As ordinarily understood, conceptions of post-modernity—which mostly have their origin in post-structuralist thought—involve a number of distinct strands.
