ABSTRACT
Three of the most important political thinkers of the twentieth century, Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt and John Dewey, were deeply concerned about the character and fate of political public life in the contemporary world. The public—especially the political significance of the public sphere or public space—stands at the very centre of their thinking. Each feared the real possibility of what Dewey called the ‘eclipse of the public’. Despite their striking differences, when we weave their insights together, the result is a more textured understanding of both the real possibilities of, and threats to, political public life.
