Jürgen Habermas, one of Germany’s most influential modern philosophers and a towering figure in European intellectual life, has died at the age of 96.
Habermas died on Saturday in the Bavarian town of Starnberg, his publisher Suhrkamp Verlag told dpa, citing his family.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the country had lost “a great Enlightenment thinker.”
In a letter of condolence to Habermas’ children, Steinmeier wrote that the philosopher “taught us the ethos of democratic discourse and established the emancipation of humanity as an indispensable goal.”
Steinmeier added that Habermas made a decisive contribution to the intellectual opening of West Germany after World War II, helping lay the foundations for a consolidated democracy.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his “analytical acuity shaped democratic discourse far beyond the borders of our country and acted like a beacon in a raging sea.”
Habermas was born in Dusseldorf on June 18, 1929. He studied philosophy, psychology, German literature and economics in Göttingen, Zurich and Bonn.
His major works were developed in Frankfurt, where his career began in the 1950s at the Institute for Social Research under philosopher Theodor W. Adorno.
His political theories helped shape Germany’s post-War intellectual climate beginning with the publication of “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” in 1962.
“The Theory of Communicative Action,” published in 1981, is also considered a seminal work of philosophy.
Habermas’ studies frequently examined the concept of the public sphere and explored the forms of discourse best suited to organizing democratic societies.
In 1964, he took over the chair in philosophy and sociology at Frankfurt University from Max Horkheimer, another leading philosopher and sociologist associated with the Frankfurt School.
His inaugural lecture was turned into a book called “Knowledge and Human Interests” and published in 1968.
Habermas was a supporter of the mass student protests that rocked West Germany that year, but then rejected what he saw as the radicalization of the movement.
Habermas moved to the upscale town of Starnberg near Munich in 1971 where he worked for the Max Planck Institute for the Study of the Scientific and Technical World until 1981, the same year he published his magnum opus, “The Theory of Communicative Action.”
He returned to Frankfurt in 1983 where he remained chair of philosophy until the end of his university career in 1994.
Spending his retirement at Lake Starnberg, he continued to comment on political affairs, sparking controversy when he backed the NATO intervention in the Kosovo war.
Habermas was married to historian and teacher Ute Wesselhoeft, who died last year. He leaves behind three children.