Comprised of classic and newly-commissioned papers from leadingtheorists, this volume provides a wide-ranging criticalintroduction to the thought of Jurgen Habermas.

Some contributions explore the relation between Habermas'sphilosophy and the thought of major predecessors, including Kant, Hegel, Marx and Heidegger. Others elucidate the political contextof Habermas's thinking, while a final section presents theresponses of leading German contemporaries to his work.

The result is a more rounded picture of Habermas's oeuvre andachievement than has previously been available. Habermas emerges asa thinker whose outstanding powers of renewal and innovation areinseparable from his engagement with the major traditions ofEuropean thought, and his own intellectual and political context.