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There are thinkers whose presence stays like a long conversation across generations. Even when public life grows distressing and impatient, their work remains a place to return to for clarity, argument, and self-reflection. Jürgen Habermas (1929-2026) remained part of that rare category of intellectuals. For decades, his writings influenced debates on reason, rationality, democracy, public sphere, law, communication, and the moral responsibilities of modern societies. With his demise, an important era in twentieth-and twenty-first-century critical thought has come to an end, and his works will continue to provoke, inspire, and divide readers across the world.

Habermas was born and grew up during one of the darkest periods in German and European history. His early life saw the rise and collapse of Nazism. Like many young Germans of his generation, he briefly passed through institutions moulded by that regime. But the moral and political ruin revealed in 1945 influenced him. It pushed him toward philosophy, public reasoning, and critical inquiry.

In postwar Germany, he joined the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt and became one of the most important second-generation thinkers of the Frankfurt School. Under the influence of Theodor W. Adorno and others, he inherited the tradition of critical theory, but he also changed it in his own way. He was often described as a neo-Marxist, but his intellectual path was broader than doctrinal Marxism. He tried to renew Enlightenment reason rather than abandon it.

To understand Habermas, one must also understand the Frankfurt School. Founded in 1923 as the Institute for Social Research, it brought together influential thinkers such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamin. Their aim was not simply to repeat orthodox Marxism, but to rethink social theory in the context of modern capitalism, fascism, authoritarianism, and cultural domination.

They developed what came to be known as critical theory – an interdisciplinary approach drawing on Marx, Hegel, Freud, sociology, and philosophy to analyse ideology, power, and the role of mass culture in shaping modern society.

The rise of Nazism forced many of these scholars into exile, with the Institute relocating first to Geneva and later to New York before returning to Germany after the war. These experiences strengthened their critique of authoritarianism and blind faith in progress.

Habermas entered this intellectual tradition after the war but moved in a different direction. While earlier thinkers often emphasised the........

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