Habermas and the Evolution of Critical Theory: The Impulses of Philosophical Hermeneutics

Abstract

Despite the comings and goings of Critical Theory in academia as a way of explaining reality, it continues to offer us relevant glimpses of the way in which we behave socially. Such behavior reflects a praxis that is continuously reproduced in our existence and guides our relationship with others. However, our actions are founded by certain norms, rules and precepts that obey a project not given by our own being in the world, that is, our existence is ideologized by society through a way of thinking and acting that does not correspond to common interests, but only to the direction of a few. This puts in crisis the ideas of justice, good and freedom. For this reason, Critical Theory is the effort to unveil what is happening in this process of ideologization of the subject and a search for its emancipation. To this end, Jürgen Habermas offers us a path that transforms Critical Theory itself into a social philosophy based on his contact with the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. In spite of this turn, the initial impulses of the Critical Theory are always preserved: the liberation of the human being through the power of thinking.