Life and works -- Habermas' initial attempts at a critical theory of society -- The theory of communicative action: Habermas' model of a critical social science -- Habermas' Kantian pragmatism -- Locating discourse morality -- Democracy and the Rechtsstaat: Habermas' between facts and norms -- Deliberative democracy, public reason, and democracy beyond the nation-state -- A sobered philosophy: postmodernism, postmetaphysical thinking, and postsecularism.