The Theory of Communicative Action

The Theory of Communicative Action

Cover of the German edition
Author	Jürgen Habermas
Original title	Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns
Translator	Thomas McCarthy
Country	Germany
Language	German
Subject	Communicative action
Published	1981
Media type	Print
Pages	465 (English edition, vol. 1) 457 (English edition, vol. 2)
ISBN	0-8070-1507-5 (English edition, vol. 1) 0-8070-1401-x (English edition, vol. 2)

Part of a series on the
Frankfurt School
Major works Dialectic of Enlightenment Eclipse of Reason Eros and Civilization Escape from Freedom Minima Moralia Negative Dialectics One-Dimensional Man Reason and Revolution The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere The Theory of Communicative Action "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Notable theorists Adorno Apel Benjamin Fromm Forst Grünberg Geuss Habermas Honneth Horkheimer Jaeggi Kluge Kracauer Kirchheimer Kompridis Kuhlmann Löwenthal Marcuse McCarthy Negt Neumann Offe Pollock Schmidt Sohn-Rethel Wellmer Wingert
Important concepts Advanced capitalism Antipositivism Communicative rationality Critical theory Culture industry Dialectic Legitimation crisis Non-identity Popular culture Praxis Privatism Psychoanalysis
Related topics Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory Freudo-Marxism Marxist humanism Recognition Reification Social alienation Western Marxism
Philosophy portal  Society portal
v t e

The Theory of Communicative Action (German: Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns) is a two-volume 1981 book by the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, in which the author continues his project of finding a way to ground "the social sciences in a theory of language",^[1] which had been set out in On the Logic of the Social Sciences (1967).^[1][2] The two volumes are Reason and the Rationalization of Society (Handlungsrationalität und gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung),^[3] in which Habermas establishes a concept of communicative rationality,^[4] and Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason (Zur Kritik der funktionalistischen Vernunft),^[5] in which Habermas creates the two level concept of society and lays out the critical theory for modernity.^[4]

After writing The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas expanded upon the theory of communicative action by using it as the basis of his theory of morality, democracy, and law.^[6] The work has inspired many responses by social theorists and philosophers, and in 1998 was listed by the International Sociological Association as the eighth most important sociological book of the 20th century.^[7]