The philosopher, who has died aged 96, was often caricatured as a consensus-seeking liberal. But his belief in the need for shared understanding had a radical underpinningDespite its canonical name, the Frankfurt School is not a school. It is, at least according to my former teacher, the critical theorist Rahel Jaeggi, a constellation. For a century, this scholarly constellation has pursued the intellectual endeavour of critique. Critique here is not the “thumbs down” or “blocking” exercised on social media. It is the wild aspiration to describe reality in a way that transforms it.Jürgen Habermas, who died on 14 March 2026 at the age of 96, was a fixed star in this constellation. He set the compass for several generations of mostly German and North American thinkers. Habermas was incredibly prolific, with more than 40 books to his name, and very charismatic. There was an intensity, a concentration to Habermas’s thought and dialogue that his writings convey only poorly. The thundering p...