Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia, Moscow, pogorels@mail.ru
The new realities of global and European politics seem to refute everything Jürgen Habermas lived and worked for: by following the course taken by the “collective West” in the Ukrainian crisis, his country could not only lose its unique culture of “state power” but could be dragged into a large-scale military conflict in Europe. To abandon this course would mean abandoning its “Western” identity, i.e. again, a disaster. However, Habermas contrasts the dilemma posed to Germany by the West with another, larger dilemma for the West itself. Supplying weapons to Ukraine would mean escalation; refusal to do so would mean defeat. The philosopher sees the way out in negotiations, in which the West has every right to participate, as by supplying weapons it has de facto turned itself into a party to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The ninety-three-year-old philosopher with an active life stance is still in the thick of fateful events for his country, he is shaping public debate and modernizing his concepts in the new realities of the public sphere.
Modern German philosophy; Jürgen Habermas; pacifism; FRG political culture; German foreign policy; EU; Ukraine; special military operation
Download textFor citing: Pogorelskaya S.V. (2023). The philosopher and the war. Jurgen Habermas: new works. Human being: Image and essence. Humanitarian aspects. Moscow: INION RAN. Vol. 4(56), pp. 44-58. DOI: 10.31249/chel/2023.04.03