Political Philosophy as Public Philosophy

A Habermasian Approach to the Role of the Political Philosopher

Abstract

This paper reconceives political philosophy as public philosophy under post-metaphysical conditions, where rationality is understood in intersubjective, linguistic and procedural terms. Rather than drafting blueprints, the political philosopher acts as guardian and interpreter of communicative rationality. I reconstruct the double route of legitimacy—the institutional embedding of deliberative procedures and a communicatively structured civil society—and only briefly contrast this stance with architectonic models. I then probe the tension between “Habermas the philosopher” and “Habermas the citizen” across salient cases (Kosovo, Eurozone/Greek crisis, Gaza), arguing for a Habermasian reading against Habermas where public stances fall short of his own standards of inclusion, symmetry, and the primacy of the better argument. The conclusion specifies guardianship criteria for public philosophers in plural democracies.