Abstract

How a thinker comes to adopt or change a view may be regarded as either a strictly theoretical or biographical issue. First, looking backward at my completed philosophical-political profile of Habermas, I elucidate how biographical methodology can yield a coherent yet dynamically evolving profile rather than a static portrait. Second, examining Habermas’ thinking after 2000, the year my published biography of him ends, I venture a biographical-philosophical hypothesis that in what appears to be Habermas’ turn after 11 September 2001, or in his decisive self-choice, he is faithful to the basic motives and core intuitions that brought him to critical theory. Key Words: biography • cosmopolitanism • critical theory • existentialism • Jürgen Habermas • Søren Kierkegaard • 9/11 • religion • terror • UN.