Abstract
This article argues that the main elements that deliberative democrats take from Habermas can be found in classical pragmatism. It does so through the discussion of five contributions often credited to German critical theorist: (1) Habermas’ democratic theory is grounded on a broad conception of politics that challenges realist approaches; (2) Habermas offers a non-aggregative notion of democratic theory, centered on communicative exchanges; (3) Habermas connects discourse and reason opening a path for the simultaneous consideration for particular and universal; (4) Habermas advances a discourse ethics that allows theorists to deal with the fact of pluralism; (5) Habermas leads to a systemic approach that acknowledges the importance of de-centered publics. The article, then, claims that pragmatism can offer a radical discursive approach to democratic theory that helps overcome problems inherent to Habermas approach or that are attributed to him by crystallized problematic readings of his work.
Keywords:
deliberative democracy; pragmatism; Habermas; Dewey