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Cardozo Law Review

Abstract

As a leading citizen of the Age of Reason, Pierre Simon Laplace liked to remark that there never could have been two Isaac Newtons for there was but a single world to be discovered. Laplace's aphorism neatly captured a fundamental assumption that has underlain the classical unity of science and reason under modernity. Today, in the wake of challenges posed by intellectual developments such as unstable systems and chaotic structures, the classical presupposition of a stable, objective, and physical world that serves as the horizon of scientific knowledge has begun to teeter. New cracks in the grand edifice of modem reason appear almost daily, and arrive in addition to earlier demonstrations of the radical finitude that is undermining of all human knowledge. As we assess the theoretical framework put forward by Jurgen Habermas, we must ask whether he has failed to meet the challenge these recent advances pose, by remaining so devoutly committed to his "unitary" vision of the three "worlds"-the objective world, the social world, and the subjective world-which human beings presuppose as the constitutive horizon of our language.

Keywords

Democracy, Political Systems and Governments, Jurisprudence, Philosophy, Rule of Law, Law and Society

Disciplines

Jurisprudence | Law | Law and Society | Philosophy

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