Some contributions explore the relation between Habermas's philosophy and the thought of major predecessors, including Kant, Hegel, Marx and Heidegger. Others elucidate the political context of Habermas's thinking, while a final section presents the responses of leading German contemporaries to his work.

The result is a more rounded picture of Habermas's oeuvre and achievement than has previously been available. Habermas emerges as a thinker whose outstanding powers of renewal and innovation are inseparable from his engagement with the major traditions of European thought, and his own intellectual and political context.