Review essay: Existentialism and formal pragmatics: Martin J. Matuštík, Postnational Identity: Critical Theory and Existential Philosophy in Habermas, Kierkegaard, and Havel.(New York: Guilford, 1993

摘要: Nationalism has engendered difficulties for critical theory since Marx, but the European nationalist movements unleashed with the end of Soviet hegemony in the eastern bloc-movements that rapidly converted democratic self-liberation into group hatred-pose a particular problem for the more recent critical social theory that has aligned itself with democratic political theory. Martin Matustik’s new book on’postnational identity’offers a timely reflection on this problem. Specifically, he searches out the weaknesses in critical theory-and in Jurgen Habermas’s critical theory in particular-that lead it to overlook potentials for intolerance within democratic movements. In more positive terms, he attempts to provide an existentialist corrective to Habermas by drawing on the work of Soren Kierkegaard and Vaclav Havel.In fact, Matustik can take his point of departure from Habermas himself. For Habermas recognizes the relevance …