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The passing of Jurgen Habermas/Kurti: His work will remain an important reference in the challenges of the future

2026-03-15 16:47:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The passing of Jurgen Habermas/Kurti: His work will remain an important

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti has reacted to the passing of world-renowned German philosopher and sociologist Jurgen Habermas.

In his post on social networks, Kurti writes that in addition to being a philosopher and sociologist, Habermas will also be remembered for his contribution as a polemicist in the social debates that marked the shaping of the ethical-political identity of Germany and post-Nazi Europe.

The prominent philosopher defended the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999, which, according to him, had all the necessary moral legitimacy.

The Prime Minister of Kosovo says that yesterday a Europeanist social democrat who zealously defended the idea of ??a united and democratic Europe under the ideals of human rights, freedom, equality and solidarity passed away.

Full reaction:

We regretfully learned yesterday of the passing of Jürgen Habermas, one of the most prominent contemporary thinkers. A multifaceted intellectual who never shied away from philosophical and political discussions, always practicing his unwavering belief in the only reasonable force, that of the best argument. His philosophical contributions touch on all traditional areas of philosophical research, from practical to theoretical philosophy, although he was always best known for his contributions to the traditional fields of the former, namely those of ethics and social and political philosophy. However, being a man of letters in the best tradition of the European Enlightenment, a single professional hat never quite fell on him. Sociology, political economy, and political science were disciplines where Habermas felt as much at home as in the philosophy department. Precisely for this reason, his neo-Kantianism differed quite a bit from that of his American brother, John Rawls. Habermas' Kant is a Kant who went to school with the social, historical and political thought of Hegel, Marx and Weber. In fact, it could not be otherwise for a student of Adorno and Horkheimer, the two famous founders of the Frankfurt School, who promoted a critical social theory based on interdisciplinary studies informed by both the tradition of philosophical research and that of social and political theory. In addition to being a philosopher and sociologist, he will also be remembered for his contribution as a polemicist in the social debates that marked the shaping of the ethical-political identity of post-Nazi Germany and Europe. He always developed these polemics in the spirit of deliberative democracy and understanding himself as one of the citizens and by no means as a privileged expert.

For the wider Albanian public, Habermas would become known precisely in the role of a polemicist and public intellectual who could not remain indifferent to the hot topics of the day. At the end of the last century, when we were going through the most critical days as a people existentially threatened by the Third Yugoslavia, namely Miloševi?'s Serbia, and when world opinion was divided in two regarding NATO's military intervention, Habermas managed to discern the essential difference of this intervention. Although unauthorized by the Security Council, according to Habermas, NATO's intervention in the Kosovo war had all the necessary moral legitimacy. Therefore, according to him, it should serve as a catalyst for a genuine reform of the UN and the entire system of international relations towards the creation of a world order where the implementation of the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide would become a genuine legal obligation of the international community. To prevent the tragedy of the Kosovars from being repeated, he argued, we would need to move towards what he called the "constitutionalization" of international law.

But yesterday we also lost a European social democrat who zealously defended the idea of ??a united and democratic Europe under the ideals of human rights, freedom, equality and solidarity. Now that this idea is under various threats, Habermas' voice will be missed by the entire European left. Nevertheless, I am convinced that his work will remain an important reference as we face the challenges of the future. / CNA