SOURCE: "Standing Up to Paris and Bitburg," in The New York Times Book Review, November 9, 1986, p. 26.

In the following review, Jay suggests that Autonomy and Solidarity "provides a marvelous point of entry" into Habermas's thought.

One of the major ironies of contemporary thought is surely the fact that a champion of enlightened rationality is now more likely to speak German than French. No one represents this reversal of roles more clearly than the Frankfurt philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas. Vigorously defending what he calls the "uncompleted project of modernity" as an emancipatory learning process, he has come squarely into conflict with French poststructuralists such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard.

Mr. Habermas's targets, to be sure, have also been domestic, as evidenced by his courageous intervention in the German debate following President Reagan's visit to Bitburg cemetery over the "normalization" of the Nazi past by certain...