Habermas: from the analisys of the Offentlichkeit to the project of a "theory of communicative action".

This article intends to be an exposition of Habermas' Philosophy of Enlightenment. In this sense, we will present specially his earlier thought in order to establish his grounds, which implicates to start with the influences upon him (I. Kant, J.L. Austin, the "second" Wittgenstein, M. Weber, E. Husserl, K.O. Apel and so forth) as well as with his critic towards the first members of the Frankfurt School (specially against the pessimism of T. Adorno and M. Horkheimer on the power of reason to set us free). Finally, we will show how Habermas is an extension of the project of the Philosophy of Enlightenment, which makes him an example of Modern thought in the contemporary history of Philosophy.