De identidades ciudadanas y postnacionales. Jürgen Habermas y la racionalidad identitaria

Abstract

Identity is one of the central questions of Jürgen Habermas’s political and theoretical reflection. His interest in it focuses, first, on the configuration of a «we» and, second, to a much lesser extent, on the individuality of each subject, which, in any case, is understood under the light of the interactions that shape it. The focus on identity allows to approach Habermas’s thought from his concern, on the one hand, for the construction of a European identity and, on the other, for the difficulties to foster a post-national identity. The attempt to formulate a European citizenship is based on a particular conception of constitutional patriotism. His orientation towards a moral universalism finds its most suited normative expression in international law, from which he measures the possibilities of communicative rationality for the materialisation of identities that are always in process of formation and open to change.