FREEDOM AND RELIGION: A REFLECTION BASED ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF JÜRGEN HABERMAS

Abstract

The aim of this article is, by recalling the hundred year of the Frankfurt School and taking Jürgen Habermas as an interlocutor, to discuss two important themes for our context: the issues of freedom and religion. Firstly, it is a matt er of verifying what it means to say to be free in a proper sense. We will see that for Habermas, only the autonomy of the will makes it possible to assert freedom in a proper sense. Then, considering the role of religion in public sphere, it is a matter of asking to what extent it can contribute, or not, to the formation of the autonomous will of citizens in the Democratic Rule of Law. This means questioning to what extent religion would be able to contribute to the process of integration of current societies characterized by pluralism and the coexistence of believers, non-believers and believers of different religious denominations who have the same right to recognition and participation in public space.

Keywords: Autonomy. Pluralism. Claim to Truth. Social Integration.