Reason, Power, and the Enlightenment Project

The creation of a social and political order that would be based on reason and have no place for exclusion and domination was arguably the most important preoccupation of many thinkers of the Enlightenment. This project, which has been appropriately named the Enlightenment project, has been and remains one of the most important goals faced by the humanity. It has acquired particular urgency at this time when democracy is on decline and when renewed turmoil and violence pose a serious threat to the survival of our civilization.The realization of the Enlightenment project is the main focus of this work. It examines the perspective on the elimination of domination advanced by Jürgen Habermas, one of the most influential living proponents of the Enlightenment project. I argue that despite Habermas’s intentions, his perspective does not do away with exclusion and, therefore, does not resolve the problem of domination. I also outline an approach that resolves the problem of exclusion and opens a possibility for the realization of the Enlightenment project