Antes de Habermas, para além de Habermas: uma abordagem pragmatista da democracia deliberativa

Abstract

This article argues that the main elements that deliberative democrats take from Haber-mas can be found in classical pragmatism. It does so through the discussion of five contributions often credited to German critical theorist: (1) Habermas’ democratic theory is grounded on a broad conception of politics that challenges realist approaches; (2) Habermas offers a non-aggregative notion of democratic theory, centered on communicative exchanges; (3) Habermas connects dis-course and reason opening a path for the simultaneous consideration for particular and universal; (4) Habermas advances a discourse ethics that allows theorists to deal with the fact of pluralism; (5) Habermas leads to a systemic approach that acknowledges the importance of de-centered publics. The article, then, claims that pragmatism can offer a radical discursive approach to demo-cratic theory that helps overcome problems inherent to Habermas approach or that are attributed to him by crystallized problematic readings of his work.