UNIVERSITY AND SCIENCE

A READING BASED ON COMMUNICATIVE RATIONALITY BY JÜRGEN HABERMAS

Abstract

This article situates the University and Science in their links to society in the face of the challenges that it
faces in a context of rapid and profound transformations, impacted and aggravated, now, by the
coronavirus pandemic. Under the horizon of the philosophical project of the Theory of Communicative
Acting by Jürgen Habermas, and of a specific indication of a University Idea, the article supports a
conception of University and, in its scope, of making Science, as oriented, fundamentally, to
intersubjective communication. Under this premise, this institution assumes its educational functions
aimed at the reproduction and renewal of traditions, the establishment of social solidarities and the
socialization of new generations through the development, also, of personal identities. The Habermasian
perspective allows, in turn, to think the University and Science in their social commitment, leading,
also, to a fruitful discussion about their administrative, pedagogical, epistemological processes and
assumptions and links with the common world. Intended to foster a critical-reflective dialogue, writing,
(i) contextualizes the University and its scientific practice in its links with society, (ii) configures the
theme of rationality and, in its scope, the spectrum of the Habermas project, (iii) presents the general lines
of Habermas Theory of Communicative Action and (iv) based on his Idea of University (and Science),
(v) sustains the communicative-social character of making Science and acting at the University.