Reflexive Law, Civil Society, and Negative Rights

Jurgen Habermas has remained faithful to the heritage of Critical Theory-to the method and perspective of imminent social criticism. His concept of "paradigm" is fully intelligible only in context of such background. It means, first and foremost, enlightenment concerning a given society with a normative project in mind-in the present case, the actualization of the system of rights. Thus, a paradigm is a form of diagnosis, based on the rational reconstruction of forms of consciousness, filtered and synthesized into theory, that seeks to orient action.

At all points, the construction of paradigms refers to a social totality which is subjected to critique.