These lectures constitute Jurgen Habermas's response to the challenge posed by the radical critique of reason in contemporary French poststructuralism. Introduction by Thomas McCarthy, Preface, Modernity's Consciousness of Time and Its Need for Self-Reassurance, Hegel's Concept of Modernity, Three Perspectives: Left Hegelians and Right Hegelians and Nietzsche, The Entry Into Postmodernity: Nietzsche as a Turning Point, The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, The Understanding of Western Rationalism Through the Critique of Metaphysics: Martin Heidegger, Beyond a Temporalized Philosophy of Origins: Jacques Derrida's Critique of Phonocentrism, Between Eroticism and General Economics: George Bataille, The Critique of Reason as an Unmasking of the Human Sciences: Michel Foucault, Some Questions Concerning the Theory of Power: Foucault Again, An Alternative Way Out the Philosophy of the Subject: Communicative Versus Subject-Centered Reason, The Normative Content of Modernity, Notes, Name Index, Subject and Title Index.