Rainer Forst

All human beings are born with equal dignity and possess equal rights. This statement appears normatively just as irrefutable as it is empirically refuted every day. But what are the grounds of this principle, and how should we think about its realisation? Its philosophical truth can best be explained by going back to (and beyond) Kant’s notion of a noumenal...

Rainer Forst develops a critical theory capable of deciphering the deficits and potentials inherent in contemporary political reality. This calls for a perspective which is immanent to social and political practices and at the same time transcends them. Forst regards society as a whole as an ‘order of justification’ comprising complexes of different norms referring to institutions and corresponding practices...