Baseret på forelæsninger oprindeligt udviklet i ''Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns'' var Habermas i stand til at udvide sin teori til en omfattende forståelse af samfundet.
[[Thomas A. McCarthy]] skriver, at <blockquote>''The Theory of Communicative Action'' has three interrelated concerns: (1) to develop a concept of rationality that is no longer tied to, and limited by, the subjectivistic and individualistic premises of modern philosophy and social theory; (2) to construct a two-level concept of society that integrates the lifeworld and systems paradigms; and, finally, (3) to sketch out, against this background, a critical theory of modernity which analyzes and accounts for its pathologies in a way that suggests a redirection rather than an abandonment of the project of enlightenment.{{sfn|McCarthy|1984|p=vi}}</blockquote>
Filosofi