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In works published from the 1960s, the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas attempted to expand the scope of critical theory by incorporating ideas from contemporary analytic philosophy, in particular the speech act theory developed by J.L. Austin and his student John Searle. Habermas argued that human beings have a fundamental interest in coming to agreement with each other in open rational dialogue. He also held that, in ordinary speech situations, people commit themselves to the truth of the assertions they make; in particular, they implicitly claim that their assertions can be vindicated in an “ideal speech situation”—a dialogue that is completely ...(100 of 15732 words)