Emancipation in the time of Democracy

Eduardo de Borba

Abstract: What is the meaning of emancipation in actual society? This question, which

directs the Critical Theory since its first representatives, became increasingly nuanced

due to the process of functional differentiation of our society. Today, choose a class

that will lead the emancipation program became an anachronism. However, the

"individualists solutions", the leakage for a society emancipated via the quite another

reason proved, under the political perspective, in statement of the existing order,

maintaining the status quo. What form can assume the emancipatory project to still

critical and feasible? We begin the discussion revisiting what means the concept of

emancipation in the classical texts of Critical Theory (I), and then, we will defend it from

a democratic perspective, specifically through Habermas' project of a Deliberative

democracy. (II).

Keywords: critical theory; democracy; emancipation