Conclusion: After Genealogy—Toward a Pluralist Theory of the Public Sphere

Abstract

This work has argued that the long-term genealogy of the public sphere spirals around continuities and discontinuities in the constitution, management, and transformation of the character of human action, of the social bond, and of related patterns of communication. I have attempted to show that this process depends on the construction of intersubjective repertoires of engagement, understanding, and connectivity, via the shaping of the symbolic-communicative nexus among agents (chapter 2). To this end, I have reconstructed a notion of axial traditions as dynamic ensembles of arguments and practices—not as rigid charts of prescriptions and norms, but as modalities of constructing relationships and facilitating communication among human agents.