In this work, it has been argued that the social theories of Habermas and Giddens are framed by the modernist vision of an autonomous constitution of society and that they seek to explain the contemporary impediments to the realization of social autonomy. The relationships that the social theories of Habermas and Giddens have to the philosophy of praxis conception of the social as constituted by the nexus between the subject and history has been taken as central to comprehending their theories’ significant and constructive contributions to understanding modernity. The praxis philosophy conception of the social equally served to delineate some of the major limitations of their respective theoretical perspectives and potential alternatives to the positions that they develop on modernity. Modernity is simultaneously the object of Habermas's and Giddens's work and the interpretative horizon that shapes their perspectives. For this reason, modifications in modernity have significant consequences for their arguments and conceptual frameworks. Besides drawing some of the threads of my analysis together and underlining the conclusions that should be drawn from it, the present discussion will detail the most important strand of contemporary theoretical work on modernity. It sketches how the perspectives of multiple modernities and global modernity reconsider aspects of the nexus between history and the subject.

My analysis has sought to demonstrate how the mediation of the universal and the particular is the organizing problematic of Habermas's social theory. The conception that Habermas proposes of the communicative mediation of the universal and the particular is critical to his overall characterization of modernity and his argument for a change in the paradigm of Critical Theory. Habermas contests various facets of the Frankfurt School's critical conception of modernity. He believes that the demarcation of communicative rationality from that of instrumental reason discloses an alternative dimension of progressive development (Habermas 1984a; 1987a; 1987b). Similarly, Habermas reinterprets Adorno's critique of identity thinking and contends, instead, that intersubjective communication enables the formation of a rational social identity (Habermas 1974b; 1992a). This reinterpretation of the problem of identity is undoubtedly of considerable significance and it enables a reframing of Critical Theory.