The methodology of “Philosophical reconstruction” differs from “ethno-centric liberalism” (Richard Rorty) as well as form more aprioristic forms of Kantianism. As well as from more a prioristic forms of Kantianism. As distinguished from certain kinds of Kantianism,l would like to acknowledge the historical and sociological specificity of the project of democracy while, against ethnocentric liberalism, l would like to insist that the practical rationality embodied in democratic institutions has a culture-tran-scenting validity claim. This form of practical reason has become the collective and anonymous property of cultures, institutions, and traditions as a result of the experiments and experiences, both ancient and modem, with democratic rule over the course of human history. The insights and perhaps
illusions resulting from these experiments and experiences are sedimented in diverse constitutions, institutional arrangements, and procedural specifics. When one thinks through the form of practical rationality at the core of democratic rule, Hegels concept of ”objective Spirit “ (objcktiver Geist) appears to me particularly appropriate. To make this concept useful today we have to think of it without recourse to the metaphorical presence of a supersubject ; we have to desubstantialize the model of a thinking and acting supersubject that still governs Hegelian philosophy. Without this metaphor of the subject implicitly governing it, the term ”objective spirit” would refer to those anonymous yet intelligible collective rules, procedures, and practices that form a way of life. It is the rationality intrinsic to these anonymous yet intelligible rules, procedures , and practices that any attempt aiming at the reconstruction of the logic of democracies must focus upon.