Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to present the evolution of the understanding of political agreement, which took place in the contemporary political thought. This change had three consequent states: universal consensus, limited consensus, and compromise. On the first stage liberals tried to metaphysically justify an agreement. John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas were outstanding representatives of this approach. After failure of this project those philosophers constrained their claims and presented the concept of limited consensus pertaining to basic structure of society (Rawls) or procedural framework of public discourse (Habermas). On the third stage of its development concept of political agreement has been absolutely devoid of metaphysical and normative justification. Instead of metaphysics the idea of compromice proposes toleration for pluralistic and agonistic visions of good life.
