Marginalization - Why Heinrichs Remained Unknown
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The Institutional Context
We now come to the question that has been hanging in the air since the framing above: if Heinrichs’ systematic achievement is so significant—if he had already resolved the Habermas-Luhmann controversy in 1976, five years before Habermas published his major work—why did he remain so unknown? Why was the solution ignored?
The answer lies not in the quality of his work but in institutional factors. Heinrichs’ academic career was marked by ruptures. After his scholastic training with the Jesuits, there came a break with the order and the Catholic Church—for reasons that need not be elaborated here. This break had consequences: appointment procedures for philosophy chairs failed repeatedly, with Heinrichs himself perceiving the role of concordat-designated chairs (professorships whose appointment required church approval under German concordat agreements) as a contributing factor.
Without an institutional base—without a chair, without students, without an academic network—Heinrichs’ work remained confined to a small circle of readers. His books appeared with small publishers, his ideas were not taught in seminars, his terminology did not become part of the academic common stock.
The Silence of Colleagues
Especially striking is the non-reception by Habermas. “Reflection as a Social System” appeared in 1976, five years before “The Theory of Communicative Action.” Heinrichs dealt with exactly the questions that occupied Habermas—and he taught for a time in the same city (Frankfurt). Yet nowhere in Habermas’ entire body of work is there a single reference to Heinrichs.
Why? The sociological answer: whoever is not in the network does not exist. Academic philosophy rewards originality less than connectivity to existing debates. Heinrichs was too original—his work offered no catchy slogans like “domination-free discourse” or “autopoietic system,” but demanded systematic engagement of thought.
The power to ignore is the subtlest form of power—it needs no arguments, it simply refuses recognition as an interlocutor. Heinrichs was not refuted; he was not taken notice of.
For a book on the reception of Hegel, this is particularly bitter: the grounding in the logic of reflection that is missing in Habermas, and that Hegel himself would have demanded, already existed. The history of postwar German philosophy could have taken a different course.