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From A Transcendental-Semiotic Point of View

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This collection of Apel's recent work is great. Each essay is concise, lucid and above all extremely clear. Apel does not beat around the bush (Habermas) and does not come to the rather contrived and nihilistic conclusions that many so-called post-modern philosophers come to, so that when one finishes one of their books one wonders why one even bothered reading it(all of their intricate arguments basically boil down to relativism or a form of contextual existentialism which again basically boils down to contextual relativism and or nihilism or a witty form of irony which tries to be original and unconventinal but in actuality simply re-calls the rather tiresome irrationalism of the romantic movement (Maistre) which did despite what Heiddegger might want to public to think end in his support of Hitler and the fascist movement in Germany and Italy, fascism like Heiddeger's existentialist break was definitely a break with the tradition of the enlightenment and not the logical extension of it, although I am sure this is not what Heiddegger and his followers would like one to believe--- in order to disguise his own and their master's fallibility.)

Apel is an elightenment philosopher in the good sense-- and although he has many connections with Habermas his arguments are much stronger and less hampered with contradictions (Habermas's simultaneous reluctance and use of the idea of the performative contradiction comes to mind). Above all Apel concerns himself with refuting all forms of dogmatism without allowing himself the recourse to obsurantism, and other cheap forms of escapism, Apel's transformation of Peircean philosophy is probably the strongest response to the resurgence of fundamental religious thought, and nihilistic post-modern thought within philsophy today. Philosophers such as Rorty although they do offer some good arguments (and in the end they do mean well) in the end do not make their arguments in a forceful or convincing way and so lend support to those irrationalist tendencies in modern society (religious fundamentalism, racism, homophobia, and political oppression) by supporting a rather nihilist philosophical position which unintentionally invites some of the worst forms of prejudice.