Rainer Forst

Rainer Forst (born 15 August 1964) is a German philosopher and political theorist, and was called the "most important political philosopher of his generation" in 2012, when he won the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize. Currently he is Professor of Political Theory at the Department for Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt. He is often identified with the newest generation of scholars associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He received his doctorate under the supervision of Jürgen Habermas in 1993, with additional supervision by John Rawls from 1991 to 1992.

His main areas of research are political theory, pragmatism, tolerance, and political and social justice. His first book in English, Contexts of Justice, incorporated elements of Anglo-American liberal theory and communitarianism with German critical and social theory. He is frequently recognized as perhaps the world's leading authority on the subject of toleration.