Derrida's Deconstruction contra Habermas's Communicative Reason and the Fate of Education In the 1980th started philosophical and social scientific debate between postmodern critique of reason and Enlightened defenders of reason. This debate reached educational discussion in the 1990th. Jürgen Habermas is in the side of defenders of reason although his has very peculiar concept of reason and he is in many ways critical towards Enlightenment (German philosophy of consciousness). Jacques Derrida is representative of postmodern critique although he never use the term postmodern. Derrida prefers the concept of deconstruction, which is his version of Heidegger's de-struction. In the field of educational science there many research projects going on which rely Habermasian communicative reason. There exists at least as many research programs which has their philosophical foundation in deconstruction and postmodernism. That is why very useful to take a glance to philosophical debate between Habermas and Derrida. This debate is a good example of tension between postmodernism and Enlightened modernity.The debate started in 1987 when Habermas published very critical comments on Derrida in his book called "The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity". Derrida reacted and claimed that Habermas has misread him or he has even read him at all. After two Derrida's quite angry responses ("Memoires for Paul de Man" in 1989 and "Limited Inc" in 1988) both parties kept silent. It was until at the end of the 1990 when silence was broken. Derrida met Habermas in some party where Habermas proposed a friendly discussion. Derrida and Habermas actually forgot their different opinions on modernity and concentrated those themes that they both agree. Before Derrida died they published together one book and one article. Nevertheless they never did achieve common understanding on nature of modernity. This is actually a good thing for those who want to philosophize on modern/postmodern situation and the consequences of that situation to the future of educational science and education. How should education as a science - which product of Enlightenment - understand Derrida's demand of deconstruction? What kind of education is possible after destruction? Or should solely rely on Habermasian communicative reason as a reconstructed version Enlightenment?Kantian metaphysic of goodwill, Gadamerian hermeneutics The Fate of Educational Science Huttunen: Habermas and the problem of indoctrination, 2003 Huttunen & Heikkinen: Between facts and norms: action research in the light of Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action and discourse theory of justice, 1998 Habermas: The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 1987 Derrida: Memoires for Paul de Man, 1989Derrida: Limited Inc., 1988 Thomassen ed.: The Derrida-Habermas Reader, 2006European journal