This article sheds light on the ways in which Karl–Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas not only appropriated Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, but also transcended it. The two philosophers drew extensively on Wittgenstein's criticism of traditional philosophical models, particularly of the concepts of 'theoria' and 'subjectivity', which were gradually established in pivotal stages in the history of philosophy. Wittgenstein initially engaged with the problems that these models gave rise to, before abandoning these models for a concept based on pragmatics, as in his theory of 'language games'. While the two philosophers shared Wittgenstein's pragmatic turn, they however viewed it as a way to establish a universal rationalism, a reading that is contrary to what Wittgenstein, as well as the majority of his students and readers intended.