Knowledge and interest

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The font Knowledge and Interest is a work by Jürgen Habermas published in 1968 . Its fundamental intention is to "analyze the connection between knowledge and interest " and to support the claim that "radical criticism of knowledge is only possible as a social theory" (Jürgen Habermas: Knowledge and Interest . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1968, p. 9; thereafter all following page references in brackets; emphasis in each case as in the original).

The occasion for the publication was the so-called positivism dispute in German sociology, which flared up at the Tübingen working conference of the German Society for Sociology with the two presentations by Theodor W. Adorno and Karl R. Popper in October 1961. The text was preceded by the inaugural Frankfurt lecture of the same name that Habermas gave in 1965.

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Habermas starts from the statement that modern philosophy is essentially epistemology . According to Kant, this made a decisive contribution to the scientism of the sciences , who “no longer understands science as a form of possible knowledge” but wants to “identify knowledge with science” (p. 13). Habermas wants to show how this conception has prevailed over time and which alternatives are available to develop a social theory that defies the scientific model and pursues an emancipatory interest.

Habermas takes up Hegel's criticism of Kant to criticize the traditional epistemology that is still in effect today . The traditional epistemology presupposes a kind of knowledge as normative, as it is given in mathematics and physics. Hegel refers to this knowledge as “appearing knowledge” (p. 24), which, however, does not yet represent understood knowledge. In addition, traditional epistemology is based on the “assumption of a finished subject of knowledge ”, which, like Kant, is used as a “court of law” and is no longer problematized. However, Hegel “saw through” that the subject of knowledge “is not transparent to himself” (p. 25) and “is only given with the result of his self-assurance” (p. 26).

The Marxist critique of Hegel sets to which a "subject of the world constitution". This is "not a transcendental consciousness in general, but the concrete human species that reproduces its life under natural conditions" (p. 38). In contrast to Hegel, Marx understands the human subject essentially as a "natural being" (p. 45). A distinction is made between the “ subjective nature of man” and “the objective nature of his environment” (p. 39). Habermas criticizes Marx's concept of nature for limiting the relationship to nature to the “interest in possible technical control over natural processes” (p. 49). The knowledge of the human being thus becomes a "disposition knowledge" that "enables the control of the social life process" (p. 65), what Habermas describes as a "positivistic demand for a natural science of the human being" (p. 63).

At the beginning of the second main chapter (“Positivism, Pragmatism, Historicism”, pp. 88–233), Habermas deals with Comte and Mach's positivism . “Positivism marks the end of epistemology”, which is now replaced by a “theory of the sciences”. The " transcendentally logical question about the conditions of possible knowledge", which was also a question of the "meaning of knowledge in general", is cut off. Instead, positivism is only concerned with the “methodological question of the rules for the structure and verification of scientific theories” (p. 88). In this way, positivism loses sight of the “synthetic achievements of the knowing subject”, thereby obscuring the “problematic of the world constitution”: “ The sense of knowledge itself becomes irrational - in the name of strict knowledge” (p. 90). According to Habermas, positivism is also associated with a philosophy of history for which scientific and technical progress is of paramount importance. Its investigation "takes the place of the knowing subject's reflection on himself" (p. 93).

Habermas contrasts positivism with the pragmatism of Charles S. Peirce . Peirce puts the “collective of researchers” in the center, “who try to solve their common task communicatively”. “Reality as the object domain of the sciences” is only constituted as their practice. Habermas rejects with Peirce an “ontologization of facts” (p. 121): “We cannot reasonably think of something like uninterpreted facts; nevertheless, it is a matter of facts that are not reflected in our interpretations ”(p. 124).

In the further course, Habermas joins Peirce's pragmatic concept of truth. The “meaning of the truth of statements” can no longer be defined, as it was with Kant, as the “objectivity of knowledge” produced by the “forms of perception and categories of understanding ”. Rather, truth arises “only from the objective context of life ”. The research process of the sciences has the function of “stabilizing opinions”, “eliminating uncertainties” and “gaining unproblematic convictions”. A "conviction is defined by the fact that we orient our behavior towards it" (p. 153). "Valid beliefs are universal statements about reality that can [...] be transformed into technical recommendations" (p. 154). You can be made insecure by “resistance from reality” (p. 153). "New ideas" are then found, "which stabilize the disturbed behavior again" (p. 154), Habermas formulates following Peirce.

"The system of science is [but only] one element of a comprehensive life context" (p. 179). Rather, this is interpreted as the “object area of ​​the humanities ” (p. 179) in a comprehensive sense. In the further course of the second main chapter, Habermas comes to speak of Wilhelm Dilthey and this special position of the humanities. Hermeneutics , which “ultimately refers to the colloquial language ” is her central theme . With Dilthey, Habermas understands language as the “ground of intersubjectivity , on which every person must have established a foothold before they can objectify themselves in the first expression of life - be it in words, attitudes or actions” (p. 198).

Both the hermeneutical and the empirical-analytical sciences are guided by knowledge interests . Both disciplines are concerned with the “fundamental conditions of the possible reproduction and self-constitution of the human species” (p. 242). While the empirical-analytical sciences are embedded in the life context of “instrumental” action and consider reality from the point of “possible technical disposal”, the hermeneutic sciences are interested in “communicative action” and the “intersubjectivity of understanding in colloquial language Communication and acting under common norms ”(p. 221).

The technical interest of the natural sciences and the practical interest of the humanities can only be properly understood through " self-reflection of science", which was neglected by Peirce and Dilthey. For Habermas, the basis of both interests is an “emancipatory interest in knowledge” (p. 244). Its aim is “ liberation from dogmatic dependence ” (p. 256). For Habermas, the “only tangible example of a science that demands methodological self-reflection” is psychoanalysis (p. 262). It is a “ metatheory ” and is self-reflective in that it reflects its own status as a science.

effect

After its publication, the book developed an impact far beyond the technical philosophical debate. The diverse criticism of his work prompted Habermas to write an extensive afterword five years later in which he specified his arguments, but also revised some of his theses.

expenditure

  • Jürgen Habermas: Knowledge and interest . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1968.
  • Jürgen Habermas: Knowledge and interest. With a new afterword . [2. Ed.] Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1973, ISBN 3-518-07601-9 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Volume 1).
  • Numerous other editions by the same publisher, e.g. B. 6th edition. 1981, 9th edition. 1988, 13th edition. 2001, special edition 2003.
  • Jürgen Habermas: Knowledge and interest: In the appendix: “After thirty years. Comments on Knowledge and Interest ”. Meiner, Hamburg, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7873-1862-9 .

Translations

  • French: Jürgen Habermas: Connaissance et intérêt . Translated by Gérard Clémancon, Gallimard, Paris 1968.
  • English: Jürgen Habermas: Knowledge and human interests . Translated by Jeremy J. Shapiro, Beacon Press, Boston 1971, ISBN 0-8070-1541-5 / Heinemann, London 1972, ISBN 0-435-82382-5 .
  • Spanish: Jürgen Habermas: Conocimiento e interés . Taurus, Madrid 1982, ISBN 84-306-1163-0 .
  • Arabic: Yūrġin Hābirmās: al-Maʿrifa wa-'l-muṣliḥa . Translated by Ǧūrǧ Kittūra, Beirut 1998; new as Al-Maʾrifa wa-'l-maṣlaḥa . Translated by Ḥasan Ṣaqr, Cologne 2001.
  • Hungarian: Jürgen Habermas: Megismerés és érdek . Translated by János Weiss, Jelenkor, Pécs 2005, ISBN 963-676-365-8 .

literature

  • Winfried Dallmayr (Ed.): Materials on Habermas' "Knowledge and Interest" . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-518-07649-3 .
  • Thomas McCarthy: Critique of the mutual understanding. On the theory of Jürgen Habermas . Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 69-147.
  • Stefan Müller-Doohm (Ed.): The interest of reason. Looking back on the work of Jürgen Habermas since "Knowledge and Interest" . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-29064-9 .
  • Walter G. Neumann: practice criticism. J. Habermas' "Knowledge and Interest" . Haag and Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-89228-794-5 .
  • Michael Theunissen : Society and History . Berlin 1969.
  • Albrecht Wellmer : Critical Social Theory and Positivism . Frankfurt am Main 1969.