Knowledge and interest

Jürgen Habermas

pp. 36-54

in: Dorothy Emmet, Alasdair MacIntyre (eds), Sociological theory and philosophical analysis, Berlin, Springer, 1970

Abstract

Husserl saw as a reason for the crisis of a positivistic science its dissociation from practical interests. His remedy was to institute a purely contemplative attitude which should not only release the sciences from the grip of the illusion that the world is a ready-made universe of facts to be grasped in purely descriptive terms, but also by its own therapeutic powers, lead to "a new kind of practice'. In adhering to this traditional concept of the relation of knowledge to interest Husserl misconceived the scientific crisis. Even though phenomenological description would effectively dispel the illusion of objectivism, objectivism in no way prevents science from influencing practice; what was needed was not to restore the practical signifi­cance of the sciences by making them finally break with interest, but rather to reveal the true relationship of knowledge and interest which the objectivistic attitude conceals. After outlining the fundamental interests guiding the respective scientific enterprises, the author summarises in five theses what he takes to be the basic aspects of the relationship between knowledge and interest.¹

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund