Forty years of knowledge and human interests

Abstract

In his preface to the English edition of K&HI, Habermas described a main trajectory of his book as an exercise “to recover the forgotten experience of reflection,” all the more difficult and crucial because of the stronghold that positivism had achieved. “That we disavow reflection is positivism” (p. vii). For some of us, the demonstrated message that followed this announcement was a signal to purgation; for, we had often heard the call to positivism's table but had rarely felt that its offering equated with dining well. For some of us, reflection was “a concept in philosophy” and, as more than one advisor had assured us, pre-scientific. For some of us, lacking any but a grammar school understanding of Narcissus, reflection had been only the superficiality of mirroring. Habermas’ exercise showed that it was much more, even as we sometimes struggled to find our way through his negotiations of the unfamiliar depth.

Citation

Hazelrigg, L. (2009), "Forty years of knowledge and human interests", Dahms, H.F. (Ed.) Nature, Knowledge and Negation (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 189-206. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-1204(2009)0000026010