Practical : Historical Hermenutic : still sucepitible to being used for controlpp14
Emancipatory :
it is
worthwhile to reflect on our own assumptions about what how our interests-both
ideological and material-shape the nature of our communications with others.
A few might still seek refuge in the
obfuscation that we have experienced the “end of ideology,” that we are “last men” living
at “the end of history,
He wants us to explore knowledge-constitutive interests. Habermas posits three fundamental human interests that employ different
methods for different purposes in the seemingly common quest for knowledge. He wants
to probe the deep linkages among knowledge, experience and human purpose. What
needs eventually to be done is a form of self-analysis for which Habermas sets the stage,
especially in his book, Knowledge and Human Interests, and in some earlier
commentaries.35 What Habermas reveals is that the content of our thought is less
important than the manner of our thought. Specific opinions can change or be changed
but, beneath them, our epistemological assumptions frequently remain unchallenged. Put
simply, it is Habermas’ argument that there are different kinds of knowledge, with
different criteria for truth claims, which represent and are represented in different
communities with different political, economic and ideological interests. Accordingly,
much human argument never gets so far as a contest about actual claims regarding “the
facts of the matter.” This is so because they proceed from different bases, employ
incompatible vocabularies, and inevitably produce only monstrous misrepresentations
distortions of rational debate. The three kinds of interests are called technical, practical
and emancipatory.
c.f expert knowledge about a particular domain, wisdon ie meta knoeledge, performative (active creative)?
s Jean-François
Lyotard put it: “Capitalism inherently possesses the power to derealize familiar objects,
social roles, and institutions to such a degree that the so-called realistic representations
can no longer evoke reality except as nostalgia or mockery.”39
This is not at all to imply that either science or social science is unworthy of
respect and support. It is the disproportionate prestige and power that attaches to
scientism in general that Habermas seeks to redress.
The power associated with scientific and social scientific statements, he says, is of
two kinds. First, the statements are performed in a cultural setting in which they are
compelled to compete for legitimacy with many other kinds of statements-mythological,
religious, aesthetic, legalistic-which can best be described as “language games.” Each
language game privileges diverse or conflicting ontological assumptions and
epistemological methods that are themselves expressive of inherent normative values,
and that vie with one another for acceptance by the authorities, thereby becoming
authoritative.
In the competition for authority, the winning language game is the one that is favored by
(i.e., serves the interest of) whatever institutions and structures command economic,
political and social power. Following Jean-François Lyotard, disputes about knowledge
are “the games of the rich, in which whoever is wealthiest has the best chance of being
right.”44
In the event in question, the political interest of the Third Reich corresponded to the
technological capacities of IBM. Knowledge-constitutive interests were manifest in
machines that transformed complex reality into binary units, undermined quality with
quantification, allowed databases to destroy individuality, and facilitated the
extermination of millions. S
REASON, KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN PURPOSE: The Critique of Ideology
Jürgen Habermas' Concept of Universal Pragmatics:
A Practical Approach to Ethics and Innovation
by
Howard A. Doughty
suggests there should be a balance between systems theory and those approaches that emphasis the importanceof languge and meaning in social interaction
layder 215
c.f Giddens / Parsons
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