Knowledge and Human Interests

by Juergen Habermas, Jeremy J. Shapiro (Translator)

For those concerned with the relationships between thought and action, Knowledge and Human Interests will quickly be recognized as a brilliant book -- and a bold outline for a new social theory.

"…this book is rich in suggestions for a new theory of knowledge that would take into account the 'interest' of humanity in non-repressive and non-distorting commmunication, or free and equal interaction as the implicit horizon of knowledge."
-- Mark Poster

"It is not altogether easy to assess the work of a scholar whose professional competence extends from the logic of science to the sociology of knowledge, by way of Marx, Hegel, and the more recondite sources of the European metaphysical tradition.…The baffling thing about Habermas is that, at an age when most of his colleagues had painfully established control over one corner of the field, he has made himself the master of the whole, in depth and breadth alike."
-- Times Literary Supplement

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Sociology, Theory, Academic, Science, Politics

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Habermas is simply the worst writer, relative to the complexity of his ideas, that I have ever come across: others are worse writers (Hegel), but have more difficult ideas which they struggle to express. Others have less complex ideas (many analytic philosophers) but express them more clearly. Urgh.
This should have been an essay arguing for the 'interested' nature of reason: the claim being that any form of argument or communication at all is necessarily aiming at 'enlightenment,' freeing us from dogmatism. This is interesting. Habermas wants to get to this claim through an immanent critique of positivism. This too is interesting. But giving us a complete rundown of Comte's, Mach's (!!!), Dilthey's, and Peirce's philosophies of science? Not so interesting, or necessary. It's rigorous, sure. But sometimes you just want the straight dope. Not here.
Also, part III, on Freud and Nietzsche, is a complete and utter waste of time, even if you buy the idea that psychoanalysis shows one possible way to combine Peirce's philosophy of science approach with Dilthey's hermeneutics.

[Hamad Abdulsamad · Rating 5 out of 5]

سأعود لهذا النص كثيرا على ما يبدو، هذه المراجعة ليست مراجعة بالمعنى الدقيق للكلمة وإنما تعبير عن إنزعاج من منشورات الجمل: هناك أخطاء مطبعية كان على المراجع للنص التنبه لها، خاصة تلك المتعلقة بالاستفهامات الغريبة. بالإضافة إلى الأخطاء المطبعية، طريقة كتابة الهوامش غير كافية للوصول للمصادر، خاصة بأن الكتاب لم يشتمل على قائمة بالمراجع. ترجمة الهوامش بالكامل مع العناوين، بالإضافة إلى غياب قائمة المراجع يجعل من الوصول للمصادر المذكورة مسألة عويصة للقارئ. انتبهت إلى أن ذات المترجم وهو حسن صقر وقد أبلى بلاء حسنا (ليس فتحي المسكيني بطبيعة الحال، ولكنه حسن) قد ترجم "الخطاب الفلسفي للحداثة لهابرماس أيضا عن دار الحوار، إلا أن ذات المشكلة متكررة هناك، وهذا مزعج جدا.

[Christine Cordula Dantas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first book written by Habermas that I read. As I understand, it is a profound and intricated criticism to Positivism and how the Theory of Knowledge became restricted to a theory of science, a methodology. In parallel, the role of human interests as a self-reflection on the subject of knowledge is deeply analysed as well as how Positivism de-emphasize it. One of the theses states that science was no longer seriously thought after Kant, and how subsequent thinkers opened the path to Positivism. This is s difficult book, it is well written but too intricate. I would recommend it only for brave laymen (but these don't care much about recommendations), otherwise it is certainly an important reading for philosophy students. As a lay reader, it took me several months to read it, several notes to think about, but I was not much enthusiastic about it, specially from the second half to the end, and the sections on Freud were not interesting to me.

[c]

A very dense philosophical book that revisits an old theme of German Idealism - the unity of theoretical and practical reason - and assesses key philosophical developments after the fall of Idealism in light of it (positivism, pragmatism, hermeneutics, and psychoanalysis). Habermas ends up defending the Idealist thesis through an immanent critique of these post-Idealist schools, showing how they all tacitly admit that knowledge is essentially interested, either in a technical, practical, or emancipatory way, rather than dis-interested (as "liberal" epistemology would claim). I thought that his own peculiar philosophical vocabulary of communicative action at times bogged down the reading of the book, if not even undermine the more radical consequences of his arguments. Nonetheless, I'd still recommend it for people interested in the history of German philosophy (which I'm aware is not the largest audience in existence, even though the impact of thinkers from that tiny little country has been decisive for world history).

[Joshua Ocon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably one of the most difficult yet rewarding texts that I've read. Perhaps what makes it more tedious than it should be is that it involves Habermas' critique of the other philosophical approaches, whether explicit or implicit, to the problem that he sought to explore, encompassing the thoughts of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Mach, Comte, and Pierce, as well as Freud and Nietzsche. If you're not familiar with what each one of them is all about, then slogging through this work will prove to be a gruelling task. First among Habermas' major works, it presents his approach to the problem of 'knowledge' in the context of the primacy of scientific knowledge and the philosophy of science against the epistemological frameworks that supposedly find their peak in Kant's thought. Convinced that knowledge is inevitably related with human interest in whatever form it may take - be it in the empirical sciences, in the cultural sciences, or in the systematic social sciences - Habermas presents these interests as technical, practical, or emancipatory. The appendix is a helpful supplement and can be read either as a summary that ties the chapters together, or even as an abstract that captures the totality of this text's project.

[Manuel Sotomayor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Habermas plantea desde un inicio de este libro que hay que recuperar el camino perdido de la reflexión porque el positivismo ha renegado de la reflexión. El papel de la racionalidad, su rescate de manos del positivismo que la fundió (y confundió) con los logros metodológicos de la ciencia. Entonces, Habermas busca rescatar el conocer y el reflexionar en un cientificismo que ya no deja espacio a una epistemología ni a ninguna actividad que pueda reflexionar sobre ella .

Habermas recorre y retoma la crítica de Hegel a Kant sobre lo que el criticismo requiere del sujeto cognoscente para poder conocer para llegar a la duda radical y la actitud crítica. Luego analiza a Pierce y Dilthey en sus interesantes respuestas frente al positivismo y rescata de ellos esta confrontación y señalamientos fundamentales que son crítica. Luego vuelve a Kant pero con un paralelo de Fichte y desde aquí va planteando claramente su diferenciación entre la racionalidad que implica la Actividad Instrumental y Actividad Comunicativa .

Luego entra a analizar a Marx como actividad reflexiva pero lo más interesante es cuando llega a analizar al psicoanálisis como disciplina (con pretensiones científicas) que asume la actitud reflexiva y crítica como método donde la interpretación/comprensión son parte esencial de la actividad.

Un gran libro!

[Leland · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first exposure to Habermas, and all is very intriguing. Very orderly in his writing and also willing to startle the reader with blunt comments about the work of others! The translation is carefully done and includes helpful reminders on the German words that are more inclusive in their scope than the "convenient" English vocabulary usually offered... always a tricky difference to manage. It was by accident that I read this 1968 work first. It doesn't always show up in lists of his most widely read works - I found a used copy at an irresistible low price! I had good luck to begin here, however. The last chapter draws clear distinctions from Nietzsche's work (not just grumblings that N disavowed self-reflection) and two early chapters introduced me to an American Charles Sanders Peirce, and consider Peirce's work in detail. Peirce was impoverished, ingenious, and definitely has something to offer in our century, if retrieved from obscurity. Definitely recommend a quick search in Wikipedia!

[rana omar]

عن الفصل الأول : تحليلات هيجل التي عرضها هابرماس اقتباسا من فينومينولوجيا الروح ثرية و لفتت انتباهي لحاجات ملحظتهاش و أنا بقرأ الفينومينولوجيا هيجل بيبحث في الكيفية و كيفية الكيفية الطرح اللي قدمه في نقد نظرية المعرفة ممكن يكون فعلا مطابق لتمسية هابرماس للفصل أنه نقض لنظرية المعرفة بالأساس

الكتاب ممتع و هابرماس تقيل و الترجمة بتاعت المشروع القومي مش لطيفة ، مستغربة أنه بعد كل دا هكون مضطرة أرجع لكتب الطب اللطيفة حيث دا أول كتاب أمسكه من بداية الامتحانات من شهرين :(

[Erij Msehli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un livre intéresant de Jürgen. Il a cité les points du vue de certains philosophe connue comme Nietzsche, Kant, Pierce, Hegel, Marx sur le concept de livre... il a noté que l'intérêt de connaissance est une catégorie particulière qui relève aussi peu la distinction entre des déterminations empirique et transcendantale ou factuelle et symbolique que de la distinction entre des déterminations motivationnelle et cognitive.

[Vletrmscx · Rating 4 out of 5]

well worth a revisit -
pre communicative ethics hab
much closer to 1st gen frank school

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for David Schweickart's course entitled "Social and Political Philosophy" at Loyola University Chicago during the second semester of 1980/81. While I found Habermas likeable and his discussion of ideal communicative circumstances interesting and agreeable, I was dismayed by the long-windedness of the text. We were reading it in translation, so perhaps the fault was that of the translator.

I believe we also read Rawls' Theory of Justice for the same class--far and away the most impressive book read while in the philosophy program. Knowledge and Human Interests directly relates to some of the central concerns of that book. Sadly, however, there wasn't enough time devoted to discussion on such matters, the class being also occupied by Hegel, Marx et cetera.

[Aicha NEDJAR]

an important window to Habermas thoughts