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concerned with uncovering those truths that would guide Greek civilization toward an idealized
state (pp. 301–303). Positivist knowledge descended and departed from the Greek theoretical
tradition. Under the regime of scientistic methodology the concept of “interest-free” knowledge
that was normative truth became “value-free” objective truth. In other words, science took the
notion of “pure theory” and ran with it (p. 315). The scientific process created a conceptual
framework that hid the way knowledge and the interpretation of phenomena was not outside of
human experience and in so doing, concealed the interests at play in the pursuit of knowledge.
(pp. 304–306). Habermas’s critique of positivism is not only geared toward the so-called “hard
sciences.” He also contends that historicism can fall into the positivist trap by claiming to be
interest- or value-free (p. 309).
To demonstrate how interest and knowledge are inseparable, Habermas categorizes three broad
methods of inquiry and their associative interests. These three “knowledge-constitutive interests”
are: technical, practical, and emancipatory cognitive interests (p. 308). The technical cognitive
interest refers to the knowledge of “empirical-analytical sciences.” This type of knowledge is
typically generated through hypothesis testing and experimentation. The method of empirical
analysis is to learn or create knowledge by assessing the results of some sort of process under
controlled environments. The results of hypothesis testing are observations that are considered
to be a natural and objective state of nature, and are considered truthful, or at least reliable,
because they preclude human subjectivity. The purpose of this knowledge is to expand the ability
of humans to essentially transform nature for social needs; “[t]his is the cognitive interest in
the technical control over objectified processes” (pp. 308–309). Habermas does not reject this
type of science, nor does he claim that it can’t create useful knowledge. Habermas rejects an
epistemology that claims the correspondence of knowledge with truth that exists outside of human
interpretation.
The “historical–hermeneutic sciences” create knowledge in a different manner than the
empirical–analytical sciences. Historical–hermeneutic method is to create knowledge through
the interpretation of texts. These sciences are concerned with understanding meaning, unlike
the empirical–analytical sciences that are concerned with observation. This is the knowledge
interest that Habermas designates as the “practical cognitive interest.” Habermas criticizes the
positivism of historicism in a similar vein as his critique of scientism. When a historian claims
to have revealed historical fact by interpreting the meaning of texts, that is, writes history, this
knowledge “is always mediated through [the interpreter’s] pre-understanding, which is derived
from the interpreter’s initial situation” (p. 309). Habermas claims that any “practical” knowledge
is only as good as the interpreter’s ability to “expand the horizons of understanding” between
the worlds of both the text and the interpreter in order to create an intersubjective understanding
of the interpreter’s own world in relation to that of text’s world (pp. 309–310). The practical,
intersubjective knowledge interest is important to an understanding of how separate individuals,
with unique (but shared) experiences within a collectivity, can form a social reality (Pusey, 1987,
p. 25).
Critical social sciences, certain philosophical traditions that seek normative social action, as
well as psychotherapy, employ a method that is different from the previous two cognitive interests.
The knowledge interest of these disciplines is the third cognitive interest: the emancipatory
interest. This is a knowledge interest that emphasizes critical self-reflection. Habermas sees the
role of the emancipatory interest as one that works in hand with the other two interests by
helping to reveal the way in which the interests of the knower impacts the method and analysis
of what is to be known. The purpose here is to transform the unreflective state of positivist
thought to one of critical self-reflection through the articulation of the assumptions inherent
to the method of analysis (Habermas, 1971, p. 310). The political point, to Habermas, is that
ideological control (the rationalization accepted as common sense) is rooted in an empiricist