Knowledge and Human Interests - Softcover

Habermas, Jurgen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745604595 ISBN 13: 9780745604596

Publisher: Polity, 1986

Synopsis

Habermas describes Knowledge and Human Interests as an attempt to reconstruct the prehistory of modern positivism with the intention of analysing the connections between knowledge and human interests. Convinced of the increasing historical and social importance of the natural and behavioural sciences, Habermas makes clear how crucial it is to understand the central meanings and justifications of these sciences. He argues that for too long the relationship between philosophy and science has been distorted. In this extraordinarily wide--ranging book, Habermas examines the principal positions of modern philosophy -- Kantianism, Marxism, positivism, pragmatism, hermeneutics, the philosophy of science, linguistic philosophy and phenomenology -- to lay bare the structure of the processes of enquiry that determine the meaning and the validity of all our statements which claim objectivity. This edition contains a postscript written by Habermas for the second German edition of Knowledge and Human Interests.

About this title

Review:

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. --Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

Jurgen Habermas is a German philosopher and sociologist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theories on communicative rationality and the public sphere. In 2014, Prospect readers chose Habermas as one of their favourites among the "world's leading thinkers".

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0745604595
• ISBN 13: 9780745604596
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400