CRITICAL THEORYinherently rational component in symbolic inter-
action as well as developing an empirical political
sociology that helps to critique the political effects
of positivism as well as to identify the progressive
potential of contemporary social movements.
From the beginning, Habermas (1970) has
agreed with the classical Frankfurt School’s con-
tention that science and technology have become
legitimating rhetorics for domination in modern
society. At the same time, he has argued that
alternative ways of knowing are mutually legiti-
mate by showing that they have complementary
roles to play in human affairs, even though their
forms of validity and realms of appropriate appli-
cation are distinct. That is, plural forms of knowl-
edge represent different but complementary ‘‘knowl-
edge interests’’ (Habermas 1971).
‘‘Instrumental knowledge,’’ based on the abili-
ty to predict, represents an interest in the technical
control or mastery of nature. ‘‘Hermeneutical
knowledge’’ represents an interest in the clarifica-
tion of intersubjective understanding. Finally,
‘‘emancipatory knowledge’’ is best typified in the
self-clarification that occurs freely in the nondirective
communicative context provided by psychoanaly-
sis. In the context of a democratic ‘‘public sphere,’’
such self-clarification would have a macro-social
parallel in the form of ideology critique had this
space not been severely eroded by elite domina-
tion and technocratic decision making (Habermas
1989). Emancipatory knowledge thus has an inter-
est in overcoming the illusions of reification, wheth-
er in the form of neurosis at the level of psychology
or ideology at the level of society. In contrast to
testable empirical hypotheses about objectified
processes, the validity of emancipatory knowledge
can be determined only by its beneficiaries. Its
validity rests on the extent to which its subjects
find themselves increasingly free from compul-
sion. Thus, a central problem of modern society is
the hegemony of instrumental knowledge that,
though appropriate in the realm of nature, is used
to objectify and manipulate social relations. In-
strumental knowledge thus eclipses the interpretive
and emancipatory forms of knowledge that are
also essential for guiding social life.
When sufficient attention is paid to interper-
sonal communication, Habermas (1979) contends
that every act of speech can be seen as implying a
universal demand that interpersonal understand-
ing be based on the free exchange and clarification
of meanings. In other words, an immanent cri-
tique of language performance (which Habermas
terms ‘‘universal pragmatics’’) reveals the presump-
tion that communication not be distorted by dif-
ferences in power between speakers. Thus, human
communication is implicitly a demand for free-
dom and equality. By this form of immanent cri-
tique—consistent with the methodological stan-
dards of the Frankfurt School—Habermas attempts
to demonstrate the potential validity of emancipatory
knowledge so that it can be seen as a compelling
challenge to the hegemony of instrumental knowl-
edge. The purpose of Habermas’s communication
theory is thus highly partisan. By showing that no
forms of knowledge are ‘‘value free’’ but always
‘‘interested,’’ and that human communication in-
herently demands to occur freely without distor-
tions caused by social power differentials, Habermas
seeks politically to delegitimate conventions that
confine social science to investigations of the means
rather than the rational ends of social life.In his subsequent works, Habermas has tried
to reformulate this philosophical position in terms
of a political sociology. To do so, he has profound-
ly redirected ‘‘historical materialism,’’ the Marxist
project to which he remains committed (see
Habermas 1979). Habermas contends that Marx
gave insufficient attention to communicative ac-
tion by restricting it to the social class relations of
work. This restriction, he argues, inclined the
Marxist tradition toward an uncritical attitude to-
ward technological domination as well as toward
forms of scientism that contribute to the suppres-
sion of critique in regimes legitimated by Marxist
ideology. Habermas relates his immanent critique
of language performance to historical materialism
by showing that sociocultural evolution occurs not
only through the increasing rationality of techni-
cal control over nature (as Marx recognized) but
also through advances in communicative rationali-
ty, that is, nondistorted communication. Thus,
instrumental rationality and communicative ra-
tionality are complementary forms of societal
‘‘learning mechanisms.’’ The problem of moderni-
ty is not science and technology in and of them-
selves, because they promise increased control
over the environment, but rather the fact that
instrumental rationality has eclipsed communica-
tive rationality in social life. In other words, in