Skip to content
ContemporaryAdvancedBook

Knowledge and Human Interests

Jürgen Habermas

Critical theory / knowledge

It is a major early Habermas work foundational to the critical theory of knowledge.

Synopsis

A dense critical-theory work arguing that all knowledge is guided by underlying human interests, and that emancipatory inquiry differs from technical and interpretive knowing.

Core passage idea

Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted work

There is no neutral, interest-free knowledge; even science is shaped by the human purposes that drive inquiry.

It challenges the idea of detached objectivity and opens space for a critical, emancipatory social science.

To avoid a bubble

Pair with Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish.

Reading note

Demanding and abstract; read with patience and a guide to the Frankfurt School tradition.

Best paired with

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

Find this book

More by Jürgen Habermas

All Jürgen Habermas books →