Each scientific research category serves a distinct guiding knowledge interest.

Evidence

It was possible, Habermas contended, to show that three categories of research process involved a specific relation between logical and methodological rules, on the one hand, and epistemological interests on the other. In the empirical-analytical sciences, the logical structure of the permitted systems of proof, and the type of test conditions applied, suggest that reality is grasped on the basis of a guiding interest in achieving technical control over objectified processes. In the historical hermeneutic sciences, the methodological framework of understanding meaning and interpreting texts, and the application of tradition to one’s own situation that was inseparable from these, suggest that reality is grasped on the basis of a guiding interest in preserving and extending the intersubjectivity of possible agreement directed towards action. For the critically oriented sciences, the methodological framework, consisting of objectifying procedures or nomological knowledge and of a method of comprehension, suggests that reality is grasped on the basis of a guiding interest in the dissolution of apparently objective, but in principle alterable, relationships of dependency. The transcendental framework and the conditions of possible objectivity were determined in the first case by an epistemic interest in technology, in the second by an epistemic interest in practical affairs, and in the third by an epistemic interest in emancipation. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2442

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is the canonical statement of Habermas’s three knowledge-constitutive interests — technical, practical, and emancipatory.
• XREF: connects to: Research process categories tie methodological rules to specific epistemological interests — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2441; Humanistic research explains particular cases while scientific research develops general theory. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 304; Interdisciplinary theory required scholars each expert in a scientific field plus philosophy (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Research process categories tie methodological rules to specific epistemological interests #qualifies (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2441
• Humanistic research explains particular cases while scientific research develops general theory. #expands (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 304
• Interdisciplinary theory required scholars each expert in a scientific field plus philosophy #expands (0.72)
• Disciplinary power selects, normalizes, hierarchizes, and centralizes knowledges. #qualifies (0.70) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 197