Empirical research only becomes humane when subjects later examine the results.

Evidence

What was it supposed to mean when Adorno emotionally emphasized that anyone wanting to treat people as if they were rational and human was contributing to the glorification of what was being done to them; that anyone objecting that empirical social research was too mechanical, too coarse and unintellectual was transferring these traits from the objects of sociology to sociology itself; and that the muchderided inhumanity of empirical methods was nevertheless more humane than the humanization of what was inhuman? Either the persons being investigated remained as objects, and even later on would be affected only as objects by the information gathered from the research and its application; in which case, the methods were not humane', and servitude was being perpetuated. Or, on the other hand, the persons being investigated might at least at some later point be given an opportunity to look at the results, as part of an educational process revealing connections that had been obscure to them themselves until then. Only in this case would Adorno's statement at the beginning of his lecture become more than mere empty words: We know that the people we concern ourselves with are still human beings, with the opportunity for free self-determination and spontaneity, even when they are involved in relations which are obscure even to themselves; and we know that it is this element of spontaneity and awareness that sets limits to the laws of numbers.’ — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1938

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes ‘administrative’ from genuinely humane empirical social research by whether subjects can later see and understand the results.
• DEEPTHINKING: A dense formulation of how methodology itself carries an ethical-political stance, resisting reduction to either pure method or pure critique.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1938