Habermas argued that only self-reflective radicalization of each science can recover theory’s practical roots.

Evidence

In this study Habermas could only answer the question of how to achieve a recovery of the living, purposive relation to practice in the sciences themselves by using an Adornoesque motif: radicalizing specialization to the point of self-reflection. Every specialized science must reflect on its fundamental principles and at the same time on its relation to social reality. Such self-reflection must reveal the hidden practical roots of pure theory' and grasp the fact that a theory reconciled to practice must not let itself be satisfied with practicability’. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 574

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains Habermas’s Adorno-derived formula — radicalizing specialization to the point of self-reflection — which is a key conceptual term in the Frankfurt method.
• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s own insistence that immanent critique radicalize a discipline from within, rather than importing external standards.