Radicalized self-reflection can reveal the hidden practical roots of pure theory

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, 2328

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures Habermas’s early methodological program: each specialized science must self-reflect on its principles and social relation.
• XREF: This anticipates Habermas’s later theory of knowledge-constitutive interests (Erkenntnisinteresse). — connects to: Recovering theory’s independence serves practice’s own interest — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2531; Reflection deepens the reflective-reflected split beyond self-consciousness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 802; Self-belief arrives only through organized struggle combining action and reflection — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 162 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Reflection deepens the reflective-reflected split beyond self-consciousness #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 802
• Self-belief arrives only through organized struggle combining action and reflection #expands (0.72) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 162
• Methodological self-consciousness frees scholars from inherited ideological frameworks #corroborates (0.70) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 827