Young Habermas sought to recover science’s link to living practice, unlike his Frankfurt predecessors

Evidence

The critique of the sciences, a typically Habermasian theme, pervaded the whole introduction. The stimulus for this may have come from Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness, or from Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer’s essays, Traditional and Critical Theory' and The Latest Attack on Metaphysics’, were not known to Habermas at the time)or even from Heideggerbut the tone of his critique of the sciences was quite different from theirs. He did not take the view that theory' or thinking’ would lead to true knowledgein more or less stark contrast to bourgeois' science, or science that had forgotten Being’. Instead, he looked to the sciences themselves to recover their links with living, purposive practice. The impetus for this would come from a conservative' view of what science had once been: something in which, until the Middle Ages, directions for right living’ had been inherent in every statement. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2326

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Habermas’s later theory of communicative action and his ongoing departure from Horkheimer/Adorno’s critique of instrumental reason. — connects to: Habermas sought to recover science’s pre-medieval link to practical living — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2326; Habermas’s reformism looked realistic but science’s centrality made change less likely. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2745; Habermas linked student protest to recovering science’s emancipatory potential — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2613 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies Habermas’s distinctive early stance: science must recover its own practical roots rather than be opposed by ‘critical theory’.

Broader Connections

• Habermas linked student protest to recovering science’s emancipatory potential #exemplifies (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2613
• Habermas rejected the category of bourgeois science that his Frankfurt predecessors embraced #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2329
• Habermas’s reformism looked realistic but science’s centrality made change less likely. #qualifies (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2745