Reason and the emancipation of society: a study on jürgen Hebermas and the theory of knowledge in critical theory

Abstract

ABSTRACT The subject-matter of this study is the idea of epistemology as social theory as it is presented and developed by Jurgen Habermas, who is the most prominent member of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and a leading figure in contemporary philosophical and sociological thinking. In Habermas* account of epistemology, it is argued that epistemology should be reconstructed as to cover and explain the formation of knowledge and the establishment of society; the former shapes the object- domain of the theory of knowledge and the latter is the abject of any social theory. So Habermas joins epistemology with sociological theory. This approach is inherent in the philosophy of Enlightenment and enriched by the epistemology of critical theory which was constituted by the older members of the School (Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse). Epistemology as social theory grasps itself as the theory of emancipation in which the concept of reason is the basic category of the possibility of emancipation. Eeason is the medium by which the nature of emancipation can be investigated in order to have the real conditions of a good and just society and this is the telos of the epistemology as critical theory conceives it.