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Truth and Knowledge

K.Sri Ram

Assignment#6: The Empirico-Transcendental Conundrum in Habermas' Knowledge


and Human Interest
Word count: 1,4161
Foucault while talking about the history of knowledge credits Kant to
be the one who marks the turn in modern episteme that eventually lead to the opening up the
epistemic gap that gave rise to the idea of man being the subject of an empirico
transcendental doublet where man becomes both the knowing subject and object of human
knowledge . Moving away from the classical age, man no more remains at the locus or the
centre of human knowledge. This dethroning of man problematizes the position of man in the
modern episteme where man becomes the object of study of empirical sciences while
simultaneously being a transcendental subject who is the receiver of all such knowledge. The
analytic of finitude that Foucault talks about identifies man being limited by various forces
which also serve as possibilities for acquiring knowledge. This paradox adds on to the
predicament of man, whom with all his human limitations while being an object is also the
transcendental subject of knowledge. Foucault while setting the stage for the disappearance
of man which he refers to as the death of man puts forth the condition of man being caught
up in a vicious binary of being the empirical object and the transcendental subject of
knowledge in the modern episteme (Foucault 2005, 347-51).
Kant distinguishes apriori from aposteriory as forms of knowledge
where the subject is in brief, unable to access a thing in itself. The empirico transcendental
conundrum lies in Kants theory of knowledge where a synthesis happens between the subject
and the object that produces any kind of knowledge. Kant does not tackle the problem that
crops with self reflection where the subject reflecting upon his own consciousness becomes
the empirical object and a transcendental subject in the process. If one follows Kants idea
further, the reflecting subject will be caught in an infinite regress of subject object relations.2
In Hegels theory of knowledge, the notion of the mind perceiving
itself is referred to as self consciousness where the act of self reflection itself becomes a
transcendental experience. The subject and the object are constantly in a dialectical
1 Excluding all titles and references.
2 Dr.Michael Dusche, Lectures on Habermas.
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Truth and Knowledge

K.Sri Ram

relationship involved in a negation of the negation through which knowledge is produced.3


The observing consciousness of the human subject sublates itself in the act of self reflection
where the contemplating subject becomes transcendental and the subjects consciousness
becomes an empirical object of study. Hegelian notion of Geist as an alienated spirit can be
considered to be the transcendental subject which is not free from dialectical relationships but
is in the process of seeking freedom from it.
According to Habermas reading of Marx, Marx places reflection on
par with instrumental action. To Marx, reflection is conceived as a mode of production or
labour (Habermas 1972, 44).4 Marx inverts the Hegelian idea of Geist materialising itself in
nature and states that nature becomes aware of itself in man through the process of labour.
Man becomes the empirical site where nature manifests itself in the subjective nature of man.
Industry becomes the process of synthesis between man and nature through which knowledge
is produced. Marx calls labour a condition of human existence that is independent of all
forms of society, a perpetual necessity of nature in order to mediate the material exchange
between man and nature, in other words , human life (27). The transcendental view point of
manipulating nature through labour provides the ground for experience to be organized and
reality being objectified (44).Industry or in other words labour becomes the transcendental
subject in Marx where labour is historicised which is engaged with the manipulation of
instruments in nature, which is conceived to be having a particular teleology (27).
Comte proposes three stages in the history of knowledge which guides
his theory of knowledge by upholding the belief of positivist sciences that all knowledge can
be reduced to objective facts or empirical evidence (71). Perception and observation are the
basic methods of enquiry for gaining empirical knowledge of objects in the world. The
conundrum can be spotted in the positivist sciences which seek to define objects in the world
but get caught in the process as science itself needs to be defined in relation with the objects
of the world that it seeks to define (74). The field of phenomena becomes the object of study
for positivist sciences. The positivistic claim of universally putting the relative in place of
absolute in a way falls back to Kant as the guiding principle of positivist interpretation of
3 Manoj, Tutorial Lectures on Habermas.
4 In the remainder of the essay, all the page numbers referring to the text will be given in
brackets at the end of sentences.
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causal theories fall in to the realm of metaphysics as scientific knowledge is not the
knowledge of ultimate origins (75,78,79). The paradox with positivism is that only through
metaphysical concepts; positivism can make sense of itself (80). Habermas critique of
positivism is that its theories can be falsified as demonstrated by applying the theory to itself,
which fails in the case of positivism while seeking to copy reality (79, 87).
Following Comte, Mach looks at the subject as an object and rejects
the Hegelian notion of the self and the other where the world is conceived to be an infinite
proposition which can be tested by theory.5According to Mach, the objectivity of knowledge
cannot be understood from the perspective of the knowing subject but can only be derived
from the object domain (86). Habermas calls Machs project to be a copying process where
knowledge is produced through the synthesis between the perceiving objects and perceived
objects (87). Mach could not properly justify his theory concerning reflection that goes
beyond the realm of science, including itself (87). Mach says, Reflection can abolish itself
[] only by granting science a legitimate object domain (88). He suggests that a prior
knowledge is required for man to perceive science and in turn science is engaged in the
empirical study of man.
Peirces logic of inquiry is founded on the belief that by having enough
information and exerting adequate thought, one can arrive at a definite conclusion like any
other would under favourable conditions. He combines realism with transcendental
philosophy and turns it in to the inquiry of logic (111). Peirce says [] every question [has]
a true answer, a final conclusion, to which the opinion of every man is constantly gravitating
(93). The conundrum in Peirce lies in his proposition that knowledge is grounded in the way
of life. As opposed to Positivism, Pierces logic of inquiry falls between formal and
transcendental logic while trying to extend the structure of logic to knowledge under
empirical conditions (94). This implies that knowledge as a description of reality cannot be
detached from the knowing subject. Reality itself becomes a transcendental concept where it
can exist independent of actual knowing (95). He employs three types of logical inferences
namely induction, deduction and abduction as types of logical inquiry and states that the
beginning and ending of the chain of reasoning cannot be clearly perceived. He says, There
are neither fundamental propositions that qualify as principles once and for all, without being
justified by other propositions that are immediately certain and unaffected by our
5 Dr.Michael Dusche, Lectures on Habermas.
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interpretations (97). This is the conundrum in Pierce where no matter how far one retraces
ones inferences, one remains caught in the compass of interpretations (98). Similarly the
conundrum in Konrad Lorenzs evolutionary epistemology can be spotted, where man
perceives nature through evolution and nature manifests itself in the site of man where man
becomes the transcendental subject.
In Diltheys theory of understanding expression, he classifies
hermeneutic understanding in to three classes of life expressions among which linguistic
expression can be totally detached from real life context (163). The vicious empirico
transcendental circle in Dilthey can be recognised when he says that the dilemma of cultural
sciences is due to the hermeneutic circle that designates cultural sciences (171). The analysis
between symbols and objects uses metalinguistic statements to describe an object language.
But these linguistic objects can also be viewed as experiential data which gives the objects
held by cultural sciences a double status (171). The circular development while combining
linguistic analysis with experience, the interpretive process involved would be caught in a
vicious circle (171). Man gets caught between the disciplines of culture sciences and natural
sciences in a hermeneutic circle while trying to arrive at an understanding or consensus.6

Bibliography:
Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things. Routledge, 2005.
Habermas, Jurgen. Knowledge and Human Interests. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972.
Dusche, Michael. Lecture notes. 2014.

6 Ibid.
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