2023/04/28 by Jurgen Habermas
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Economic Theory and Institutions
paper · doi:10.4324/9781003320609-36
openalex publication_date 2023/04/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16
Historicism has broken the natural-traditional validity of action-orienting value systems. Today, the self-understanding of social groups and their worldview as articulated in ordinary language is mediated by the hermeneutic appropriation of traditions as traditions. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in Humboldt’s time, it was still impossible, looking at Germany, to conceive of the scientific transformation of social life. Thus, the university reformers did not have to break seriously with the tradition of practical philosophy. For the techniques with which the development of a highly industrialized society could be brought under control can no longer be interpreted according to an instrumental model, as though appropriate means were being organized for the realization of goals that are either presupposed without discussion or clarified through communication. Today, in the industrially most advanced systems, an energetic attempt must be made consciously to take in hand the mediation between technical progress and the conduct of life in the major industrial societies.