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kind of opposition from outdated, narrow and one-sided standpoints. The process of cognition entails real historical-will and action just as much as acąuisition of experience and comprehension«.⁹

On the basis of what has been said, we can morę clearly distinguish the roots of differences between the critical and the other systematic social theories. They arise first of all from the inclusion of a basie practical standpoint into the theory itself. Although it is not and can-not be fixed and static, this basie practical standpoint Controls theo-retical activity and approach to contemporary social conditions. Theory, as is usually described by Sartre and Marcuse, is conceptual project of practice and not an aggregate of morę or less systematized knowledge about existing relationships in reality, which permits to anticipate with some accuracy the effects of various kinds of practical interference, but theoretical knowledge is of an instrumental character on the basis of which one cannot conclude what is to be done. Since the critical theory aspires towards a unity with practice, it includes the »ought to«. It is superfluous to try and explain that instrumental-technical knowledge is necessary in discussing any goal, particularly the way of attaining it, but in selecting an aim and a technical pro-ceeding, it is essential to have a basie practical interest built into the critical theory; it directs the further development of technical knowledge. A historical and comprehensive approach to current social issues is indispensable in any theoretical thought aspiring to be an idea behind a morę generał practical concept rather than an efficient executor of practical undertakings. Any comprehensive conception of practice contains some of the morę generał and enduring practical interests. Hence the results of particular acts cannot be assessed unless viewed within the framework of generał aspirations of the practical conception, all the morę so sińce the available resources are always limited and the results of particular actions are as a rule morę com-prehensive than what was originally meant to achieve. In the contemporary society, whose various sectors are closely related and where social decision-making is morę and morę centralized, the diffusion of the effects of acts in one sector into many other fields of social life is becoming morę widespread, rapid and important.Viewed in an instrumental-technical sense, and not as the realization of a rational interest in a juster and freer society, the comprehensiveness of the approach to the contemporary society is not peculiar to critical theory. Various contemporary global sociological theories, built up on various assumptions on the naturę of society and directly (or morę indirectly) related to various generał practical interests and standpoints, are also based upon a comprehensive methodological approach. It is necessary to bear this in mind sińce the critical analysis of the contemporary sociology still only see in it a fragmentary empiricism. Horkheimer and Adorno rightly pointed out in the 'fifties that this empiricism impoverishes the concept of society, that by limiting itself to a technical implementation of various social actions it feels no need to comprehend them in terms of a social totality and becomes a »socio-

• M. Horkheimer, »Zum Problem der WahrheiU, Zeitschrifl fur Sozialforschung, Jhrg. IV (1935), H. 3, p. 338.

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