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to the question what enlightenment is. Critical reason acquires ascen-dancy over incarnated dogmatism just because it understood the will to reason as it own interest«.⁴⁵ Just because the craving for autonomy and maturity of the individual occurs in conflict with the existing social situation and the ideology which justifies it, it is inseparable from a new and broader feeling of human solidarity and justice. »Reason is undoubtedly equated with talent for maturity and with ability to feel the evils of this world. It is always passionately interest-ed in justice, well-being and peace; dogmatism is opposed by a reso-lute reason.«⁴⁶ This is why, Habermas says, traditional philosophy views reason within the spontaneous experience of the individual, un-covering in him the spontaneity of hope, the holding of an opinion, the evaluation of pertinence or irrelevancy of some contents of ex-perience, sensitivity to injusticye and oppression, affective craving for personal maturity, emancipation and happiness because of discovcred identity.⁴⁷ In this interpretation of philosophical tradition, reason is understood as self-conscieousness, a free rational view of life expe-rience in which the theoretical and practical aspects are united, wi-thout, at least ideally, either of them being permanently subordinated to the other, for rational thought aspires to realization, and practical interest develops into rational attitude to life. The interpretation also holds the view that this conception of reason is very closely related to the idea of historical progress.

It is not essential to test the validity of the above-mentioned inter-pretations of reason in the tradition of philosophical and socio-poli-tical thought from the standpoint of history of ideas and sociology of knowledge. It is certain that it contains elements of idealization, because the historically changeable content of such generał concepts as freedom, justice, solidarity, maturity, etc. is not madę sufficiently evi-dent. Two other things appear to be much morę important. (1) A de-terminate approach to the past and cultural tradition, as indispensable bases for contemporary critical thought. The latter, namely, relies upon consciously established progressive social aspirations of the past and their thought, and not upon an abstract past and theoretically vague tradition of class, nation, culture. It is obvious that these concepts, especially those of nation and culture, are replete with highly controversial socio-historical contents, that any reference to a generał, historically rather undeterminate tradition is highly questionable, and that such an undifferentiated attitude to the past most frequently en-courages conservative and reactionary tendencies at the present time.⁴⁸

⁴⁵ J. Habermas, 7heorie und Praxis, p. 235.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 235.

⁴⁷    Ibid., p. 239.

⁴⁸    Thus, for example, the nationalist slogan about respect for one’s own people, as a prerequisite for the respect of other nations, in practice turns into its own opposite: an uncritical view of the past of one’s own nation - without a rational distinction between what was progressive in one’s past and approached the pro-gressive aspirations of other nations at that time, and that which once meant rc-gression and resistance to progress and conseąuently deserves no respect but only an objective explanation and contempt - creates a very convenient ground for fic-tions and illusions about the exceptional value of one’s own nation, bv a fanciful embellishment of its past, by an exaggeration and overestimation of its characte-

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