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establishing a rational unity between theory and practice. In the first place this applies to the idea that the critical theory derives from con-tradiction between what exists and what is possible, in terms of a reasonable optimality. Adorno expresses this viewpoint by stating thar theory »must dissolve the rigidity of the here and now hardened object in the tension between what is possible and what is real«.⁶⁵ Marcuse, describing critical theory as a project of historical practice,⁰⁶ also believes that it differs from other projects by its tendency to dev-elop that opportunity in which available social resources may be used »for the optimal development and satisfaction of individual needs and faculties with a minimum of toil and misery«.⁶⁷ The word project, which is also used by Sartre, must not be taken as a minutely elabor-ated technical plan. Horkheimer specifically warns against this.^6S Project is a conceptual and theoretical vision of a social order which is the negation of the established order. The explanation of the nega-tion also implies the possibility of a practical overcoming of the established form of society. Itself necessarily dialectical, the notion of project unifies the basie determinants of a futurę society, while draw-ing attention to probable contradictions in its implementation, with a frankness which would leave emancipated practice sufficient room for a creative resolution of various concrete problems, and would theore-tically make possible various historical concretizations of the basie concept. Thus conceived, theory corresponds to the classical concept of »instruction for action«. The negation of the existing form of society must arise within it and develop as its crisis worsens. We have seen that the theory’s role in this historical process consists in eman-cipating social forces which on account of their objective situation are a negation of the established form of society, and in freeing their creative potentials.

Habermas further develops this classical idea by stressing the fun-damental difference between technology and practice, these being essentially different methods of establishing the relationship between subject and object. In the briefest possible outlines, his standpoint consists of the folowing. In technology the relationship between subject and object is entirely an external one. A subject is interested only in that knowledge about the object which he expects will ensure his effective influence upon it - its change or control - in accordance with his own needs, interests and aims. The logie of technical knowledge and its use has developed almost to perfection in modern natural Sciences and in technology based upon them. However, as mentioned previously, technical knowledge has spread in recent decades to social Sciences as well, thus inereasing the possibilities and efficiency of ma-nipulating men and social groups. Practice is only possible among men, and relationship to naturę appears in it only after it had been

“ Th. W. Adorno, Soziologie und empirische Forschung«, p. 206.

** H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology of Advanccd In-dustrial Society (1964), Beacon Press, Boston, 1968, pp. XVI, 219-220.

" Ibid., p. XI.    .

^M »Philosophy is neither a tool nor a technical project. It can only suggest the path of progress as determined by logical and real necessities*. (M. Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason, [Serbo-Croatian translation] p. 145.)

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