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logy, socially indispensable illusion, an external faęade concealing real social relationships and obscuring the possibilities of progress. A critical exposure of ideology is an essential prerequisite for objec-tivc scientific experience, whereas the restriction of science to its neutral description is tantamount to maintaining an illusion. It is sub-sequently concretized in the criticisms of descriptive surveys of public opinion and of the effect of the media of mass communication, which at best provide data on subjective conceptions and effects of the men-tioned media, but failing to show the extent to which certain objective contents of social life are inadequately and falsely expressed within subjective notions and attitudes and what was responsible for these deformations. In studying the effects of fhe media of mass communication, the objectivity of information is very rarely examined, and so is the artistic or scientific value of the content of culture which they transmit. Adorno’s criticism of the sociology of arts being restricted to a study of how works of art are accepted and experienced, excluding the examination of the internal structure of works of art, their social content and artistic quality, demonstrates the extent to which the desi-re to increase the efficiency of different institutions in the established society (in this case the media of mass communication) restricts the framework of those sociological disciplines where this would be least expected.^83a This restrictive approach also implies a diminished objec-tivity of experience, sińce for the sake of practical interest the exami-nation of many essential features of the phenomena under scrutiny is simply withheld. Objectivity, namely, is not dependent merely on formal and technical research proceedings, but is likewise influenced by the naturę of the cognitive interest contained in the aims of the investigation.

In recent times Habermas has trying to complement this basie ideo-logical-critical approach in creating scientific experience about society with a hermeneutical approach, i. e. by examining subjective and objective meanings contained in individual and collective behaviour

and interpretation of reality.⁸⁴

An ideological-critical approach in creating scientific experience about society in order to penetrate behind its ideological faęade is cer-tainly a prerequisite for an objective theoretical explanation of the existing social conditions. As we have seen earlier, this does not ex-haust the scope of the critical theory. It is directed toward a futurę which is different from the present. Theory in the existing society is designed to reveal the possibilities of its radical change. For thi$ reason the critical theory, whether it is regarded as a project of pracuś Th. W. Adomo, Ohne Leiłbild - Parva Aesthetica, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1967, pp. 94-103.

•* Already in his artide. -Analytische Wissenschaftstheorie und Dialektik«, Habermas strongly emphasized the importance of a hermeneutical procedurę in the creation of a scientific experience about society. In his later books, Zur Eogik “^cr Sozialnrusenschaften, J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Tubingen, 1967, and Erkenni-nu und Interetse, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M., 1968, the study of hcrmencutics m the contemporary methodology of social Sciences and in the past, especially witn Dilthey and Freud, was given a very orominent place.

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