I n the preceding chapter I sought to show how critical theory arose out of
the philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment. This movement
attempted to implement politically the Platonic idea that knowledge eman-
cipates. Knowledge is here understood in a practical sense, incorporating both
the scientific discovery of technically useful causal laws and the philosophical
disclosure of moral principles. Together, these forms of practical knowledge
were supposed to spearhead progress in the attainment of freedom, justice,
and happiness.

The advocates of enlightenment felt optimistic about prospects for ra-
tional progress because they believed that moral theory was not a utopian
undertaking cut off from everyday practice. It was assumed that each indi-
vidual possessed the requisite mental faculties--reason and common sense--
by which insight into universal truths could be attained. However, the opti-
mistic belief that the theory/practice problem would be inevitably resolved in
the course of time foundered on a basic tension between science and philos-
ophy. Despite the seamless manner in which these two were often equated
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it became clear by the end of that
century that science and philosophy were not so easily reconcilable, after all.
For Kant, at least, moral philosophy presupposed the existence of a purely
rational form of freedom that transcended the mechanistic, spatio-temporal
world of science. Indeed, he found it necessary to limit critically the valid
use of scientific rationality to explain the possibility of moral freedom.

Kant's dualistic philosophy, which categorically distinguished the rational
from the empirical self, showed just how little the theory/practice problem
had been resolved. He and his followers in the German philosophical tradition
therefore turned to history to explain how a state of natural unfreedom and
individual self-interest could bring about a truly free, rational, and moral

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