SOURCE: "Habermas Talking: An Interview," in Theory and Society, No. 1, 1974, pp. 37-58.

In the following interview originally conducted in November, 1973, Habermas discusses the place of socio-political, Marxist, and psychoanalytic theories in his own linguistic and epistemological philosophy, addressing various critiques of his historical materialist analysis.

It was at Frankfurt University that Jürgen Habermas made his reputation as the new theoretical force continuing the tradition of the Horkheimer-Adorno-Marcuse brand of Critical Theory. It was also at Frankfurt that Habermas' popularity with the Left student movement changed dramatically from mutual support to bitter condemnation from many students. In recent years, owing to a combination of new trends in the German Left and also his own retreat into research work at Starnberg, Habermas has become more and more isolated from German Left activists. On the one hand, he is roundly (but unfairly) condemned as a "cop-out" by many elements of...