The Verstehen method is insufficient for this task because it provides
no critical basis for rendering the nature of social life problematic.
Nor, since it merely assumes the objective necessity of a given social
reality, is the hypothetico-deductive method of natural science suitable.
What is required, Habermas argues, is a method that will liberate
individuals from the causal efficacy of those social processes that distort
communication and understanding and so allow them to engage in
the critical reconstruction of suppressed possibilities and desires for
emancipation. Following Marx, Habermas argues that the method
required for critical social science is that of critique. Marx had stated