ABSTRACT
Realists tend to think that realism is a natural human belief, that realist knowledge is a self-legitimating goal, and that the history of enlightenment is the history of the removal of adventitious and contingent obstacles to that goal. As such, for realists the history of science has its fascination, but is ultimately irrelevant to the understanding of the nature of knowledge itself. In their different ways both Foucault and Habermas espouse the autonomy of the natural sciences. The schism of fact and value, is not determined by historical necessity, it is derived from a misunderstanding of the proper autonomy of natural science. This autonomy has little to do with “knowledge”, and much to do with a highly specialized firm of practice which in itself is increasingly subject to technological and political interests, and therefore in the social sense increasingly “unfree”.
