This investigation aims to analyze the type “bourgeois public sphere.” Its particular approach is required, to begin with, by the difficulties specific to an object whose complexity precludes exclusive reliance on the specialized methods of a single discipline.

Here, Habermas explains his particular methodology, which he feels is justified by the unique nature of the concept he is studying. As the public sphere is both a social reality with a history, and a theoretical concept, he needs to use tools taken form political theory, sociology, and history to examine it.