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Critique is amethod of disciplined, systematic study of a written or oraldiscourse. Although critique is frequently understood as fault finding and negative judgment,[1] it can also involve merit recognition, and in the philosophical tradition it also means a methodical practice of doubt.[1] The contemporary sense of critique has been largely influenced by theEnlightenment critique of prejudice and authority, which championed the emancipation and autonomy from religious and political authorities.[1]
The termcritique derives, via French, from the Greek wordκριτική (kritikē), meaning "the faculty of judging", that is, discerning the value of persons or things.[2] Critique is also known as majorlogic, as opposed to minorlogic ordialectics.[citation needed]
Philosophy is the application of critical thought,[3] and is the disciplined practice of processing thetheory/praxis problem. Inphilosophical contexts, such as law or academics, critique is most influenced byKant's use of the term to mean a reflective examination of the validity and limits of a human capacity or of a set of philosophical claims. This has been extended inmodern philosophy to mean a systematic inquiry into the conditions and consequences of aconcept, atheory, adiscipline, or an approach and/or attempt to understand the limitations andvalidity of that. Acritical perspective, in this sense, is the opposite of adogmatic one. Kant wrote:
We deal with a concept dogmatically ... if we consider it as contained under another concept of the object which constitutes a principle of reason and determine it in conformity with this. But we deal with it merely critically if we consider it only in reference to our cognitive faculties and consequently to the subjective conditions of thinking it, without undertaking to decide anything about its object.[4]
Later thinkers such asHegel used the word 'critique' in a broader way than Kant's sense of the word, to mean the systematic inquiry into the limits of adoctrine orset of concepts. This referential expansion led, for instance, to the formulation of the idea of social critique, such as arose afterKarl Marx's theoretical work delineated in hisA Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), which was a critique of the then-current models of economic theory and thought of that time. Further critique can then be applied after the fact, by using thorough critique as a basis for new argument. The idea ofcritique is elemental to legal, aesthetic, and literary theory and such practices, such as in the analysis and evaluation ofwritings such as pictorial, musical, or expanded textual works.[5]
In French, German, or Italian, no distinction is drawn between 'critique' and 'criticism': the two words both translate ascritique,Kritik, andcritica, respectively.[6] In the English language, according to philosopherGianni Vattimo,criticism is used more frequently to denoteliterary criticism orart criticism, that is, the interpretation and evaluation of literature and art; whilecritique may refer to more general and profound writing asKant'sCritique of Pure Reason.[6] Another proposed distinction is thatcritique is never personalized norad hominem, but is instead the analyses of the structure of the thought in the content of the item critiqued.[6] This analysis then offers by way of the critique method either a rebuttal or a suggestion of further expansion upon the problems presented by the topic of that specific written or oral argumentation. Even authors that believe there might be a distinction suggest that there is some ambiguity that is still unresolved.[6]
Marx's work inspired the 'Frankfurt School' ofcritical theory, now best exemplified in the work ofJürgen Habermas.[7] This, in turn, helped inspire thecultural studies form of social critique, which uses cultural products and their reception to record and inspire change regarding wider social ills such asracism orgender bias.[8] Social critique has been further extended in the work ofMichel Foucault[9] and of Catholic philosopherAlasdair MacIntyre.[10] In their different and radically contrasting ways, MacIntyre and Foucault go well beyond the original Kantian meaning of the termcritique in contesting legitimatory accounts of social power. Critique as critical theory has also led to the emergence ofcritical pedagogy, exemplified byPaulo Freire,bell hooks, and others.
Let us also remind ourselves of the fact that throughout the eighteenth century, which Kant, inCritique of Pure Reason, labeled "in especial degree, the age of criticism" and to which our use of "critique", today remains largely indebted, critique was above all critique of prejudice and established authority, and hence was intimately tied to a conception of the human being as capable of self-thinking, hence authonomous, and free from religious and political authorities.
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