Critique as a Political Practice of Freedom

Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 2011

The relationship between critique and power is controversial in both society and sociology. Instead of setting a normative yardstick of critique, the article looks to conceptualize the intimate relationship between critique and power based on the observation that both are often displaced in processes of major social change, not least in the recent decades' reversal of hierarchy. The article conceptualizes the main idea about displacement of critique and power on the basis of what Foucault terms the 'tactical polyvalence of discourse' and similar ideas from the governmentality lectures. The argument is further developed in a discussion with Boltanski and Chiapello's work on the new spirit of capitalism. The discussion illustrates how effective critiques of power often turn the inside out of normative ideas about conduct or management, which is exemplified in the movement from anti-authoritarian critiques of hierarchy after 1968 to new and flexible forms of government.

For some time now, a certain strand of contemporary critical theory has understood its task not in terms of providing a substantive critique of real world power relations, let alone an alternative normative conception of what social relations might be, but of how to justify critique as such: how to " justify those elements which critique owes to its philosophical origins " (Habermas), albeit in a nonfoundationalist manner. This focus on —if not obsession with—the theoretical problem of how to ground one's own critique arose largely as an intervention into the now longstanding debate over positivism and scientism in figurations of the relation between theory and practice. As important as this intervention has been for exposing the dangers of, and social/political philosophy's implication in, a purely technocratic order, it has not been without cost to the very idea of critique itself: the crucial connection between critique and social/political transformation. Seyla Benhabib has characterized the two tasks of critical theory as " explanatory-diagnostic " and " anticipatory-utopian. " In this seminar we explore what each of these tasks might be and how they are connected in various understandings of critique. Central to our discussions will be: (1) an examination of how critique can become moralistic, unrealistic, and apolitical; (2) how this apolitical idea of critique fails to fulfill the task of critically analyzing our current social and political predicament; and (3) what it would mean to figure and practice both tasks of critique in a " realistic spirit. " How might we rethink critique by means of its capacity to posit " new forms/figures of the thinkable " (Castoriadis) that remain connected to the contingent and limited realities of politics? Required Texts: With the exception of the following books, all readings (and some recommended readings) are on CHALK. The books are available on Amazon.com.

Critique, like truth, is a thing of this world; it is a concrete social phenomenon with a distinctive history, enacted in particular contexts with specific consequences. Rather than using critique as a method, our point of departure is to take critique as discourse, that is, as a way of producing truth in Foucault’s sense. Yet, paradoxically, the principle ‘truth-effect’ of critique is to undermine other ‘truths’ and render them as ideology or as the mere consequences of ‘real factors’ – for instance, biology, economics, power and other abstract forces. The possibility of the sociology of critique is first raised by the work of Boltanski; after engaging with his work, and suggesting that a Foucauldian approach is more fruitful, this book develops an alternative in three parts. First of all, there is a theoretical section containing an anthropological diagnosis of critique as emerging from liminality, motivated by imitative rivalry and reflecting a ‘trickster’ logic; a historical theoreticisation of critique as emergent from crisis, an outline genealogy of critique and a discussion of the ‘critical society’, and finally a discussion of the formation of critical subjectivity which introduces a gnomonic model of subjectivity. The middle section of the book applies this conception of critique to the public sphere, economics and politics, with case studies of print-media, stand-up comedy, advertising, political activism and liberalism. The final part of the book turns to literary sources, Wordsworth, Blake, Austen and Orwell, who I interpret as having engaged with critique in their work and provided important representations of critique as a social phenomenon.

Since the Enlightenment critique has played an overarching role in how western society understands itself and its basic institutions. However, opinions differ widely concerning the understanding and evaluation of critique. To understand such differences and clarify a viable understanding of critique, the article turns to Kant’s critical philosophy, inaugurating the “age of criticism”. While generalizing and making critique unavoidable, Kant coins an unambiguously positive understanding of critique as an affirmative, immanent activity. Not only does this positive conception prevail in the critique of pure and practical reason and the critique of judgment; these modalities of critique set the agenda for three major strands of critique in contemporary thought, culminating in among others Husserl, Popper Habermas, Honneth, and Foucault. Critique affirms and challenges cognition and its rationality, formulates ethical ideals that regulate social interaction, and further articulates normative guidelines underway in the on-going experimentations of a post-natural history of human nature. In contradistinction to esoteric Platonic theory, philosophy at the threshold of modernity becomes closely linked to an outward-looking critique that examines and pictures what human forms of life are in the process of making of themselves and challenges them, by reflecting upon what they can and what they should make of themselves. As a very widely diffused practice, however, critique may also become a self-affirming overarching end in itself. Key words: Affirmative critique, judgment, distinction, philosophy, reason, Enlightenment, Man, anthropology, Kant, Heidegger, Habermas, Foucault, Schlegel, Plato The article Raffnsøe: "What is Critique? Critical Turns in the Age of Criticism" has been published in Outlines. Critical Practice Studies here: http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/outlines/article/view/26261

Revista de Filosofía, 2024

The article commemorates the fortieth anniversary of Foucault's death with a question about critique and freedom. It shows the displacement he makes from the question of the will not to be governed by the prevailing knowledge and powers, to a more experiential place of resistance: the care of oneself. The hypothesis is that Foucault with this displacement justifies that which should be the object of his critique: the liberal government that needs to incessantly produce freedom, and in the self finds a whole world of production of abstract freedoms that are more manageable and less costly than the concrete ones of law. Education, which was a condition of possibility for the historical construction of criticism and freedom, is today a device for managing, with knowledge such as psychology and pedagogy, this inner world. However, the result is not that of freer and more critical people, but, on the contrary, people who enter a terrain of voluntary psychopalologization, that is, who are more docile to conduct their behavior. Nevertheless, to commemorate Foucault's death is to still find in him the tools to begin again to make the critique of this new "psycho-mania".

2021

Critique can be defined as disciplinary feedback, analysis, or assessment provided to an individual or within a group, be it a classroom or a team. At a fundamental level, it is an exchange of ideas, impressions, evaluations, opinions, reflections, judgments, speculations, or suggestions to oneself or between two or more participants in a defined context. Scholars describe critique as a signature pedagogy in many disciplines, a cornerstone of the educational experience. There has been scant critical analysis of how critique also represents a performance of power with roots in positions of authority, expertise, or assigned roles. Such power dynamics have been explored in some areas within SoTL, for example in scholarship on assessment, epistemic disobedience, social justice, feminist pedagogies, and critical race theory. However, this has not been the case generally within the scholarship on critique. To better understand the dimensions of power in the context of critique we develope...

Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Essex; Timo Jütten, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Essex; Jörg Schaub, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Essex.

Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique, 2011

On the political implications of characterising critique as improvisation. I engage with Foucault’s work on the genealogical critique of power (where he initially hesitates to propose a political philosophy of ethics) in relationship to his later work on askesis, in which he treats the ethical practice of self-constitution. Published in: Manifestos for World Thought Edited by Lucian Stone and Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2018.