Why immanent critique?

Abstract

This article defends the principle, central to the Frankfurt School tradition of critical social theory, that social criticism should rely only on normative criteria that are "immanent" to the society under evaluation. My argument turns on the claim that a normative theory can have a practical aim that places legitimate constraints on its contents. For example, since the aim of advice is to contribute to the advisee's deliberation about what to do, a judgment about what someone should do is good advice only if that person could take it up in her own deliberation. I argue that there is a valuable kind of social criticism analogous to advice, which aims to contribute to the reflection of members of society on how to orient themselves practically to their social world. Drawing on the work of Bernard Williams, I suggest that concrete normative ideals can be so permeated by the needs, social relations, and concepts of one society that they are not real options in a sufficiently different social milieu. Because such criteria cannot serve as a genuine basis for practical orientation to the social world, they are ineligible for use in social criticism of this kind. | INTRODUCTIONNormative theories have a practical role to play in human life: we can use them to choose and assess our actions and social institutions. Some philosophers hold that the practical role of normative theories can provide, not just reason to construct them, but legitimate constraints on their contents. According to Bernard Williams, the practical role of ethical theory is to guide an agent's deliberation about how to live and her corresponding action. Since this role requires that the agent believe the theory, an adequate ethical theory cannot be self-effacing, cannot require one to disbelieve it, even if maintaining false ethical beliefs would have better consequences. 1 According to John Rawls, a theory of justice should provide "a mutually acceptable point of view from which citizens' claims… can be adjudicated" in the ideally just society it describes-a role which requires it to be held by, and guide the reasoning and

Human nature, history, and the limits of critique

“…As Sanford Diehl observes, however, this line of reasoning falls short of motivating immanence as a constraint on the theorizing of the social critic (Diehl, 2022, pp. 681–2).…”

“…Diehl goes on to make his own case for immanent critique, an alternative to the argument from self‐determination that finds some common ground with it (Diehl, 2022, p. 686). Diehl's argument turns on distinguishing the question, “How should I relate to my social world”?…”

“…26 26 It's also conflicts with the text: Diehl hopes to “remain agnostic about the relation between an agent's reasons and the considerations on which she could act” (Diehl, 2022, p. 687). …”

Pluralising critical technical practice

“…As indicated by the notion of ‘immanent critique’, critique can come from a surfacing of tensions within the conventions and assumptions of a community of practice (cf. Diehl, 2022). In the workshop we held with the contributors to this issue, we discussed the value of ‘critical proximity’ (Latour, 2005 in Madsen and Munk, 2019 ) for cooperative research design and tool development work, as a means of slowing down (cf.…”

Religion and Its Public Critics

“…3 Notice, however, that this understanding of immanent criticism is related to but differs from how it is used in the scholarly discourse of social criticism. Within social criticism, immanent critique is understood to be "very roughly, the evaluation of society according to criteria that are in some sense contained within it, rather than imposed from without" (Diehl 2021). An excellent exemplification and analysis of forms of immanent criticism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be found in Zackariasson (2020).…”