Critical Thinking and the Question of Critique: Some Lessons from Deconstruction

This article provides some philosophical “groundwork” for contemporary debates about the status of the idea(l) of critical thinking. The major part of the article consists of a discussion of three conceptions of “criticality,” viz., critical dogmatism, transcendental critique (Karl-Otto Apel), and deconstruction (Jacques Derrida). It is shown that these conceptions not only differ in their answer to the question what it is “to be critical.” They also provide different justifications for critique and hence different answers to the question what gives each of them the “right” to be critical. It is argued that while transcendental critique is able to solve some of the problems of the dogmatic approach to criticality, deconstruction provides the most coherent and self-reflexive conception of critique. A crucial characteristic of the deconstructive style of critique is that this style is not motivated by the truth of the criterion (as in critical dogmatism) or by a certain conception of rationality (as in transcendental critique), but rather by a concern for justice. It is suggested that this concern should be central to any redescription of the idea(l) of critical thinking.