What is Criticism?

What is and why do we offer criticism? The question about the conditions and the possibility of criticism arises every time conditions are analysed and evaluated, whether it be societal conditions and institutions, self-relations or objects of art. Therefore, criticism is a constitutive component of human practice: Action is based on normative differentiations and thus on the possibility of criticism.

But what is the nature of the ciritical endeavour? How does the relationship of analysis and evaluation manifest itself in different practices of criticism and how must the standards be designated that allow the critic to call any given situation wrong, bad, inappropriate or deficient? The contributions contained in this volume give answers to these questions from different perspectives.

With contributions by:
Judith Butler, Maeve Cooke, Rahel Jaeggi, Tilo Wesche, Hartmut Rosa, Ruth Sonderegger, Rainer Forst, Luc Boltanski / Axel Honneth, Rüdiger Bittner, Raymond Geuss, Martin Saar, Joachim Küchenhoff, Emil Angehrn, Günter Figal and Michael Hampe