Defending Immanent Critique

Date01 October 2010
DOI10.1177/0090591710372864
Published date01 October 2010
Subject MatterArticles
Political Theory
38(5) 684 –711
© 2010 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0090591710372864
http://ptx.sagepub.com
Defending Immanent
Critique
Dan Sabia1
Abstract
This article develops, illustrates, and defends a conception of immanent
critique. Immanent critique is construed as a form of hermeneutical practice
and second-order political and normative criticism. The common charge
that immanent critique is a form of philosophical conventionalism necessarily
committed to value relativism and to the rejection of transcultural and
cosmopolitan norms is denied. But immanent critique insists that meaningful
and potentially efficacious criticism must be connected to relevant criteria and
understandings internal to the culture or social order at which the criticism
is directed. The complaint that this demand will likely limit political and moral
criticism is also denied, and the ability of immanent critique to develop from
convention unconventional thinking is defended and demonstrated.
Keywords
immanent critique, immanent criticism, hermeneutics, social change,
conventionalism, human rights, slavery
Introduction
This article offers both a particular account and a general defense of imma-
nent critique. I say a particular account because immanent critique is actually
best construed as a family of philosophical–hermeneutical practices bearing
a complex lineage and associations with a wide variety of moral and politi-
cal projects and thinkers. Hence my account is a particular construction, or
1University of South Carolina, Columbia
Corresponding Author:
Dan Sabia, Gambrel Hall, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208
Email: sabiad@mailbox.sc.edu
Sabia 685
reconstruction, that aims to capture the essential features of this family of
practices while immunizing it against common criticisms. What the members
of the family share in common is an interest in the critical evaluation of prac-
tical norms and social practices internal to some society or culture, together
with the conviction that this requires assessing the rationality or worth of
those conventional norms and practices by drawing on resources internal to
the society or culture of which they are a part. As such, immanent critique
works as a form of interpretation traceable to Herder and Hegel, if not to
Aristotle.1 Well-known examples of contemporary moral and political theo-
rists who have deployed versions of the approach include Walzer, Williams,
MacIntyre, Taylor, and the later John Rawls.2
Common criticisms of immanent critique are these: that it is a form of
conventionalism and, therefore, committed to relativism; that it is inherently
conservative; and that it is subjective, and its results characteristically under-
determined. Against the first charge, I shall argue that immanent critique is
the best antidote to conventionalism because its practice demonstrates that no
conventional norms or practices are beyond question and challenge. Against
the second charge, I will contend that immanent critique is compatible with
and open to the possibility of transcultural and cosmopolitan norms, though
it rightly assumes that all such norms require cultural translation and ground-
ing in order to gain local authority and substantive bite. Against the third
criticism, I will show that the approach is not necessarily, or even character-
istically, conservative, and I shall do so, in part, by distinguishing between
first-order immanent criticism and second-order immanent critique. Against
the final charge, I intend to admit that underdetermination, and that some-
thing like subjectivity, are characteristic features of the approach, but I shall
refuse to see this as a theoretical problem. Underdetermination seems to me
inevitable, a reflection or result of the human condition and not of the
approach, and it should lead theorists, on the one side, to recognize and
respect human diversity and, on the other, to admit to the role of power, and
thus to tragedy or loss, in political and social life.
Criticisms of Immanent Criticism
There are always immanent in cultures and traditions, and in social practices
and institutions, a variety of conceptual presuppositions and assumptions, and
factual beliefs and normative claims, at least some of which are more or less
understood and accepted by the members of those cultures, or by the partici-
pants in those practices. Consider for instance electoral practices in the United
States. Inherent in these practices are assumptions about the meanings and

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