ABSTRACT
The chapter begins with a recap of the specific problem elucidated in the previous Part, namely, that one can either establish a standard of ethical–political judgement that informs the ideal of “critical consciousness,” or one can undertake a rigorous, deconstructive “critique” (i.e., a “certain” critique), but one cannot simultaneously do both without contradiction. It then addresses the question of why critical theories that explicitly reject Kant’s metaphysics will still be caught in the Kantian net, notwithstanding disclaimers. The present chapter outlines the three distinct theoretical strategies in the field of critical political–educational theory that will be analyzed to bear out this claim. The chapter asserts that, regardless of whether one rejects the discourse of modernity (“anti-modern” strategies), one tries to salvage its emancipatory precepts in ‘post-metaphysical’ terms (“anti-postmodernism”) or one tries to find a middle way through (“neomodernism”), one will remain in the Kantian trap.
