ABSTRACT
What does making a critique depend on? How can it be claimed that one form of social organization or practice is better than another? No research will ever be able to answer these questions unless there is some criterion or criteria by which judgements can be made. Do such criteria exist? In the real contexts of social action there are multiple perspectives and differences in beliefs, values, faiths and what counts as ‘truth’ and the nature of ‘reality’. Different cultures, different faiths, different ways of perceiving the world lead to disputes and disagreements. A common law, perhaps, can settle such conflicts. But in terms of research, how are laws themselves evaluated? The law in one place and one historical period may bear little relation to the law in another time and territory. Yet, in making their justifications, in calling one thing unfair or another ‘good’, the strategy employed makes claims that go beyond immediate contexts and circumstances. Critical research begins with the multiplicities of claims that are made. But if it is to provide more than conceptual analysis of the accounts made by different protagonists, it too must appeal to some ‘transcendental’, that is, some criterion that is capable of calling the difference between the just and the unjust regardless of circumstances and contexts.
