The Origins of Critique

As the first instalment in the genealogy of critique, this chapter focuses on the origins of critique. It follows Giorgio Agamben’s approach arguing that origin is not a particular empirical occurrence that can be identified with a single chronological period and that comes to pass becoming obsolete. Instead, it presents the origin of critique as an imperative, that is, as the principle that determines the conceptualisations and the empirical expressions of the idea of critique to this day. Employing this notion of origin as a means of the sorting out of different critical traits, it uproots critique from the sphere of law which is, all too often, assumed to be the primary source of its modus operandi and the originary domain of its application. The chapter positions critique in a semantic nexus of truth and governance and, drawing on Michel Foucault’s writings on the ancient practice of the care of oneself and others, demonstrates that the emergence of the critical self is the condition of possibility of critique. It concludes by elucidating the dual use of critique as the mechanism of the preservation of the status quo and of its disruption.