ABSTRACT
This chapter indicates – even if by way of brief allusion – selected examples of the contingencies that crystallised definitions of modern critique as judgement. It opens with a glimpse of the genealogy of modern critique, emphasising its emergence as authoritative judgement. Etymologically, ‘criticism’, ‘crisis’, and ‘critique’ relate to the Greek word krinein which is associated with images of judgement (judge, judging), but also with deciding, separating out, discerning, selecting, differentiating, sifting and so on. Initially, in early medical arenas, conceptions of critique were closely associated with notions of Krises, involving the art of diagnosing crisis stages in the development of a given illness. In the process, early etymological traces of Krinein as dividing, differentiation, separation, etc., were sidelined, discarded, or erased. Images of critique as judgement were evident in Renaissance juridical and philological decision-making, and existed – albeit alongside other images of critique – in Bayle’s influential work.
