Constructive Criticism: The Human Sciences in the Age of Theory ed. by Martin Kreiswirth, Thomas Carmichael

Abstract

Màrtiri Kreiswirth ànd Thomas Carmichael, eds. Constructive Criticism: The Human Sciences in theAge o f Theory. Toronto: U ofToronto P, 1995". Pp. 223 + viii. $43.00 paper, $17.93 paper. The turns and returns o f th eory seem to teach that criticism should be con ­ structive and (thus) that destruction is not enough. D econstruction, w hich D errida brought to N orth A m erica and w hich de M an m ade the dom inant m ode o f th eory there for about a decade, suggests som ething m ore than H eidegger’s d estru ction w h ile indicating that con struction cannot occu r w ith ou t a certain am ount o f d estruction. Paradoxically, the skepticism o f the pre-Socratics and the rh etorical turn o f the Sophists found a kind o f ricorso in deconstruction. The return to skepticism and rhetoric represents, in the 1960s, a blatant, and perhaps necessary, challenge to Plato’s essential, ideal and logocentric view o f philosophy. D econstruction, philosophy that aspired to the condition o f literature in D errid a’s case and criticism that aspired to philosophy in de M an ’s, questioned the received w isdom o f a W estern philosoph ical tradition, w hich, in an anecdote, had been called a footn ote to Plato. That A ristotle had challenged his teacher, that Sidn ey reshaped A ristotle to give p oetics a higher place, that Shelley rew orked n eo-Platon ism , is som etim es forgotten, but the challenge o f d eco n stru c­ tion, although rooted in antiquity, happens in a new context— the up h eav­ als o f the 1960s. A n o th er crisis in m im esis o r rep resen tatio n is upon us. E ach crisis respon d s to new historical circu m stan ces. H ow texts relate to a changing w orld, w here w riters and readers face each oth er across a m utable rh eto ri­ cal abyss, becom es dram atic in each age becau se even if that period denies its ow n im portance, it reads and lives everyth in g from the present. Even in the nam e o f h isto ry a certain p resentism represen ts itself as if to erase the traces o f history that efface h om ologies in the guise o f difference. It is possible to be skeptical abou t a skepticism that calls itself new as a m eans o f effacin g its ow n gen ealogy in order to cou n ter a tradition it w ishes to oppose. A s present th eory declares its m om ent, as an avant-garde, it has little regard for history, o r any h istorical cu rren ts that do not su pp ort its prem ise, or any utopian p review that does not provide for the m om ent from w hich it rejects and projects. This m oving rhetorical now is skeptical o f all things except itself even as it speaks abou t its skepticism o f itself. In this b rief response, I can on ly hint at the issues that these essays raise, especially in the em phasis on the op p osition betw een rhetoric and p hilosoph ical truth that resides in the rebarbative notion o f represen ta270 IHart tion. Constructive Criticism is a collection o f essays that tries to com e to term s w ith recent changes in critical theory. The title echoes and addresses deconstru ction, but the b o ok also calls attention to cultural, postcolonial, fem inist, gay and lesbian critiques, theoretical m ovem ents that have gath ­ ered m om entum since the late sixties. The editors structure the collection along the lines o f several p ro b lem atics— th eorists, theory, representation and situation. The essays on theorists exam ine the follow ing specific issues: D oes the later Foucault stay w ith a rad ical skeptical view o f truth or is...