Bhaskar, immanent criticism, Adorno, Lukacs, Rockmore--oy!

[MSalter1@aol.com]

In a message dated 24/08/97 23:31:51 GMT, Gilles and Michael write:

Gilles, thanks for you responses. Rather boringly on my part I agree with you
on most significant points and am impressed with your concise manner of
expression. 
Would it be worth continuing this exchange trying to backtrack from
considering the criticisms that can be made of IC, to the rationale and
character of this CT "method" using specific examples? What do you and others
think? 

The only point I will take issue with you is re formalism.



MICHAEL<< >
 >My own question is what are the limits of, and difficulties for, the
 >dialectical strategy of immanent criticism, even within this apparently
 >fruitful sphere of application? 
 
 GILLES

In my own humble attempts at practising IC, it was the 'within' that 
 rapidly became problematic. Here I would tend to agree with Ralph's 
 suggestion that the principles of IC cannot be formulated and then 
 applied to a field (although I am aware that I have just had a bash at 
 writing just such a formulation. I have tried to avoid a 'model', 
 thinking rather of particular practices and where my own efforts led me, 
 but still, it is far too abstracted.). What I meant to suggest that one 
 of the 'difficulties' for such a practice of IC is precisely if it is 
 kept 'within'. The meta-reason for me, inevitably, being exactly that 
 antagonistic society. 
 
MICHAEL REPLIES 

Well I must admit to a feeling of being caught in a "catch 22" over this one.
I am basically a law teacher who practices IC of law in his teaching and
writing. On discussion lists that are theorist/theory specific, and on which
I know I might be the only one with a specifically legal interest, background
etc, I try - for good reasons I think - to avoid presupposing the
specifically legal material (despite the fact that my publications address IC
in terms of specific bits of law, legal doctrine, legal perspectives etc).   I
 appreciate that Gilles has not presupposed any background in art theory in
his posts, otherwise I too would have been excluded.  This means that my /
our comments tended to "come over" as abstractly methodological/model-based
etc, when - in realitry - the issues they are confronting arise from out of
an on-going interaction (or running dialectical confrontation) between the
theory of the practice, and the practice of the theory. Neither "moment" is
absolute, fixed, privleged etc. Hence my concrete interventions have included
the application of IC to both postmodern perspectives on human rights (1996)
and phenomenological research into crime and the legal process (1996) in
which the "model"/"method" of IC was used straightforwardly, i.e., more of
less unreflexively. This concrete aspect is a virtue but its lack of
reflexivity is a problem. Your objections have a validity in the context of
your experience of my postings on this medium, but they are frustrating for
me more generally. I would add that it is hard, if not impossible, to simply
practice IC without having some prior general idea of what it is that one is
aiming to do, that is non-specific. Yet I would also agree that IC - unlike
external criticism cannot be considered a self-sufficient extrinsic research
method whose validity can be established prior to questions of its
application, and feedback from its application. But that is what I am trying
to acheive. 

All the best
Michael