Immanent kritik

Immanent kritik är en filosofisk och sociologisk strategi som analyserar sociala och kulturella former genom att identifiera immanenta motsättningar i det system i vilket formerna konstitueras. Immanent kritik har sina rötter i Hegels och särskilt Marx’ filosofi och är idag främst associerat med kritisk teori.

"Critical theory at its most abstract and general level ... begins as a formal 'negativity.' As a dissenting motif, it selects some tradition, ideological premise, or institutionalized orthodoxy for analysis. As immanent critique, it then 'enters its object,' so to speak, 'boring from within.' Provisionally accepting the methodological presuppositions, substantive premises, and truth-claims of orthodoxy as its own, immanent critique tests the postulates of orthodoxy by the latter's own standards of proof and accuracy. Upon 'entering' the theory, orthodoxy's premises and assertions are registered and certain strategic contradictions located. These contradictions are then developed according to their own logic, and at some point in this process of internal expansion, the one-sided proclamations of orthodoxy collapse as material instances and their contradictions are allowed to develop 'naturally.'" (David Harvey)