Krytyka krytyczności
Criticism of Criticism

Summary/Abstract: The article presents some critical thoughts on “critical thinking" and criticism as such. According to the author, in recent decades the very term has become so widely applied in various fields of intellectual and cultural activity that its basic meaning is now hard to establish. In general, it supports the “culture of argument" (D. Tannen) which is oriented towards confrontation and polemic, and not towards achieving consensus. The three areas in which the notions of criticism and critical thinking are being used with particular frequency are discussed: education, academic discourse and art&culture. In education, “critical thinking" is nothing more than a contemporary equivalent of traditional logical and rational argumentation, and therefore represents Western logocentrism. In academic discourse on the other hand it tends to be treated as a manifestation of an antilogocentric attitude (vide: discourse analysis and criticism, cultural criticism). Finally, such phenomena as “critical art" or “critical museum" are deeply rooted in the counter−culture movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and their political bias seriously weakens their creative potential.

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