Must Criticism be constructive?

Notions of 'criticism' seem to play an important role in social life — the criticism of policies and institutions — in informal social interaction — the criticism of the way in which particular people behave in particular circumstances — in 'science' (broadly construed)— the criticism of theories — and also in the arts. We seem, however, to have two competing but equally strong intuitions about 'criticism'. On the one hand, criticism seems to consist simply in pointing out what is wrong with a certain belief, institution, practice, action, etc. and the notion of 'wrong' seems to refer to some defect that deserves condemnation on its own terms. On the other hand, it seems that the very idea of showing that something is 'wrong' (in whatever way and for whatever reason) tacitly implies some grasp on the idea of what it would be to get the matter at issue 'right'. From this second intuition some want to derive the claim that criticism cannot be merely negative or 'destructive', but must in some sense presuppose at least a minimal grasp of some positive alternative to the thing criticised. This working conference is intended to explore these issues philosophically, but with some attention to issues of the sociology and politics of criticism