Beyond ambiguity and ambivalence. Rethinking the tools of critique.

Autor/in	Anker, Elisabeth S.
Titel	Beyond ambiguity and ambivalence. Rethinking the tools of critique.
Quelle	In: On education, 3 (2020) 9, S. 1-7Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2571-7855
DOI	10.17899/on_ed.2020.9.7
Schlagwörter	Pädagogik; Kritisches Denken; Ethik; Ambiguität; Ambivalenz; Theoriebildung
Abstract	This essay analyzes the central architecture of critique. It argues that, across the humanities, critique has followed a uniform methodology, wherein qualities like ambiguity, ambivalence, uncertainty, contradiction, and paradox have represented the main tools of not only critique and unmasking but also disclosure and transformation. Within teaching philosophy, critique has thus done more than to politicize the classroom; it has also ingrained an equation between pedagogy and therapeutic witnessing or confessionalism. For many, qualities like ambiguity and uncertainty have furthermore been imagined to bear distinctly 'ethical' fruits. This essay questions these staples of pedagogical theory, in particular the redemptive faith that paradox and contradiction will prove inherently critical and/or progressive. It therefore historicizes the architecture of critique, submitting that among other things the contemporary political climate challenges unbridled faith in those qualities. And it instead promotes values like trust, integrity, clarity, and noncontradiction as the goals of a postcritical education.
Erfasst von	International Centre for Higher Education Research, Kassel
Update	2021/3