1) This is a thread on why it’s wrong for scientists etc. to treat ‘critical theory’ as a methodology in opposition to scientific methods. ‘Critical theory’ not not a methodology, and the people using it don’t think so either. Consider...
2) For one, most obviously, to the extent how one reads could be considered a methodology, ‘critical theory’ contains within it multiple and conflicting theories of how to read or how text or ‘cutlure’ convey meaning.
3) Two, it’s clear the people who think ‘critical theory’ is a (singular) methodology in conflict with science haven’t thought much about the question of how we can know something from reading. Seems a simple question at first, but challenges quickly pile up...
4) There’s no empirical test for the meaning of words, so we’re already beyond the reach of science to falsify *readings*. Scholars—including theorists—have fought for ages about whether we know meaning by assessing authorial background, historical context...
5) ...attending to ‘the text itself,’ or ‘mining’ the text for meaning or ideological import it was constructed to veil or hide (what is termed ‘suspicious reading’).
6) Lest anyone think this is just the faffing about of ‘theorists,’ analytic philosophy has taken up these questions as well, resulting in entire books. See, for example, the logician John Woods’s work on ‘the logic of fiction,’ or Kate Hamburger’s on ‘the logic of literature’...
7) ...both of which take their cues from the philosophy and logic of language. For people who actuallly think about this material, the quesiton of how we can know something from reading—how meaning happens between writers and readers—is a timeless question.
8) So when someone blithely suggests ‘critical theory’ is a methodology—as opposed to an amorphous grouping of different ways of approaching how we read texts and cultures—understand that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Understand further that...
9) ...even if ‘theory’ sounds highfalutin and superfluous, the open questions among and knowledge gaps between logic of language, logic of literature, logic of fiction, and linguistic science make theories of how reading —> meaning entirely reasonable and necessary.
10) Don’t be bullied or misled by someone whose worldview is too simplistic to accommodate the understanding that if you think for 30 secs about how we know what we know from reading—& ‘knowing’ isn’t simply reducible to brain function—the question is actually complicated. end/
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
