Is Immanent Critique Possible?

Abstract Our social world is governed by norms. But do we have reason to follow them? On the one hand, critical theorists deny this: just because gendered norms tell women to cook and racialized people to serve does not mean that they should. On the other, critical theory relies on immanent critique. Recent literature on what it means for social critique to be immanent collapses the answers to a metanormative and a social ontological question. I call this the ‘collapse assumption’: a putative normative standard acquires normative authority for those engaged in a social practice via being suitably embedded in that practice. However, on this understanding, critical theorists face a dilemma: Either they grant normative authority to de facto governing norms, which renders social critique structurally conservative. Or they deny it, in which case immanent critique loses its normative bite. This paper argues that this understanding of immanent critique is confused and offers a different understanding according to which this dilemma does not arise. Immanent critique must not rely on the collapse assumption to meet the immanence constraint. Rather, the specificity of the method is that it clarifies immanent contradictions. Individual reasons thus become secondary to social theory.