PREFACE
PREFACE Every critique, whether of logic, rationality, power, language, or knowledge, inevitably uses the very tools and concepts it seeks to challenge or transcend. For example:
• Feminist epistemology critiques logic as patriarchal, but must use logical distinctions and argumentation to make its case.
• Deconstruction exposes the instability of meaning, but relies on structured analysis and binary oppositions—logical tools—to do so.
• Postmodernism rejects grand narratives, but in doing so, constructs a new meta-narrative about the end of meta-narratives.
2. Performative Contradiction
• This is the classic “performative contradiction”: the act of critique is itself an instantiation of what is being critiqued. You cannot step outside the system you are critiquing, because your very act of critique is shaped by, and embedded within, that system