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In this paper I want to consider the nature of critical philosophy and suggest that much of what is called, in the Anglophone world, continental philosophy is — in a sense that I will develop below — critical philosophy. The notion that philosophy is, or ought to be, a critical practice entails that philosophy must also be auto-critical, that philosophy and more importantly reason itself are not exempt from philosophical criticism. Further, I will suggest that the features that I thematise as distinctive of critical philosophy are best thought of as first coalescing in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; that Rousseau ought to be acknowledged as one of the most important midwives to such a tradition of critique. This focus on Rousseau is somewhat of a departure from the tradition as it is more usual to think about critical philosophy by beginning with Kant. Yet while the latter is almost constantly in the background of my thoughts, I hold that the focus on Kant tends to marginalise Rousseau's contribution to birthing the tradition that I am calling critical philosophy. Hence this essay aims to bring Rousseau out of the shadows.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230357006_4

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