Pure empiricism in criticism is a contradiction in terms

Evidence

It should not, in the present intellectual atmosphere, be necessary laboriously to argue the position that every form of practice, including the literary-critical kind, implies and presupposes a form of theory; that empiricism, the mirage of an utterly nontheoretical practice, is a contradiction in terms; that even the most formalizing kinds of literary or textual analysis carry a theoretical charge whose denial unmasks it as ideological. — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1451

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the ‘mirage of an utterly nontheoretical practice is a contradiction in terms’ and that denial of theory is itself ideological is dense enough to sit with — it reframes the empiricism/theory debate as itself a partisan move.
• XREF: connects to: Empiricism that rejects transitive concepts commits itself to false consciousness — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 457; Positivist philosophy imposes an empirical a priori that cannot be transcended — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 671

Broader Connections

• Empiricism that rejects transitive concepts commits itself to false consciousness #expands (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 457
• Positivist philosophy imposes an empirical a priori that cannot be transcended #expands (0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 671