Immanent critique is a method of discussing culture which aims to locate contradictions in society's rules and systems. This method is used in the study of cultural forms in philosophy and the social sciences and humanities. It may be contrasted with "transcendental" Kantian critical philosophy. Immanent critique further aims to contextualize not only the object of its investigation, but also the ideological basis of that object: both the object and the category to which it belongs are shown to be products of a historical process. Immanent critique has its roots in the dialectic of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the criticisms by Karl Marx. Today it is strongly associated with the critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno. Roy Bhaskar has advocated it as one of the key methodological elements of critical realism.
The purpose of immanent critique is the detection of societal contradictions which suggest possibilities for emancipatory social change. It considers ideas’ role in shaping society, with focus on future emancipatory change. An immanent critique of a value is a discussion of the principles (overt or implicit) the value proposes. It highlights the gaps between what something stands for and what is being done in actual terms. Immanent critique tries to find contradictions and indirectly provide alternatives, without constructing an entirely new theory.
Quoting Marx, Robert J. Antonio writes in the British Journal of Sociology,
"'Setting out from idealism ... I hit upon seeking the Idea in the real itself. If formerly the gods had dwelt above the world, they had now become its center.' Marx concluded that immanent principles were necessary weapons in the struggle for progressive social change, because they provide a basis for critique within historical reality. Later, this immanent grounding became the axis of his emancipatory critique of capitalism."According to David L. Harvey, formerly of the University of Nevada, Reno,
"Critical theory at its most abstract and general level ... begins as a formal 'negativity.' As a dissenting motif, it selects some tradition, ideological premise, or institutionalized orthodoxy for analysis. As immanent critique, it then 'enters its object,' so to speak, 'boring from within.' Provisionally accepting the methodological presuppositions, substantive premises, and truth-claims of orthodoxy as its own, immanent critique tests the postulates of orthodoxy by the latter's own standards of proof and accuracy. Upon 'entering' the theory, orthodoxy's premises and assertions are registered and certain strategic contradictions located. These contradictions are then developed according to their own logic, and at some point in this process of internal expansion, the one-sided proclamations of orthodoxy collapse as material instances and their contradictions are allowed to develop 'naturally.'"