The difference between the critic and the apologist in philosophy, one would think, is the difference between conceiving philosophy as refuge, a post hoc means to rationalize and so recuperate what we cherish or require, and conceiving philosophy as exposure, an ad hoc means to mutate thought and so see our way through what we think we cherish or require. Now in Continental philosophy so-called, the overwhelming majority of thinkers would consider themselves critics and not apologists. They would claim to be proponents of exposure, of the new, and deride the apologist for abusing reason in the service of wishful thinking.

But this, I hope to show, is little more than a flattering conceit. We are all children of Hollywood, all prone to faux-renegade affectations. Nowadays ‘critic,’ if anything, simply names a new breed of apologist. This is perhaps inevitable, in a certain sense. The more cognitive…