Word Finder - criticism

definition

The act of criticising; a critical judgment passed or expressed

example

The politician received a lot of public criticism for his controversial stance on the issue.

definition

A critical observation or detailed examination and review.

synonyms

• animadversion
• censure
• critique

He listened to no adverse criticism and receded before no obstacle.

Thus, governments are very sensitive to criticism and to challenges to their authority.

It is a shrewd criticism, but needs arguing out.

The higher criticism was not even attempted by Ernesti.

It did little for the moral education of the people, but the same criticism applies more or less to all the European governments of the day.

This involves a re-interpretation of the Cosmological argument, or a criticism of the view ordinarily taken of it.

James Ward's masterly criticism of Herbert Spencer (Naturalism and Agnosticism) has been mentioned above.

This criticism needs judicious qualification.

He commenced his great work on the textual criticism of the Scriptures; and at the instigation of his friend Ambrosius, who provided him with the necessary amanuenses, he published his commentaries on the Old Testament and his dogmatic investigations.

The plot provoked some lively criticism en the antimatrimonial doctrines that I was alleged to have broached before in Indiana.

He published works on Leibnitz, empiricism and scepticism in Hume's philosophy, modern pessimism, Kantic criticism, English philosophy, Heraclitus of Ephesus and many other subjects.

As regards (b), external evidence has already suggested to scholars that there were Israelites in Palestine before the invasion; internal historical criticism is against the view that all the tribes entered under Joshua; and in (a) there are traces of an actual settlement in the land, entirely distinct from the cycle of narratives which prepare the way for (b).

This system, which for many years subsequently was regarded as authoritative, has been subjected to vigorous criticism by later economists, and it is perhaps not too much to say that it now possesses mainly an historical interest.

The scanty leisure of his first recess had been devoted to writing his St Andrews rectorial address on higher education and to answering attacks on his criticism of Hamilton; of the second, to annotating in conjunction with Bain and Findlater, his father's Analysis of the Mind.

This fact, no doubt, should be taken into account in any detailed criticism of the philosophic work; it was taken up not as an end but as ancillary to a social and ethical system.

Reference to the articles on Logic, Metaphysics, &c., will show that subsequent criticism, however much it has owed by way of stimulus to Mill's strenuous rationalism, has been able to point to much that is inconsistent, inadequate and even superficial in his writings.

The title of his work, Principles of Political Economy, with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, though open to criticism, indicated a less narrow and formal conception of the field of the science than had been common amongst his predecessors.

In the history of economics or the biography of Ricardo it is of interest to show that he anticipated later writers, or that his analysis bears the test of modern criticism; but no economist is under any obligation to defend Ricardo's reputation, nor is the fact that a doctrine is included in his works to be taken as a demonstration of its truth.

In 1684 Bayle began the publication of his Nouvelles de la republique des lettres, a kind of journal of literary criticism.

This instance does not stand the test of criticism.

The British hospital arrangements were not beyond criticism.

The criticism is not entirely unjust.

The voices of criticism were heard simultaneously on every side.

But his chief activity is devoted to criticism.

A people with an intense national sentiment, such as the Hungarians, do not as a rule incline towards permanent admiration of foreign-born or imported literary styles; and accordingly the work of this class of novelists has frequently met with very severe criticism on the part of various Magyar critics.

Not unnaturally the training which the younger Mill received has aroused amazement and criticism; and it is reasonable to doubt whether the material knowledge which he retained in the result was as valuable to him as his father imagined.

As a matter of fact, discussions of method and the criticism of hypotheses and assumptions are very rarely found in early economic works.

Modern economic criticism and analysis has destroyed the authority of the " old Political Economy " as a scientific system.

It is useless to suppose that this destructive criticism from within can be neutralized by generously sprinkling the pages of the classical writers with interpretation clauses.

Some of the criticism of their works, necessary and useful as it has been, will probably be corrected later on by that breadth of view and sense of proportion which has enabled us to appreciate justly the achievements of lesser men in more remote times.

The position we have described is no doubt partly due to the unsettlement of economic opinion and the hostile criticism of old-established doctrines which has characterized the last generation.

This is largely a question of the organization of economic studies, and it is of the greatest importance that, if possible, such an effort should be made to present in a connected form the best results of modern criticism and analysis.

The very effectiveness of modern criticism and analysis,which has brought great gains in almost all branches of economic theory, has made the science more difficult as a subject of ordinary study.

It was Origen who created the dogmatic of the church and laid the foundations of the scientific criticism of the Old and New Testaments.

But, while in all these doctrines he appears in the character of a Platonic philosopher, traces of rational criticism are not wanting.

A criticism of Neo-Hegelianism will be found in Andrew Seth (Pringle Pattison), Hegelianism and Personality.

From 1872 until his death he was Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Harvard Divinity School.

Brisson has been charged with jealousy of, if not hostility to, the great Swede, and it is true that in the preface to his Ornithologie he complains of the insufficiency of the Linnaean characters, but, when one considers how much better acquainted with birds the Frenchman was, such criticism must be allowed to be pardonable if not wholly just.

Every `plate is not beyond criticism, but his worst drawings show more knowledge of bird-life than do the best of his English or French contemporaries.

These had an infinitely wider renown in their day, but modern criticism has restored the balance in his favour, and is even in danger of erring in the opposite direction.

Erskine had little interest in the "historical criticism" of Christianity, and regarded as the only proper criterion of its truth its conformity or nonconformity with man's spiritual nature, and its adaptability or non-adaptability to man's spiritual needs.

It is a keen but not always fair criticism of the Pelagian position from that of Augustine.

Mr. Harding based his campaign chiefly upon criticism of the Wilson administration, denouncing especially the excessive power that, as he maintained, had been exercised by the executive as a result of war centralization; he demanded as speedy as possible a return to normal conditions, political and industrial.

Alive to the claims of criticism, he no less strongly asserted the rights of Christian feeling.

Kuenen was also the author of many articles, papers and reviews; a series on the Hexateuch, which appeared in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, of which in 1866 he became joint editor, is one of the finest products of modern criticism.

A somewhat different criticism must be passed on the Facetiae, a collection of humorous and indecent tales expressed in such Latinity as Poggio could command.

If Marca's criticism is too often undecided, both in the ancient epochs, where he supports the text by a certain amount of guesswork and in certain points where he touches on religion, yet he always gives the text correctly.

Nevertheless, he was opposed to Colenso's criticism of the Bible, and replied to it in The Pentateuch and the Elohistic Psalms (1863), written from a conservative standpoint.

The higher criticism sees, in these successive enactments of the various codes included in the Pentateuch (q.v.), a development in the character of the festival.

Finally, although Clay for his support of the compromises and Seward and Chase for their opposition have gained in reputation, Webster has been selected as the special target for hostile criticism.