Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities The centre of the University of the Idea Conference Review Must Criticism be constructive? 31 October - 1 November 2008 This conference took its origin from the observation that ?criticism? plays an important role in a number of apparently very different areas of human endeavour: We criticise, among other things, works of art, political programmes, social institutions, the attitudes and actions of individual human agents. The speakers at the conference addressed two related complexes of issues.  First, is there a single coherent notion of ?criticism? at work in all these different areas, and, if so, what is that notion?  If there is no single notion, do the various senses of ?criticism? hang together in some other interesting way, that is, are they connected, although not as mere instances of a single general kind of human activity?  Second, people often try to deflect criticism by claiming that it is ?not constructive?.  Under what circumstances, if any, is this kind of rebuttal legitimate, warranted, reasonable, or justified?  What is ?constructive criticism? and what reasons, if any, might one have under what circumstances to prefer it to other kinds of criticism?  Very roughly speaking, most, although not all, the speakers approached these topics either from a philosophical perspective very much influenced by the late Wittgenstein or from one belonging to the tradition of the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. One important novel point which did emerge from the discussion was put with