Endless theory: On its relevance in the context of Big Data

The "end of theory" proclaimed by Chris Anderson in 2008 entails an epistemological shift demanding that knowledge should be produced but algorithmically. Algorithmic knowledge is characterized by being produced trough indications and by operating beyond "meaning" as it privileges established communicative patterns. It reproduces its communicative connectivity according to the grammaticality of communication. To show this, the article distinguishes between "police" as a practice of producing univocity and "politics" as a practice of producing contingency with Ranciere. Algorithmic systems reproduce their grammatical police by means of correlations and seclude the future by deriving it entirely from existing data. In contrast, critical theory can produce politics by marking its own contingency and can thus open up the future. At the same time, the articulation of critique also requires indications and the use of hegemonic grammaticality, and can therefore never operate as pure invention. Building on that, the article developes an emphasis of critical theory, underscoring that critique itself can be precariously posited by means of theory: Theory is able to politicize its own critique. This above all makes it distinguishable from algorithmic data-empiricism.