This article questions the ubiquity of the term "critical" in methodological scholarship, calling for a renewed association of the term with projects concerned with social justice, truth-telling, and overt articulations of the social good. Drawing on Michel Foucault's work with parrhesia (or truth-telling) and Aristotle's articulation of phronesis (or practical knowledge), the authors situate critical inquiry as a political project of interrupting the present for a more socially-just future. A bibliography is included.