藉由指出當代中國思想批判性喪失的危機，汪文企圖重建作為規範與方法的批判。本文首先釐清批判性這個概念的內容，然後指出汪文的意識型態批判工作其實是一個典型的現代主義計畫，其核心內容包括歷史、整體性、反抗、與知識份子…‥等範疇，而且是首尾一貫地在一個「深度模型」下操作。這個批判的現代主義計畫迎面挑戰了後現代思潮與新自由主義，雖然大多同情且同意這個現代主義計畫，本文也指出汪文對於「社會性」缺乏規範性關懷可能造成了它自身批判性的危機。批判的社會理論不可能在無法維繫社會性的可能視野下，仍然保存它批判的民主潛力。本文的最後部份把汪暉與美國五○年代提出「社會學想像」的批判學者 Mills 並論，期望能拉出社會理論作為一種批判的現代主義計畫和民主之間的關連性的後續討論。

　　　　　Various strand of thought in contemporary Mainland China witness severe depletion of critical potentiality--thus lamented Wang Hui. Writing by candlelight, Wang's core concern is to redeem critique as norm and as method. This review essay attempts to explicate the Wang's critical "project" (though a Latent and incomplete one) is a thoroughly modernist one in the sense that it premises a "depth model" and emphasizes the key roles of ideological critique, opposition, history, totality, and intellectuals. Wang's project is therefore a head-on confrontation with the prevailing postmodern and neoliberal strands of thought (or, structure of feeling). While in many regards sympathizing with Wang's project, this review essay takes its theoretically insufficient attention to the social to task. Social theory, this essay contends, cannot afford the loing of the spectrum of the social, otherwise the entire project of critique and inquiry shall lose its ground to start with. In the end of this essay, C. Wright Mills' "sociological imagination" is juxtaposed to Wang's critical modernist project in an attempt to highlight the latter's critical democratic relevance and to further future discussion.