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In recent years, a critical turn has changed the direction of terrorism studies, undermining the main approaches that seemed to sustain the scientific development of the analysis of phenomena linked, in one way or another, to terrorist violence. This article seeks, at the most basic level, to review the core features of this transformation in three distinctive ways. One, it explores the strategies that enable “traditional” approaches to dissimulate State terrorism (ontology). Two, it examines processes by which traditional approaches design specific “regimes of truth” and the effect that these have on the production and dissemination of knowledge about terrorism (epistemology). Three, it investigates the relevance, in terms of public policy, of critical studies of terrorism, arguing that emancipation raises more problems than often acknowledged (praxeology). However, the relevance of critical approaches to terrorism depends, primarily, on their ability to unveil what causes terrorism. Surprisingly, critical studies have generally mimicked traditional approaches, assuming that terrorist violence is strictly associated with instrumental rationality. This article takes a different tack. It suggests that critical approaches could be strengthened if they broadened their view of rationality, which might help them account for acts of terrorist violence that do not count on feedback or are deemed absurd, i.e., irrational, a priori. In this light, the article argues, a substantial body of research reveals that terrorist violence is very often the result of an expressive rationality, of which humiliation is a distinctive kind.