Postmodern philosophy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Postmodern philosophy is a trend of thought. Beginning as a critique of Continental philosophy, it was heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism and existentialism, including writings of Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger. It was also influenced to some degree by the later Ludwig Wittgenstein's criticisms of traditional philosophy, including earlier analytic philosophy. Postmodern philosophy is skeptical of many of the values and bases of analytic philosophy; for instance a postmodernist might disavow that the complex system of meanings embodied in normal or philosophical language could be represented in logical annotation (some might even disavow any traditional notion of "meaning" altogether).
Postmodern philosophy is often particularly skeptical about simple binary oppositions characteristic of structuralism, emphasizing the problem of the philosopher cleanly distinguishing knowledge from ignorance, social progress from reversion, dominance from submission, and presence from absence.[1][2]
Postmodern philosophy has strong relations with the substantial literature of critical theory.[3] Other areas of production have included deconstruction and several areas beginning with the prefix "post-", such as post-structuralism, post-Marxism, and post-feminism.
Contents |
[edit] History of postmodern philosophy
 |
| Pre-Socratic · Ancient Medieval · Renaissance 17th · 18th · 19th · 20th century Postmodern · Contemporary |
| See also |
|
|
[edit] Early influences on postmodern philosophy
While the idea of postmodernity had been around since the 1940s, postmodern philosophy originated primarily in France during the mid-20th century as a rejection of the Hegelianism of the age. However, several philosophical antecedents inform many of postmodern philosophy's concerns.
It was greatly influenced by the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century and other early 20th century philosophers, including phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, structuralist Roland Barthes, and the linguistic/therapeutic philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Postmodern philosophy also drew from the world of the arts and architecture, particularly Marcel Duchamp and artists who practiced collage, and the architecture of Las Vegas and the Pompidou Centre.
[edit] Early postmodern philosophers
The most influential early postmodern philosophers were Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jacques Derrida. Michel Foucault is also often cited as an early postmodernist, arguably moving beyond structuralism by re-historicizing[citation needed] and destabilizing[citation needed] the philosophical structures of Western thought.[citation needed]} Following Nietzsche, he argued that knowledge is produced through the operations of power, and changes fundamentally in different historical periods.
The writings of Lyotard were largely concerned with the role of narrative in human culture, and particularly how that role has changed as we have left modernity and entered a "postindustrial" or postmodern condition. He argued that modern philosophies legitimized their truth-claims not (as they themselves claimed) on logical or empirical grounds, but rather on the grounds of accepted stories (or "metanarratives") about knowledge and the world -- comparing these with Wittgenstein's concept of language-games. He further argued that in our postmodern condition, these metanarratives no longer work to legitimize truth-claims. He suggested that in the wake of the collapse of modern metanarratives, people are developing a new "language game" -- one that does not make claims to absolute truth but rather celebrates a world of ever-changing relationships (among people and between people and the world).
Derrida, the father of deconstruction, practiced philosophy as a form of textual criticism. He criticized Western philosophy as privileging the concept of presence and logos, as opposed to absence and markings or writings. Derrida thus claimed to have deconstructed Western philosophy by arguing, for example, that the Western ideal of the present logos is undermined by the expression of that ideal in the form of markings by an absent author.[citation needed] Thus, to emphasize this paradox, Derrida reformalized human culture as a disjoint network of proliferating markings and writings, with the author being absent.[citation needed]
In America, the most famous pragmatist and self-acclaimed postmodernist was Richard Rorty. An analytic philosopher, Rorty believed that combining Willard Van Orman Quine's criticism of the analytic-synthetic distinction with Wilfrid Sellars's critique of the "Myth of the Given" allowed for an abandonment of the view of the thought or language as a mirror of a reality or external world. Further, drawing upon Donald Davidson's criticism of the dualism between conceptual scheme and empirical content, he challenges the sense of questioning whether our particular concepts are related to the world in an appropriate way, whether we can justify our ways of describing the world as compared with other ways. He argued that truth was not about getting it right or representing reality, but was part of a social practice and language was what served our purposes in a particular time; ancient languages are sometimes untranslatable into modern ones because they possess a different vocabulary and are unuseful today. Donald Davidson is not usually considered a postmodernist, although he and Rorty have both acknowledged that there are few differences between their philosophies.[4][5]
[edit] Post-structuralism, Deconstruction, and Social Constructionism
Postmodern philosophy is closely related to three other movements in 20th century philosophy: post-structuralism, deconstructionism, and social constructionism.
Exactly what distinguishes "postmodern philosophy" from "post-structuralism", or whether there is such a distinction, remains somewhat contentious. However, in general "post-structuralism" refers to a more specific movement in 1960s and 1970s France, centering around former structuralists like Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, and Julia Kristeva. "Postmodern philosophy," on the other hand, is often used to delineate a much broader trend in 20th century philosophy, including the likes of Americans like Richard Rorty and, more contentiously, many of the philosophers he cites: late Wittgenstein, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, W.V. Quine, and others. (Most analytic philosophers would object to calling this latter group of philosophers "postmodern," so this should certainly not be taken as standard usage.)
As with post-structuralism, the boundaries between "deconstruction" and "postmodern philosophy" are not especially clear. However, "deconstruction" is usually used more narrowly to describe the sort of philosophy practiced by Derrida, and is more often understood as an approach to literary criticism rather than a movement in philosophy per se.
Postmodern philosophers are also often said to be "social constructionists" of one sort or another, often by critics of the movement. Social constructionism is often taken to be the claim that reality or truth is a product of human social groups or cultures, rather than something objectively out there, waiting to be discovered. It can be related to constructivist epistemology which, as an epistemology, goes further than being focused on sociology. Generally, people who call themselves "social constructionists" are found in social sciences, often the history or sociology of science, or anthropology.
[edit] Criticism
Because post-modernism is so notoriously difficult to define, many objections to it do not apply to all varieties, but there are several criticisms which are often made.
[edit] Terminology
Many people criticise the extensive use of jargon by postmodernists. It is alleged that this is done only to obscure from the reader the fact that the sentence is either meaningless or trivial. Postmodernists usually respond to this accusation by insisting that their use of academic jargon is necessary to communicate their ideas, and that their critics simply do not understand their work.
[edit] Alleged Philosophical Incompetence
Academic philosophers often accuse postmodernists of being philosophically incompetent. They claim that because postmodernists rarely have formal philosophical qualifications they simply fail to understand the philosophers they mention and commit basic philosophical errors. Postmodernists often defend themselves from such criticism by claiming that they take a "wider" view of what philosophy is.
[edit] Influence
For the most part, postmodern philosophy has spawned substantial literature of critical theory. Other areas of production have included deconstruction and several areas beginning with the prefix "post-", such as post-structuralism, post-Marxism, and post-feminism.
Recently, it is noticeable that some of the ideas found in postmodernism, as the lack of belief in absolute truth or the idea of a reality constructed, are promoted in a new paradigm within constructivist epistemology.
Some writers and theorists fear Kalle Lasn’s description of our contemporary society:
Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history. That the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of the frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can never escape.[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
- ^ Stuart, Sim. Routledge Companion to Postmodernism
- ^ Taylor, Victor and Charles Winquist. Encyclopedia of Postmodernism "Binary Opposition"
- ^ Problematizing Global Knowledge. Theory, Culture & Society. Vol. 23 (2-3). Sage, 2006
- ^ An interview with Rorty
- ^ Davidson, D., 1986, "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge," Truth And Interpretation, Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, ed. Ernest LePore, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, afterwords.
- ^ Kalle Lasn & Bruce Grierson, A Malignant Sadness, ADBUSTERS #30, June/July 2000.
