- Introduction
- Main Post-Modern Thinkers
- Jean Francois Lyotard
- Jacques Derrida
- Michel Foucault
- Laclou and Mouffe
- Post Modernism and Post Structuralism
- Post Modernism and Globalisation
Introduction
Postmodernism is a sharp reaction against the predominance of modernism.
Modernism emerged during the industrial era, replacing traditional methods of explanation and expression with reason and science.
Modernism's fundamental attributes include formulating grand narratives and theories.
Postmodernism emerged as a radical alternative to modernity, arguing that modernism is too centralized and monolithic, suppressing minor identities and voices.
It rejects the notion of a single meaning of truth and challenges established assumptions regarding society, culture, and the nature of knowledge.
Postmodernism corroded the foundations of epistemology and the practices of social sciences.
It advocates for a multiplicity of narratives and rejects the possibility of meta-narratives.
While postmodernism is a major trend in the theory of knowledge, there is little consensus on its origin.
The term "postmodernism" was first used in 1914 in an article by J. M. Thompson in The Hibbert Journal, describing a transformation in beliefs within Christian society.
The concept gained currency in Post-Modern architecture and literary criticism, focusing on dissatisfaction with modern architecture and deconstructing literary texts to reveal the hidden power-knowledge relationship.
Since the 19th century, postmodernism has been embraced across various disciplines such as architecture, literature, art, philosophy, ethics, political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, and penology, each with different emphases.
Postmodernism is considered a bucket of ambiguity, distrusting everything and lacking clear directions.
Its fundamental nature makes it difficult to provide a single, all-encompassing definition as it seeks to understand what escapes simple definitions and celebrates what resists or disrupts them.
There is disagreement among postmodernists on whether postmodernity is continuous with modernity or represents a radical break with it.
Some postmodernists believe they engage in a long-running relationship with modernity, continually pointing out its limitations.
Thinkers like Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault reacted against the project of enlightenment, but their works share some uniformity, leading to categorization by critical thinkers like Terry Eagleton.
Postmodernism is a style of thought suspicious of classical notions of truth, reason, identity, objectivity, and ideas of universal progress or emancipation.
It opposes single frameworks, grand narratives, and ultimate grounds of explanation.
Postmodernism views the world as contingent, ungrounded, diverse, unstable, and indeterminate.
It sees a set of disunited cultures or interpretations, breeding skepticism about the objectivity of truth, history, norms, and the givenness of natures and the coherence of identities.
To understand postmodernism, it is necessary to study the original writings of key postmodern thinkers like Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault, Laclou, and Mouffe.