The Structure of Human Being in Postmodern Philosophy (original) (raw)
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On the Postmodernity of the Philosophical Discourse
2014
The exposition tries to capture the nature of the relationship between the sphere of reality and the sphere of discourse engaged in a dynamics of construction where Reality becomes Logos and Logos becomes Reality. What gives relevance to this relationship is the isomorphism that does not leave room for any dominant position: discourse does not wear out reality and reality does not wear out discourse, but there is a certain amount of indeterminateness and incompleteness on one side, as on the other. The two spheres build up a dynamic universe, where they play a sublime game of seduction and rejection, a game through which experience needs to be articulated and intention needs to find its object.
As an intellectual movement postmodernism was born as a challenge to several modernist themes that were first articulated during the Enlightenment. These include scientific positivism, the inevitability of human progress, and the potential of human reason to address any essential truth of physical and social conditions and thereby make them amenable to rational control (Boyne and Rattansi 1990). The primary tenets of the postmodern movement include: (1) an elevation of text and language as the fundamental phenomena of existence, (2) the application of literary analysis to all phenomena, (3) a questioning of reality and representation, (4) a critique of metanarratives, (5) an argument against method and evaluation, (6) a focus upon power relations and hegemony, (7) and a general critique of Western institutions and knowledge (Kuznar 2008:78). For his part, Lawrence Kuznar labels postmodern anyone whose thinking includes most or all of these elements. Importantly, the term postmodernism refers to a broad range of artists, academic critics, philosophers, and social scientists that Christopher Butler (2003:2) has only half-jokingly alluded to as like “a loosely constituted and quarrelsome political party.” The anthropologist Melford Spiro defines postmodernism thusly: The postmodernist critique of science consists of two interrelated arguments, epistemological and ideological. Both are based on subjectivity. First, because of the subjectivity of the human object, anthropology, according to the epistemological argument cannot be a science; and in any event the subjectivity of the human subject precludes the possibility of science discovering objective truth. Second, since objectivity is an illusion, science according to the ideological argument, subverts oppressed groups, females, ethnics, third-world peoples. [Spiro 1996: 759] Postmodernism has its origins as an eclectic social movement originating in aesthetics, architecture and philosophy (Bishop 1996). In architecture and art, fields which are distinguished as the oldest claimants to the name, postmodernism originated in the reaction against abstraction in painting and the International Style in architecture (Callinicos 1990: 101). However, postmodern thinking arguably began in the nineteenth century with Nietzsche’s assertions regarding truth, language, and society, which opened the door for all later postmodern and late modern critiques about the foundations of knowledge (Kuznar 2008: 78). Nietzsche asserted that truth was simply: a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms – in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are. [Nietzsche 1954: 46-47] According to Kuznar, postmodernists trace this skepticism about truth and the resulting relativism it engenders from Nietzsche to Max Weber and Sigmund Freud, and finally to Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and other contemporary postmodernists (2008:78).
Postmodernism: What One Needs to Know
Zygon, 1997
Abstract. This essay is an introduction to postmodernism and deconstruction as they relate to the special challenges of scholarship and teaching in the science and religion multidiscipline. Keywords. constructionism; deconstruction; Jacques Derrida; epistemology; feminism; Michel Foucault; Signumd Freud; hermeneutics; Thomas Kuhn; Emmanuel Levinas; Alisdair MacIntyre; Karl Marx; materialism; metaphor; modernity; power/knowledge; pragmatism; post-structuralism; postmodernism; Paul Ricoeur; science and religion; structuralism.
Why postmodernism is postmodern
This paper wish to illustrate that despite the common understanding of postmodernism as anti-foundational, a substantial violation and an inherently critical ethos towards universalism and modernism, it is still bound by modernism and enlightenment to the extent that it cannot free itself from its historical past. Thus, a genealogical analysis of postmodernism itself shows that its strong ontological and epistemological claims of timelessness, contextual freedom and independence of its own predecessor and history. By treating Postmodernism as a philosophical paradigm in the social sciences, the hope is to show that despite its rather coherent yet evasive philosophical foundation it has inherent problem to survive as a sole paradigm. Postmodernism tries to establish a new meta-narrative, claim universal validity and by doing so implicitly falls short of its own alleged sensitivity standard. Postmodernism embody a coherent and ‘strong’ philosophical tradition that represents more than critique for its own sake and skeptical epistemology.
2020
Postmodernity is a condition or a state of being associated with changes to institutions and conditions and with social and political results and innovations, globally but especially in the West since the 1960s, whereaspostmodernism is an aesthetic, literary, political or social philosophy, the "cultural and intellectual phenomenon", especially since the 1920s' new movements in the arts and literature. Both of these terms are used by philosophers, social scientists and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary culture, economics and society that are the result of features of late 20th century and early 21st century life, including the fragmentation of authority and the commoditization of knowledge. In this paper it has been tried to show the connection between this approach and other humanity sciences so that crystallized the kingdom of this overall movement.
From modernity to postmodernity
This paper traces the historical discourse of Western Civilization from the period of Modernity to Postmodernity. Major political, social, moral, and scientific shifts occurred in the Western Civilization during Modernity because of the maturation of underpinning utilitarian and materialistic ethics. Postmodernity is a critique on the ideologies of modernity. The identifiable difference between the two lies in the nature of discourse. The discourse of modernity rests on the transcendent criteria such as 'progress' and 'reason'. Postmodern discourse, on the other hand, analyzes social life in terms of paradox and indeterminacy and rejects all metanarratives and overarching guiding principles, religion, science, objectivity, rationality and the notion of truth. Yet the two are closely related and complement each other by sharing a deep commitment and affinity to empiricism, concrete forms and reductionism.
POSTMODERNISM: A WORLDVIEW WITHOUT ANSWERS
The aim and purpose of the present essay is to trace, define, explain and criticize broad Postmodernism, as a means to (1) introduce the Christian worldview as the only valid worldview and (2) to proclaim the Gospel. The structure to follow will be the development and definition of Postmodernism followed by a critique from a presuppositional perspective
Postmodernism, Philosophy and Literature
2018
No special definite definition does exist for postmodernism however it has had an inordinate effect on art, architecture, music, film, literature, philosophy, sociology, communications, fashion, and technology. The main body of this work can be seen as an admiration and reverence for the values and ideals associated with postmodern philosophy as well as postmodern literature. , I have argued that postmodern has mainly influenced philosophy and literature and they are recognized and praised for their multiplicity. Postmodernism might seem exclusive in its work, its emphasis on multiplicity and the decentered subject makes very uncomfortable reading for traditional theorists or philosophers. It rejects western values and beliefs as only small part of the human experience and it rejects such ideas, beliefs, culture and norms of the western. Integrity is fragmented apart into unharmonious narratives which lead to a shattering of identity and an overall breakdown of any idea of the self....