What is Postmodernism?
A few days ago I posted A Parable of Human Existence which referenced postmodernism and its denial of the existence of absolute truth. Kevin, a studier and advocate of the philosophy of Heidegger, and Jeremy, my son and the other contributor to this site, had an interesting conversation in the comments on the blog. I appreciate the insightful responses of both. Given the nature of the comments, I thought I might post a few thoughts on postmodernism in general. What is it? Can we use the term meaningfully? This blog has a varied readership, from those who have considerable training in philosophy to those who have little. It can be sometimes difficult to know at what level we may most effectively communicate. As stated on our main page, we want to help people think critically and consistently about the things that really do make a difference. It is with that goal in mind that I discuss postmodernism.
J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig discuss postmodernism in their book, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. It is from that book that I have primarily gathered information for this post. As discussed by Kevin and Jeremy, postmodernism can be difficult to analyze and discuss in a brief way (such as in a blog). A major reason for this is that postmodernism encompasses many diverse thinkers from many different academic disciplines. It is difficult to be fair given all that diversity. However, one may still speak of postmodernism in general as there are common themes. Having said this, and granting the points of Jeremy and Kevin, it would be wrong to attribute to any individual thinker every aspect of what one might consider postmodernist thought.
Craig and Moreland assert that postmodernism must be understood as both a historical notion and a philosophical ideology. Historically, postmodernism chronologically follows a period known as modernity. Modernity is a period of European thought beginning with the Renaissance (14th-17th centuries) and flourishing with the Englightenment (17th-19th) centuries. Thinkers of modernity include Descartes, Locke, Hume, Berkeley, Leibniz and Kant. This historical and chronological characterization of postmodernism is guilty of oversimplifying the thought of the above men. Much of the thought of men like Kant, Hume, and others is more characteristic of what we might think as postmodern rather than modern. Nevertheless, we can think in some general way about the postmodern period following after the modern period.
Philosophically, and more interestingly, Craig and Moreland had this to say about postmodernism:
…Postmodernism is primarily a reinterpretation of what knowledge is and what counts as knowledge. More broadly, it represents a form of cultural relativism about such things as reality, truth, reason, value, linguistic meaning, the self and other notions.
We often think of the great postmodern philosophers to include men such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, Thomas Kuhn, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Francois Lyotard. I will continue to discuss postmodernism in the next few blogs.