Kant and the Roots of Postmodernism

The specific tenets of Postmodernism are a mishmash of anti-reason ideas

advocated by sundry intellectuals through the centuries, from Marx and Freud in the 19th

and 20th to Hume in the 18th to the Greek Sophists in the 5th c. BC. In terms of

philosophical fundamentals as well, there is nothing new in Postmodernism’s attack on

the Enlightenment. Philosophically, the Enlightenment came to an end more that two

hundred years ago with the writings of Immanuel Kant. Postmodernism is simply the last

dying gasp of the Kantian destruction of philosophy.

Kant was the first modern philosopher to argue explicitly and in principle that

reality does not exist independently from the mind but is created by it. Writing an

alleged answer to Hume's skepticism, Kant began a revolution in philosophy: “Hitherto it

has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to

extend our knowledge of objects...have, on this approach, ended in failure. We must

therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics,

if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge.” (Kant, 1965: 22)

Stripped to its essence, Kant's theory is that the human mind possesses (and must

possess) a definite nature of its own, a nature that will structure and create the world that

we are aware of. According to Kant, the mind possesses certain innate concepts that

create our world—all of space and time and everything in it—which is therefore just the

“world for us,” what Kant called the phenomenal world. What reality is “really” like,

apart from how it is created by our mental apparatus—what Kant called the noumenal

world—is necessarily unknowable. Kant's philosophy, therefore, amounted to the

declaration that reason is impotent to know reality, which we believe, but cannot even
know, exists. As Kant, an ardent Christian, stated the conclusion of his reasoning, “I

have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.”

(Kant, 1965: 29)

Subsequent philosophers tinkered with many of Kant's specific views but left the

essence of his revolution intact. Hegel, for instance, discarded the noumenal world since

on Kant's own terms it was unknowable. According to Hegel, “reality” is actually a

cosmic mind or process of thought, which he called the Absolute, creating and

developing itself through the progressive overcoming of contradictions (thesis, antithesis,

synthesis); in one stage of the Absolute's development, it externalizes itself into a

“material world.” All of “reality” in Hegel's view, then, not just the phenomenal world,

is created by consciousness. Marx materialized Hegel's philosophy, claiming that the

creator of “reality” is not a cosmic mind but economic processes: the forces of production

and the economic classes they create. The American Pragmatists like James and Dewey

claimed there was indeed a noumenal world, which is formed and created not by fixed

categories and laws of thought common to all human beings, as Kant supposed, but by

each individual's feelings and actions. Since one could not know in advance what reality

one would create, they recommended that one act first and observe the consequences—

the reality one has created—later. The Logical Positivists dismissed as meaningless

metaphysical concepts like reality and existence and claimed that “knowledge” is the

product, not of the operation of fixed basic categories and laws of thought, as Kant held,

but of our manipulation of symbols (words and languages) that have no referents

(remember, the concept of reality has been tossed out as meaningless). The Linguistic
Analysts then came along and said that if “knowledge” is the product of our use of words,

we should study only how people use words.

Despite all the differences among the subsequent dominant philosophies, none

ever challenged Kant's core premise: the idea that the mind and reason are impotent to

know reality, that their only power is to study the “world” they themselves create.

In the history of philosophy after Kant one can see a gradual but accelerating

disintegration of philosophy, as the subjects of concern become narrower and narrower,

from the universal rules of thought with Kant to word use with the Linguistic Analysts.

Each of these philosophies, however, retained some vestige, however miniscule, of

objectivity, in the following sense. Each of these philosophies thought there was some

definite means, some definite process, by which reality is created, which at least could be

discussed, debated, proved. For Kant, it was what he called “reason”: the operation of

the basic innate concepts; for Hegel, the Absolute expressing itself; for Marx, economic

forces; for the Pragmatists, feelings and action; for the Logical Positivists, symbol

manipulations; for the Linguistic Analysts, word use. Of course, the attempt to preserve

a modicum of objectivity was doomed to failure. Indeed, this is the fundamental

metaphysical contradiction in all Kantian systems: they maintain that it is a fact that

reality is created by the human mind, but the fact that reality is created by the human

mind is itself not created by the human mind; this fact just simply, inexorably is.

What is new and distinctive about Postmodernism is the idea that reason is itself a

social creation. According to Postmodernism, there is not even an allegedly objective

process by which “reality” is created. Whoever can seize power and define and control
language is who will decide what counts as “reason” and “rationality”, who will create

the nature of “reason”, who will create the nature of our means of creating “reality.”

In Postmodernism, everything is explicitly subjective. And so it all comes down

to power, to brute warfare, to the physical struggle to see which group will impose its

whims on others. Postmodernism draws the final, absurd conclusion from the Kantian

starting point. “Reason” (i.e., the process by which reality is created) is itself a construct

created by our minds, no more valid than any other construct, to be replaced by another

construct if one's group so desires. Postmodernism is the end of the Kantian chain: pure

nihilism, openly and boastfully advocated.