Rip 251 0059

The Problematological Foundation of Reason in
Postmodernity
Nick Turnbull
Dans Revue internationale de philosophie 2010/1 (n° 251), pages 59 à 77
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DOI 10.3917/rip.251.0059
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The Problematological Foundation of Reason
in Postmodernity
Nick Turnbull
Much of the thrust of postmodernism—and for many people, its most signifi-
cant result—is to be found in the attack on metaphysics, on the very idea of
searching for, and finding, a foundation for Reason. Despite the differences
between philosophers described as postmodernists, they shared in common the
view that metaphysics, as they knew it, is at an end. Although many of them
did not wish to be categorized as postmodern, and even disputed the term itself,
thinkers such as Baudrillard, De Man, Derrida, Fish, Foucault, Lacan, Lyotard,
Rorty, Vattimo, and Žižek are all known for their criticisms of the view that
philosophy can be grounded in a foundational principle. Contemporary thought
inspired by these authors has moved away from terms such as postmodernism
and poststructuralism to become a broader ‘anti-foundationalism’ or ‘post-
foundationalism’. Even less radical thinkers seem to accept that reason has no
firm foundation, varying only in whether or not they believe it necessary to
provide a substitute. Whatever the slipperiness and utility of postmodernism as a
concept, the view held by many is that the foundations of knowledge have been
called into question and that no new metaphysics will ever be constructed. In this
critique of philosophy, the rejection of foundations leads to the fragmentation of
thought from within, of logical difference itself, of rationality, which becomes
marked by a ‘trace’ or ‘lack’ of the absent grounding principle. Since reason
has fragmented at its origins, postmodernism is that which attacks rationality
and celebrates the defundamentalization of thought. Given this fragmentation,
defining postmodernism precisely has proven difficult for critics and advocates
alike.
In 1982, Jean-François Lyotard sought to further explore the term ‘post-
modern’ in his article, ‘Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?’.1 He
rejected all attempts at philosophical unity, instead calling for a ‘war on totality’,
1. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans., Geoff

Bennington and Brian Massumi (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984); see also
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982–1985, trans. edited
by Julian Pefanis and Morgan Thomas (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).
60 Nick Turnbull
declaring that the postmodern is the lack of reality in reality, the unpresentable
in presentation.2 At the same time, the postmodern is also part of the modern,
but that part which questions the received rules even as they are established.3 In
constructing his answer, Lyotard criticized contemporary thinkers who sought
foundational philosophical principles; this article is known particularly for his
criticisms of Habermas. But among the other examples of scholars he described
as seeking order and unity against experimentation, Lyotard included ‘a young
philosopher of language’ who called for a new theory of language with ‘a solid
anchorage… in the referent’.4 A different translator identified the same philoso-
pher more correctly as ‘a young Belgian philosopher’.5 More than twenty years
have passed and that young Belgian philosopher, Michel Meyer, is now not so
young but his radical ideas on questioning are still pertinent to the theme of
questioning foundations in order to uncover the basis and form of rationality.
And, given that Lyotard titled his paper in terms of an answer to the question of
postmodernism, he might have considered Meyer’s philosophy of questioning
more thoroughly at the time. Regarding the question of language, Meyer says
that meaning, from the simplest semantics to interpreting literature, is a question-
answer relationship.6 But more than this, he addresses the fundamental question
of philosophical foundations, arguing that questioning is the foundation of
Reason itself. To postmodernists, and post-foundationalists more generally, such
a claim is impossible. For them, the undermining of metaphysical foundations
brought about by reflexive questioning lies at the heart of the postmodern condi-
tion. But doesn’t such a critique also employ questioning and thereby suggest
that we turn to questioning for a theory appropriate to describe contemporary
problematization? Considering that Lyotard’s answer to the question of post-
modernity is itself so indefinite, so ‘in question’, then it is time we examined
Meyer’s philosophy more closely in order to reconsider the claim of ‘the end of
metaphysics’ which postmodernism offers as a legacy. In this paper, I discuss
Meyer’s questioning of the foundations of Reason and argue in support of his
claim that questioning constitutes such a foundation. Using problematology, I
question again Lyotard’s answer to the question of postmodernism.
2. Lyotard, Postmodern Explained, 9, 15–16.

3. Ibid., 12.
4. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, 72.
5. Lyotard, Postmodern Explained, 2.
6. Michel Meyer, Of Problematology: Philosophy, Science, and Language, trans., David Jamison
with Alan Hart (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 223–24.
The Problematological Foundation of Reason in Postmodernity 61
1. Questioning the foundation of Reason

What is the status of metaphysics in postmodernity, or ‘late modernity’?
Philosophy as metaphysics has been undermined by the radical problematicity
expressed in the fall of the Cartesian subject as the foundation of thought.
Whereas postmodernism attacks metaphysics and the very idea of a philo-
sophical foundation, Michel Meyer responds differently, affirming the value of
metaphysics for philosophy and attempting to restore its value. While this is a
traditional view of philosophy, it is also radically different because in consid-
ering anew the question of the foundation of knowledge he does not re-work
the established idea of metaphysics as ontology. Instead, he aims to reverse
ontology and re-ground philosophy in questioning to establish a unified system
of thought, grounded in a principle. If there is no subject to ground Reason then
we are forced to consider Reason itself as a question, since questioning is the
only contemporary reality from which we might begin.
In times of uncertainty, when everything is in question, the question of ques-
tioning forces itself upon philosophy, and therefore we must reconsider which
questions to ask, which questions have answers, and which are insoluble.7 Impor-
tantly, this approach must be grounded if it is not simply to address one ques-
tion which is the equal of others, as such a view would leave the philosophy
of questioning as legitimately opposable as any other philosophy. Therefore,
Meyer asks the question of what is foundational, from which follows the foun-
dational principle of questioning: ‘that which emerges first in the inquiry as
to what is first is questioning itself, through whatever question is posed. That
is why questioning is indeed the principle of thought itself, the philosophical
principle par excellence’.8 This answer is very different from the traditional
conception of metaphysics; it is not a foundational proposition that remains
out-of-the-question but articulates a problematicity at the very heart of reason,
the starting point from which we must commence in every case. This answer
turns contemporary problematicity on its head by affirming its positive value.
Had the Greeks conceived of questioning in this way they would have called it,
suggests Meyer, problematology.9
Problematology is reflexively secured because to practice philosophical ques-
tioning confirms the answer; it is necessarily reflected in it. Questioning is
primary in a way that nothing else could be: ‘what is more primary in questioning
7. Ibid., 5.
8. Ibid., 5–6.
9. Ibid., 6.
62 Nick Turnbull
what is primary than questioning itself? Anyone who would doubt this would still
be questioning’.10 In posing the question of foundations we necessarily practice
questioning, which suffices to create its meaning. Whatever the answer about
what is first could be, in response to whatever question is posed, it brings us back
to a common underlying question and thus to questioning as such. Indeed, it is
impossible for the first answer to be anything else other than an answer, other-
wise the ‘initial answer would defeat its nature as “first answer” by becoming a
contradiction, since the answer presupposes something it would not assert, all
the while claiming to be primary’.11 One could try to affirm the autonomy of a
foundational proposition from the question of that foundation but this would
not change its nature as an answer, even if it no longer explicitly referred to
the question from which it originated. For example, Being is first an answer to
the question of Being.12 But no matter what question is put, and whatever the
value of any resulting philosophy, any foundational answer could always be
called, again, into question. Meyer’s answer to the question of the foundation
is different because he confirms the question-answer link in his answer: it is
the only answer to the question of foundations which consistently confirms its
origins in a question. Questioning is essential to every instance of thought and
problematology is the only philosophy which explicitly concludes this.
Instead of taking fragmentation as the new reality, as the end of philosophy,
Meyer’s answer to the problematization of reason is traditional:
Philosophy should respond to periods of chaos not by echoing them, because
that would amount to philosophy’s adulterating itself, but rather by trying
to make sense of that which, because of fragmentation and discontinuity,
seems to be meaningless. Philosophical fragmentation is a contradiction in
terms.13
Whereas Lyotard rejected unity in favor of fragmentation, Meyer searches

for unity within contemporary problematization, commencing from that prob-
lematization and finding in it a positive quality, establishing a foundation for
reason that is reflexively secured. How could one declare fragmentation to be
a primary value without contradicting oneself? For Meyer, the fragmentation
of rationality results from failing to perceive the structure of the question-
answer relationship. He goes on to question the principle of Reason—to ques-
10. Ibid., 18.

11. Ibid., 6.
12. Furthermore, the necessity of asking the particular question of Being cannot be established as
the basis of philosophy without referring to questioning; see Ortega y Gassett’s criticism of
Heidegger’s inflation of the concept of Being; ibid., 34.
13. Ibid., 3.
tion questioning—deducing a conception of rationality without recourse to

any presupposed, a priori answer (see below). The problematological logos
reflects questioning by establishing an expanded conception of resolution which
incorporates problematicity within answering itself, articulating the complexity
of reason by elaborating its hidden structure through the concept of the prob-
lematological difference.
Meyer’s insight is elegant and also consistent in theory and practice. With the
principle of questioning there is no infinite regress toward a foundation situated
at an ever-higher level of abstraction, as is the case for systems which rely on
a founding proposition, because when we ask reflexive questions we confirm
the principle of reason by employing questioning in practice; the principle is
thus reflexively secured.14 Thus the question of the nature of philosophy, with
which Meyer commences his inquiry, is answered by affirming the questioning
of foundations as a new ‘metaphysics’; philosophy is problematology.15 He
argues for replacing ontology altogether as a defunct concept but, neverthe-
less, he does not reject the idea of philosophical foundations. He argues that the
problems of foundationalism arise because philosophy has failed to take itself as
its own object, instead concentrating on the justification of answers resulting in
confusion and an unwinnable competition with science. The problematization
of rationality confirms the rationality of problematization, which we cannot but
confirm whenever we question rationality.
What objections might be made to Meyer’s argument for the principle of ques-
tioning? We could say that a question is simply a semantic device which prompts
us to seek an answer, such that, in many cases, a question does not exist, for
example when we proceed directly from statements or by non-linguistic actions.
However, we need not consider a question as simply a linguistic formulation.
Meyer refers us to ‘expressions like a question of life or death, or a question of
money, or even to weigh a question [original emphasis]’, in order to appreciate
the conceptual import of questioning beyond semantics, although it clearly
refers to this as well.16 For example, an answer can be an action. If my problem
is to stop a draft in the room, I might put a request to a student in imperative
form, ‘Close the door!’, and her cooperation answers my question.17 Even at
the level of semantics questions need not necessarily be linguistically marked.
14. Reflexivity is embodied within the problematological difference and therefore it is immanent in
any secondary questioning process; ibid., 218.
15. Ibid., 18.
16. Meyer, Problematology, 210.
17. Michel Meyer, From Logic to Rhetoric (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1986), 116. A full discus-
sion of Meyer’s theory of reference can be found here, and also in Problematology.
64 Nick Turnbull
For example, we could ask a rhetorical question which is really a disguised

assertion, such as ‘Is he not dishonest?’.18 Or we could make a statement with a
rising inflexion at the end to indicate that it be taken as a question. Or someone
might express an answer that in fact raises a question despite itself, such as ‘I
have full confidence in the Prime Minister and do not intend to challenge for
the leadership’.19
How do we know there is a question in such cases? The presence of the
answer, the response, indicates the presence of a question; answering makes
questioning what it is.20 Questions can easily be hidden in the answer because
it is not necessary that we pose our problems in question form. Often, we do
not declare the question first, but proceed straight to the answer because that is
our goal. The answer implies the presence of a question to which the answer
responds: the question itself is not stated, but there is a question nonetheless.
Even though statements appear to be autonomous and independent they are
in fact solutions which respond to a question. A hypothesis, for example, is a
judgment that is not entirely free of problematicity, it is a ‘hypo-thesis’ which
presupposes a reality susceptible to many interpretations.21 Empirical verifica-
tion is then a secondary questioning process which justifies the hypothesis. But
the hypothesis is already a result of questioning. It seems independent only
because it has resolved a prior question (in scientific inquiry, this is known as
‘discovery’). The same applies for social action. An action is a response to a
motivation, and therefore can be understood as an answer to an implicit question,
or problem. Thanks to Austin, we can compare action to speech. He showed
that even linguistic statements are not neutral descriptions of the world because
to speak is also to act.22 Meyer’s insight is to show that language in general is
an answer (whether posing a question or proceeding straight to the solution),
a speech act made in response to an implicit question.23 The explicit linguistic
response indicates the presence of an implicit problem at the same time, hence
nothing can be affirmed without raising a question and thus the possibility of a
debate, or of a further interpretation, including all types of figurative inference.24
What is important in each case is the logical relationship between question and
answer which creates the meaning. While statements or propositions appear to
18. Ibid., 116.

19. On Freudian denial and questioning, see Meyer, Problematology, 229.
20. Meyer, Logic, 129; Meyer, Problematology, 214.
22. J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975).
24. Meyer, Logic, 131.
be independent assertions, in fact, every affirmation pertains to a question and

expresses both the question and the resolution. It is just that the questions which
move a speaker or actor often remain hidden and only the answer appears.25 In
other cases we respond by formally posing a question, such that a question can
also be an answer which makes explicit a problem of our consciousness.
Another potential objection is that the principle of questioning takes us no
further than the initial question, and thus nothing has been gained. I would argue
against this because the answer which confirms questioning is different from the
foundational question which is posed. That is, the answer which concludes that
questioning is first in the question of what is first is not the same as the initial
question which asked what is first in philosophy. It is a response—an answer—
to the question of foundations and is thus different from the initial question.
The initial question is posed, while the answer reflects upon that question and
confirms what is primary in it.
This, then, enables Meyer to question the foundation of questioning and
deduce his conception of the logos. Here, a further objection might be raised
that one cannot deduce anything, without presupposition, from a foundation
which is problematic and therefore indeterminate. Indeed, this logical move is
crucial, given that, to avoid a circular argument, the form of the primary ques-
tion must not be presupposed. Nonetheless, Meyer notes that even though a
solution cannot be found which eliminates the initial question, discourse upon
the question is already a response to it. Thereby, he shows that the explicit treat-
ment of the question is different from its implicit existence as a question, thus
arriving at an ‘answer’ which preserves its problematicity but also differentiates
itself from the initial indeterminacy, a difference he terms the problemato-
logical difference.26 This concept reflects the indeterminate foundation and the
response to it within the logos, such that answers contain the problematological
difference within themselves, revealing the dual dimension of answering: the
problematological expresses questions and the apocritical represses them.
The problematological logos is the product of questioning questioning. Again,
drawing this conclusion rests upon no presuppositions, since the initial ques-
tion remains unexpressed—it must, since to formulate it would presuppose a
conception of language. Hence, language is a response which both answers (by
creating a difference from the implicit) and affirms questions (since it does not
dissolve the question but confirms its existence, or the Being of the Question).
The foundation remains radically problematic but also definable, and progress
25. Meyer, Problematology, 208–9.

26. Meyer, Problematology, 205–6.
66 Nick Turnbull
has been made without recourse to any unaccounted-for third factor. In fact,
it is the argument of circularity which rests on an unexpressed and unfounded
presupposition about the nature of answering, since it presupposes that answers
must necessarily dissolve questions. If such an assumption goes unexamined
then concluding upon a question with a question appears to make no progress.
Instead, conceiving of rationality as two related levels of questioning joined
by the problematological difference expands the conception of answering by
articulating what is resolved and what remains problematic in each instance of
thought. A problematological answer which establishes a question is a neces-
sary first step in making it possible to reach a further and definitive resolution,
an apocritical answer. Hence, answers can be found in many fields and progress
can be achieved. Philosophy is different because its practice is defined by radical
reflexivity, the questioning of the underlying basis of thought. Reflexivity poses
such a great difficulty for rationality because it highlights how no foundational
proposition can be justified on its own terms without placing itself out-of-the-
question. In contrast, problematology is perfect reflexivity because it practices
reflexive questioning and affirms that questioning in its answer.
Another objection we might make to Meyer’s principle is to side with those
who reject the search for first principles as a defunct idea, seeing philosophy, at
least philosophy as metaphysics, as at its end. But even here, questioning is at
work. Meyer points out that once the question of questioning has been posed, to
refuse it is another way of answering it.27 This, in turn, indicates that rejecting the
question is an answer to it which thereby confirms that questioning comes first.
To assert that it is meaningless to search for metaphysical principles ‘implies
a conception of what is a meaningful question. This claim itself is nonsensical
and internally contradictory, since it provides an answer to that question.’28
In other words, to presume that the question is meaningless is already to have
an answer to it and is therefore question-begging. Without understanding the
foundational value of questioning, the answer to the question of Reason appears
paradoxical and can only be expressed as a ‘trace’ or ‘absent presence’ without
being able to affirm anything.29 This is the source of the familiar contradiction
in Lyotard’s argument—his story of the end of grand narratives is itself a grand
narrative. The only way we can make sense of this is if we affirm questioning
in our answer to the question of the foundation; if everything is questionable,
then even postmodernism rests upon questioning. If all narratives have been
27. Ibid., 20.

28. Ibid., 21.
29. Ibid.
problematized, then problematization is the basis of narratives and becomes a

grand narrative in itself.
Another potential objection might be to dispute the foundational claims of
problematology because history shows us that it is only one philosophy among
many, and nothing obliges us to accept it. It is certainly possible to dispute
problematology as an answer, given that questioning is defined by alternatives.
Indeed, to deny the possibility of rejecting problematology and asserting it as a
necessary conclusion would deny historical reality as well as the logic of prob-
lematological answering, which affirms problematicity and contingency over
necessity. Here, problematology prompts us to rethink the nature of necessity
itself. It is necessary that we answer when we question, though not necessary
that we offer any particular answer. Therefore, in philosophizing, it is neces-
sary that we question and that we answer, but not necessary that we affirm
questioning as an answer. Questioning is an undeniable necessity in every case,
but because it is in the property of a question to always produce more than one
answer we do not have to accept problematology as the only answer. Questions
have the property of permitting themselves to be disguised by the repression
effected by the apocritical property of answering. Hence, a necessary result
of questioning foundations is that it generates the dual possibilities of either
reflecting or repressing questioning. Philosophies founded on propositions are
also answers, but answers which repress their origins in questioning—their
‘answerhood’—in order to claim some foundational necessity. The crisis of
foundations is the problematization of necessity as the condition of rationality,
but it does not follow that rationality itself is fundamentally compromised, only
the version of rationality based on propositions. Heidegger and Wittgenstein,
for example, perceived the absence of necessity for philosophy but could not
articulate it, except negatively. Meyer concludes that past philosophies were
not errors but simply did not confront the historical conditions of today in
which rationality itself has been radically problematized, and thus they were
unable to pose the question of questioning.30 Necessity as the causal relationship
between propositions is unsustainable, but it can be redefined in terms of the
relationship between question and answer, such that it is necessary to do both,
but not necessary that any answer will be accepted without being thrown back
into question. Thus, rhetoric occupies a renewed place in Meyer’s conception
of rationality.31
30. Ibid., 10.

31. See, Michel Meyer, Principia Rhetorica: Théorie générale de l’argumentation (Paris: Fayard,
2008).
68 Nick Turnbull
With such a weakened notion of necessity—which puts forward an inevitable

contingency in rationality—does it mean that problematology is epistemologi-
cally relativist? Relativism arises from the idea that answers should eliminate
questions, that knowledge should produce propositions which are necessarily
true rather than contingent. A historical view confirms that philosophy only
comes up with systems opposed to one another, products of individual inspiration
rather than eternal truths.32 The relativist critique reveals the historicity of indi-
vidual philosophies, which is paradoxical for those philosophies which claim to
transcend history and establish ahistorical knowledge. However, relativism fails
to understand that such philosophies establish their independence by continually
repressing questioning in their solutions, becoming autonomous from them and
disguising the interrogativity they have in common; ‘The historicity of these
philosophies is the repression of their history, producing the illusion that they
draw their validity from and upon themselves, independent of what they origi-
nate in’.33 All knowledge is historically modulated and therefore variable and
flexible but nonetheless it obeys the laws of questioning.34 In the end, relativism
is a self-refuting proposition because to conclude that all knowledge is histori-
cally determined is an ahistorical assertion. Whereas relativism points out the
non-apodicticity of philosophical answering, it fails to perceive the questioning
that all thought shares in common, ‘the underlying constancy of questions which
make up the philosophical itself’.35
Questioning is primary and the historical context mediates the transition to
a particular answer which then appears to be ahistorical because the apocrit-
ical dimension of reason makes answers autonomous and independent from
their questions.36 Questioning and historicity form a pair. The historian E.H.
Carr, reflecting upon the nature of history, wrote, ‘When we attempt to answer
the question “What is history?” our answer, consciously or unconsciously,
reflects our own position in time, and forms part of our answer to the broader
question what view we take of the society in which we live.’37 Although there
are no neutral answers to questions because history permeates all answering,
questioning is always primary and understanding history reflects a questioning

33. Ibid., 164.
34. See Michel Meyer, Questionnement et historicité (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France,
2000).
36. On Meyer’s concept of the autonomy of answering; ibid., 209–19; see also Questionnement et
Historicité.
37. Edward H. Carr, What is History?, 2nd edn, ed. R.W. Davies (London: Penguin Books, 1987),
8.
necessity which transcends any particular historical inquiry; specific historical

answers may not necessarily exclude other answers but questioning is a neces-
sity in every case. While history conditions knowledge, we can also question
what we receive from the past because questioning creates an alternative and
therefore the possibility of obtaining a new result.
The logic of questioning makes it possible to pose questions by creating a
discourse which enables us to debate them and, in some cases, to solve them.
It allows discourse to be flexible in reference to the context but also estab-
lishes rules (the apocritico-problematological link) to which discourse must
conform. Problematology does not deny that social norms structure discourse.
But whatever norm we might uphold it is still the result of a question and there-
fore an answer; as such, norms are never totally unquestionable, requiring for
their stability continuous reinforcement through the discursive articulation of
values or through becoming enmeshed in social practices. The mistake would
be to believe that a norm can act as a substitute for a foundation in order to
guarantee the necessity otherwise lost to philosophy. With the affirmation of
questioning comes a fragility of norms but this accurately reflects their nature.
Even though problematology brings questioning forward and infuses reason with
a problematic quality, the principle of questioning establishes a solid ground
upon which to build rationality. Reason is therefore possible without requiring
solutions to be guaranteed at the outset so problematology does not fall into a
petitio principii.38
Offering such a problematic foundation is not against rationality, but rather
indicates the importance of the question-answer link and thematizes this link in a
more expansive and nuanced way. Questioning is the primary act of rationality and
in the problematological difference we find a necessary and sufficient condition
which governs the logos in its entirety.39 Discourse is a logic of question and answer
which expresses and resolves problematicity but from which problematicity can
never be entirely eliminated in an ultimate answer. Even the results of science, for
example, can be questioned anew through empirical evidence or by being used
to treat different questions in different contexts, such as politics. Indeed, without
problematicity there would be no need for politics. Problematology guards against
the dogmatic assertion of ideologies because it reveals what is necessarily prob-
lematic about them. Questioning is thus fundamental to democracy, just as it was
for Socrates, whose questioning practice was political as well as philosophical. But
problematology is more comprehensive than the Socratic method because it deals
38. Ibid., 105.

39. Ibid., 211.
70 Nick Turnbull
equally with answering, with which Socrates was little concerned.40 Therefore
problematology establishes the basis of a questioning ethic and the responsibility
to answer even in conditions of uncertainty.
2. What is postmodernism?
Perhaps above all, postmodernism has ‘problematized’ philosophy, science,
and the humanities. References to questioning are almost omnipresent in discus-
sions of postmodernity and postmodernism. Smart describes postmodernity as
the period in which the values of Western civilization are ‘justifiably in ques-
tion’, as that which ‘called into question or subjected to doubt’ modern ideas
of progress.41 He cites Giddens’s description of a generalized problematicity
across society when he noted that ‘we increasingly find ourselves “left with
questions where once there appeared to be answers”.’42 It is in the very nature of
modernity to generate the radically reflexive questioning that now encompasses
modernity itself, with Bauman describing the postmodern social condition as
‘an incessant flow of reflexivity’ which produces ‘institutionalized pluralism,
variety, contingency and ambivalence’.43 Not dissimilarly, Lyotard stated that
postmodernism is part of the modernist drive to question presuppositions.44 One
could find many references to questioning elsewhere. Although Western thought
has always put things into question,45 what is new is the generalized reflexive
questioning of postmodernity and the lack of new answers.
Since postmodernism has escaped firm definition—by definition, it must
do—and instead represents a series of questions,46 then it doesn’t make much
sense to ask what postmodernism is. Viewing it through an ontology which it
has done much to problematize suggests that an ontological approach will only
produce further difficulties. If ontology is a failed approach to philosophy then
why develop an alternative philosophy based on this failure? Meyer makes this
criticism of Derrida by pointing out that the concept of ‘trace’ of the subject
actually reinstates Cartesianism in a new guise, albeit one of radical negativity:
‘Is it not quite simply an insurmountable contradiction to want to declare the
40. Ibid., 90; Michel Meyer, ‘From Grammatology to Problematology’, in Questioning Derrida: With
his replies on philosophy, ed. Michel Meyer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 2.
41. Barry Smart, Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1993), 26; 28.
42. Ibid., 35.
43. Zygmunt Bauman, ‘A Sociological Theory of Postmodernity’, Thesis Eleven 29 (1991): 46, 33.
44. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, 79.
45. Cornelius Castoriadis, Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy, ed. David Ames Curtis (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 4.
46. Smart, Postmodernity, 12.
death of Cartesianism, while in the same breath overcoming that death by stating
that the subject is a trace of itself?’47 He points out a similar contradiction in
Lacan’s assertion that the ‘lack’ of reality is reality, asking if this does not, in
fact, reveal a foundational problematicity which defines humanity.48 Similarly,
why should we accept the ‘weak ontology’ of Vattimo, a philosophy based on
the problematization of ontology but which makes a virtue of this weakness?49
Instead, a philosophical approach to the question of foundations should proceed
on the very basis of that which is common to postmodern criticisms of ration-
ality, problematization.
If the postmodern condition is one of generalized questioning, shouldn’t this
draw our attention to questioning itself? Lyotard’s ‘incredulity toward metanar-
ratives’50 affirms questioning as a primary stance, but postmodern thinkers have
not considered questioning in itself. Lyotard could not satisfactorily answer
the question of the postmodern because he did not recognize the place of ques-
tioning in his own critique. Since he could not adequately thematize questioning
or answering, postmodern theory became that which paradoxically expresses
progress as the impossibility and undesirability of progress. Lyotard presents
postmodernity as different from modernity but it also cannot be different because
difference itself has fragmented: postmodernism neither is nor isn’t because
identity is non-identical with itself. Knowledge fragments from within and
rationality collapses. Under these terms conceptual confusion and a lack of
meaning indicate success in rejecting the ‘terror of totality’. Meyer gives the
example of Derrida, who contributed much to problematizing the traditional
foundations of Western philosophy without considering questioning as such.51
Instead of perceiving polysemy as a structural property of answering, Derrida
argues that language naturally produces a free play of discourse, an endless
signification and an infinite deferral of meaning.52 The highly metaphorical
and abstract texts of postmodernism reflect this view of language. Those texts
which differ by arguing a postmodernist position through literal, rational argu-

48. Ibid., 136–37.
49. See, Gianni Vattimo and Pier Aldo Rovatti, eds, Il pensiero debole (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1983);
Santiago Zabala, ed., Weakening Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Gianni Vattimo (Montreal;
Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007).
50. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, xxiv.
51. Meyer, Questioning Derrida. This is despite claims to the contrary; see, for example, Jacques
Derrida, ‘As if it Were Possible, “Within Such Limits”…,’ in Michel Meyer, ed., Questioning
Derrida: With his Replies on Philosophy, 96–119 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001); John D. Caputo,
Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida (New York: Fordham Univer-
sity Press, 1997), 200.
52. See, Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans., Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1978).
72 Nick Turnbull
ment are liable to the charge of performative contradiction. But why should we
accept this contradiction and mirror the fragmentation of thought, supporting a
nihilism conceived of as positive, all the while denying its positive value because
such an affirmation is impossible? Meyer makes the contradiction clear: ‘how
can we put as our guiding principle the negation of all guiding principles?’53
Post-foundationalists ‘problematize’ reason but do not see the question-answer
link they employ, a similar omission to that found in the philosophies they
deconstruct. The confusion inherent in postmodernism is a consequence of the
failure to thematize questioning, thus upholding the longstanding denigration
of questioning as negative for rationality. Despite its radicality, postmodernism
does not move far beyond the traditional concepts of philosophy it criticizes
because it stays within the realm of ontology, seeing the alternative itself in terms
of negative Being rather than that which is generated by questioning.
By asking again the question of postmodernism—this time articulating an
answer recognized as an answer—we can understand its basis in questioning
and also its contradictions, which arise from a failure to articulate this basis,
instead preferring an answer couched in propositional terms. Is problematicity
really unpresentable? Must rationality be defined only against a radical negativity
which is its Other? If we consider the historical period of postmodernity—or
‘late modernity’, ‘liquid modernity’, ‘reflexive modernity’, or even simply
‘modernity’—in terms of questioning, it can be expressed as the generalized
questioning characterized in modernity.54 Modernity, according to Wagner,
is about ‘the impossibility to give any one superior answer, together with the
inevitable persistence of the questions’.55 Postmodernism in philosophy is one
expression of this questioning, including even the questioning of modernity
as a concept in itself, given the norm it implies. All this amounts to a broad
historical problematization to which problematology is the only sufficient
theoretical response. History does not proceed by historical breaks. Rather,
new realms emerge gradually from the old as tradition is put into question. In
postmodernity questioning has become generalized such that problematicity
emerges as a general condition. The transition from modernity to postmoder-
nity is precisely a problematological one: postmodernity is not of a different
‘being’ from modernity, but its condition is a problematological response to
modernity’s incessant reflexive questioning, which modifies the past without

54. See, Peter Wagner, Modernity as Experience and Interpretation: A New Sociology of Modernity
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008); Wagner describes modernity as an interpretive relation to the
world through ‘a range of problématiques to which a variety of responses are possible’, 263.
55. Ibid., 185.
completely dissolving it in the answers, which are always problematological.

The foundational status of questioning confirms that unquestionable princi-
ples will not emerge, thus also philosophically grounding the objections to
fundamentalist, ontological positions. Whatever terms we may use to describe
the philosophical themes of postmodernism—ambivalence, indeterminacy,
problematicity, radical undecidability, uncertainty—these qualities can all be
expressed more positively as reflecting the problematological nature of ration-
ality. In contrast to ‘post-foundationalism’—with its insistence on treating the
problematic as radical negativity, as a disruption of reason—problematology
does not overturn philosophy’s traditional critical value. Indeed it affirms it,
as questioning, and offers a new direction which also promises to show how
philosophy speaks to problems in other fields of inquiry, from science to the
humanities. If many writers have found a critical value in postmodernism, it is
because it questions established knowledge and therefore has at least questioning
as a fundamental property, which thereby opens up the possibility of alterna-
tives. Any use of rational argument implies a conception of what rationality
is, hence ‘post-foundationalism’ is a misnomer, a term used to express radical
questioning but one still based upon the propositionalist view. To be consistent,
the questioning of foundations cannot reject rationality—it can only reject the
idea of a fixed starting point, a foundational proposition, or ontology. Philosophy
cannot be ‘post-foundational’, but it can be ‘post-propositional’, if and only if
it is theorized in terms of questioning.
With a foundational account of Reason in terms of questioning, postmodernism
is firmly behind us, this time philosophically so, a stop on the path to questioning
which has been superseded by it. Nonetheless, problematology should appeal to
advocates of ‘post-foundational’ thought because problematology argues that
problematicity is fundamental and therefore all knowledge is questionable. This
supports a constructive view of poststructuralism and postmodernism as modali-
ties of a questioning tradition. But problematology is very different because it
does not attack philosophy, but affirms and renews it. Problematology is a new
metaphysics to replace ontology, not simply reflecting historical problema-
ticity but explicating questioning as a positive value, establishing the founda-
tion of knowledge while also expressing the pervasiveness of contemporary
problematicity. Problematology grounds reason in a principle which supports
theory-building but also expresses the ‘ineradicable plurality of the world…
[as] the constitutive quality of existence’.56 Meyer has created a new logic and
56. Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 98.
74 Nick Turnbull
terminology which expresses this plurality, a necessary quality for a successful

systematic study of contemporary society.57 If identity has fragmented then it has
become a question which cannot be conclusively resolved because it expresses
several possible alternative answers at the same time: identity is rhetorically
constructed. The decentering of the subject makes of us ‘an irreducible problem,
one for which the only answer, far from suppressing the question, reproduces
it endlessly’.58 Our answer to the question of identity is problematological and
therefore always in question as much as it provides an answer. Ontology may be
fatally problematized but reports of the death of foundational philosophy have
been greatly exaggerated: questioning is the foundation which postmodernism
had rejected as a priori impossible. Postmodernity is not the end of metaphysics
but the historical condition of its reformulation as questioning.
Because it is grounded in a principle, problematology provides a unity to
Reason, even while it grants a positive value to problematicity, which in turn
makes indeterminacy and ambivalence equal possibilities to certainty. This is
quite different from science, which fragments reason through its reductionism,
and postmodernism, which reflects the fragmentation of reason and savors the
collapse of meaning. We can trace the fragmentary qualities of both science and
postmodernism to the rejection of metaphysics. Postmodern critics were right
to reject ontology as paradoxical but it was an error to reject the very idea of a
foundation in the process. Since the difficulties of contemporary thought origi-
nate in the problematization of foundations, our response should be to re-ground
reason in a new principle which establishes the rules of rationality and enables
us to relate one mode of discourse to another. The problematological principle
is different because it expresses questioning rather than resolving it a priori by
imposing a base proposition which suppresses the question from which it was
derived. As a consequence, the problematological logos thematizes questioning
throughout its whole texture: ‘To speak, act, or think one must on each occasion
have a question in mind’.59
While problematology is metaphysics, it is not a return to a traditional concep-
tion of the foundational. That approach sought an ontological or propositional
foundation for knowledge, ‘a necessary entity…which becomes a point of depar-
ture from which all else can proceed’.60 The principle of questioning indicates
57. As suggested by Bauman, ‘Sociological Theory of Postmodernity’.

58. Meyer, Problematology, 303; see also Castoriadis on identity as a ‘puzzle’, Philosophy, Politics,
Autonomy, 170–71.
60. Ibid., 304.
that knowledge is possible, that there is a structure to it, and yet that we should
reject the old idea of knowledge as a series of propositions linked by a logic of
necessity. Instead, questioning produces a ‘pluralistic opening of answers’61 in
which answering is necessary but no particular answer can dissolve all questions.
Indeed, to express a question is already a synthesis and therefore a positive result
in itself. This philosophy resonates with our experience of literature, art, and
also of politics, all of which find only figurative or questionable solutions.
The question of the foundation is at the origin of every possible answer and
therefore questioning is a necessary condition of reason.62 But we are also free
to make this explicit or not, to pose the question explicitly to ourselves; this is
the freedom within questioning. Philosophy, as questioning, is a creative and
autonomous act, a choice which arises from the alternatives established by the
necessity of questioning.63 This creativity is important for the related question of
intellectual responsibility, to the autonomy put in play by questioning, a position
Castoriadis also affirms.64 Problematology shows that we do have the freedom
to answer by refusing questioning, even though we reflect questioning in so
doing. Hence, Bauman can describe how we face two contemporary possibili-
ties: facing up to the contingency of the human condition or taking shelter in
partial rationalities.65 Meyer’s problematology affirms contingency, but does so
without accepting partiality, given his argument for a foundation, and his system-
atic and comprehensive development of a theory of rationality.66 As a critical
questioning of rationality, postmodernism had an important critical impact,
but could offer as an alternative only a weak and partial vision of rationality, a
vision which could not account for the rationality of its own critique because it
did not offer a positive conception of questioning. In grounding rationality in
questioning, and in separating questions from answers, problematology explains
postmodernism as a form of questioning and also uncovers its contradictions
which result from the failure to think in terms of questioning. In expressing the
alternative as such, as questioning, problematology is the alternative answer to
the postmodern questioning of rationality, an alternative which is consistent in
both theory and practice.
University of Manchester
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., 21.
63. Ibid., 22.
64. Castoriadis, Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy, 164.
65. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 213. He argues that soci-
ology also can affirm freedom only through questioning.
66. See, Meyer, Problematology; Questionnement.
76 Nick Turnbull
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1. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans., Geoff

2. Lyotard, Postmodern Explained, 9, 15–16.

1. Questioning the foundation of Reason

Whereas Lyotard rejected unity in favor of fragmentation, Meyer searches

10. Ibid., 18.

tion questioning—deducing a conception of rationality without recourse to

For example, we could ask a rhetorical question which is really a disguised

18. Ibid., 116.

be independent assertions, in fact, every affirmation pertains to a question and

25. Meyer, Problematology, 208–9.

27. Ibid., 20.

problematized, then problematization is the basis of narratives and becomes a

30. Ibid., 10.

With such a weakened notion of necessity—which puts forward an inevitable

32. Meyer, Problematology, 12.

necessity which transcends any particular historical inquiry; specific historical

38. Ibid., 105.

47. Meyer, Problematology, 136.

53. Meyer, Problematology, 3.

completely dissolving it in the answers, which are always problematological.

terminology which expresses this plurality, a necessary quality for a successful

57. As suggested by Bauman, ‘Sociological Theory of Postmodernity’.

Wagner, Peter. Modernity as Experience and Interpretation: A New Soci-

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