POST MODERN PHILOSOPHY

• postmodernism, also spelled post-

modernism, in Western philosophy, a late
20th-century movement characterized by
broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a
general suspicion of reason; and an acute
sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting
and maintaining political and economic power.
• This article discusses postmodernism in
philosophy. For treatment of postmodernism
in architecture, see the article
Western architecture.
• Postmodernism and relativism
• As indicated in the preceding section, many of the characteristic
doctrines of postmodernism constitute or imply some form of
metaphysical, epistemological, or ethical relativism. (It should be noted,
however, that some postmodernists vehemently reject the relativist
label.) Postmodernists deny that there are aspects of reality that are
objective; that there are statements about reality that are objectively
true or false; that it is possible to have knowledge of such statements
(objective knowledge); that it is possible for human beings to know some
things with certainty; and that there are objective, or absolute, moral
values. Reality, knowledge, and value are constructed by discourses;
hence they can vary with them. This means that the discourse of modern
science, when considered apart from the evidential standards internal to
it, has no greater purchase on the truth than do alternative perspectives,
including (for example) astrology and witchcraft. Postmodernists
sometimes characterize the evidential standards of science, including the
use of reason and logic, as “Enlightenment rationality.”
• The broad relativism apparently so characteristic of
postmodernism invites a certain line of thinking regarding
the nature and function of discourses of different kinds. If
postmodernists are correct that reality, knowledge, and
value are relative to discourse, then the established
discourses of the Enlightenment are no more necessary or
justified than alternative discourses. But this raises the
question of how they came to be established in the first
place. If it is never possible to evaluate a discourse
according to whether it leads to objective Truth, how did
the established discourses become part of the prevailing
worldview of the modern era? Why were these discourses
adopted or developed, whereas others were not?