POSTMODERNISM: A REACTION TO THE TERRORISM OF THE MODERNIST PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

Abstract

This paper is the concluding part of a series of two papers exploring and explaining the concept of postmodernism. The approach adopted for examining the postmodern phenomenon was to picture it as a collage incorporating three distinct but interrelated concepts/themes: one, postmodernism as an epoch; two, postmodernism as a signifier of the problematical features or the limits of modernity; and three, postmodernism as a reaction to the terrorism of the modernist philosophical thought. The first two of these were discussed in the paper published in the pervious issue of the Market Forces. This paper involves an examination of the third theme: postmodernism as a reaction to the terrorism of the modernist philosophical thought which has been described as positivistic, technocentric, and rationalistic, and the belief in linear progress, absolute truths, the rational planning of ideal social orders, and the standardization of knowledge and production. The approach adopted for this paper involves the use of the term ‘post’ as a counter concept and a broad-gauged cultural and intellectual movement that is re-conceptualizing the way we experience and understand the world around us. It involves a re-examination of eight areas of our knowledge base that form the basis of our conceptual foundations. These are: the concept of truth; the concept of theory; the concept of representation; the concept and the relationship between the author, the text, and the reader; the concept of subject; the problematic of disciplinary research; the concept of space; and the concept of history. The discussion involves an examination of the normally accepted definitions of these concepts and the counter-concepts or the alternative definitions offered within the realm of postmodern philosophical thought. Investigation into the counter-concepts is aimed as understanding how postmodernism represents a departure in our way of thinking regarding the best strategy for confronting the problems of the new epoch - the postmodern epoch.