Social Sciences
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in the mid-20th century, challenging traditional notions of truth, identity, and reality. It emphasizes the complexity, diversity, and ambiguity of human experience, rejecting grand narratives and embracing pluralism and skepticism. Postmodernism has had a significant impact on fields such as literature, art, architecture, and sociology.
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10 Key excerpts on "Postmodernism"
eBook - ePubEmpirical Nursing
The Art of Evidence-based Care
- Bernie Garrett(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Emerald Publishing Limited(Publisher)
- Modernism: The Enlightenment and following period that challenged tradition and authority in favour of science, technology and the objectification of the world, and a linear narrative of history. This period concluded with the age of popular science up until the 1950s.
- Postmodernism: The rejection of natural science, universals and ultimate principles, and acceptance of a reality not simply described by human understanding but constructed by it. The acceptance of the relative truths of each individual, politics of power and relationships and the validity of mystical explanation. This period is now being discussed as ending at the close of the twentieth century (Gans, 2000 ).
Overall, Postmodernism can be regarded as a response to (or the product of) modernism, which is to say everything in philosophy that has come since Descartes, or wherever an arbitrary line of modernism appears in whatever particular field you are interested in (painting, architecture, music, science). Many philosophers would likely contest this interpretation as un-nuanced, and possibly even a knee-jerk post-positivist view. However, due to the rather anarchic nature of the ideas themselves, trying to find any consensus on postmodern thought really is the equivalent of trying to herd the proverbial group of cats that have just encountered a very large dog.Deconstruction
One of the most prevalent postmodern paradigms used in contemporary nursing and social science is deconstruction. Some philosophers argue it is not a postmodern approach to knowledge, as it is more of a literary and artistic critique, although it can be used for analytical purposes in other contexts. Deconstruction is Jacques Derrida’s (1930–2004) approach to textual analysis and literary criticism, and is a process designed to expose and challenge the frame of reference, assumptions and ideological underpinnings of the narrative. Derrida attempted to apply Martin Heidegger’s concept of Destruktion
eBook - ePubPost-Modernism and the Social Sciences
Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions
- Pauline Marie Rosenau(Author)
- 1991(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
In considering the consequences of skeptical post-modern political orientations for social science the views of the extremist minority preoccupied by death and terrorism can be dealt with rather quickly. These post-modernists have no interest or need for a social science—be it modern or postmodern. The political views of the remaining skeptical post-modernists range from passivity to deliberate frivolity, and although they too may not require any social science at all, some of them are interested in a discursive, literary social science. Such a social science would have little of importance to contribute to society. It would not need to play the role of conventional social science at any level. Nor would it be asked to provide theoretical insights in the form of new knowledge. It would not seek to enhance understanding because understanding assumes or promotes meta-narratives. Nor would it need to offer information as a basis for problem solving or policy making. What is a problem for conventional modern social science does not strike the skeptical post-modernists as worrisome. To formulate policy the skeptics would have to advance a point of view that something needs to be done and can be accomplished, and this they deny. All that is left for the skeptics is a social science that exhibits a passion for discourse, that serves as a means of self-exploration, self-reflection, and self-expression, but that is passive because it does not move beyond conversation.2. Affirmative Post-Modernists on Politics: Activist, New Age, and Third WorldAffirmative post-modernists exhibit a wide variety of political perspectives (Luke 1989b) that give rise to a fragmented, heterogeneous collection of political views that have little “common content” and often contradict one another (Ross 1988: xiv; Luke 1989c: chap. 8; Melucci 1990b: 14). They do however agree on several politically relevant dimensions: a rejection of modern science, a questioning of the modern idea of progress, a refusal to affiliate with any traditional, institutionalized political movements that have what they consider a “totalizing ideology” and an abandonment of logocentric foundational projects with comprehensive solutions—be they liberal, centrist, or conservative. They question official forms of knowledge, expertise, and “paper” qualifications. They are “post-proletarian, post-industrial, post-socialist, post-Marxist, and post-distributional” (Luke 1989c: 235).
- Jean A Pardeck, John W Murphy, Roland Meinert(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Renewing Social Work Practice Through a Postmodern Perspective
John W. MurphyJohn T. PardeckSUMMARY. Postmodernism is one of the most recent significant developments within the social sciences. This paper reviews the movement toward a postmodern perspective beginning in the late 19th century in the field of sociology. The evolution toward a postmodern perspective in the social sciences has important implications for the profession of social work. The authors suggest that the postmodern perspective has the potential to renew the profession of social work. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: [email protected] ]Postmodernism is probably one of the most significant intellectual developments in recent years (Ritzer, 1992). Variations of the postmodern movement are emerging in all fields of the social sciences including social work. One of the clear strengths of Postmodernism is the emphasis that it places on diversity of ideas, a perspective highly compatible with the profession of social work.A postmodern point of view rejects objectivism and absolution-ism and stresses pluralism, relativism, and flexibility (Laird, 1993).The postmodern perspective challenges old theories, in particular those grounded in the modern world, and calls for new paradigms. The movement toward a postmodern perspective in the social sciences has its roots in 19th century sociology. The purpose of this paper is to trace this historical development and to discuss the implications of the postmodern movement on the profession of social work.TRADITIONAL SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL ORDER
Positivism emerged within the field of sociology in the late 19th century. A number of early social theorists, specifically Comte and Durkheim, viewed the social changes occurring in the late 19th century as a threat to the social and moral order of France (Aron, 1968). Positivism was seen as a scientific theory that would offer strategies for effectively dealing with the perceived breakdown of society.
eBook - ePub- David Inglis, Christopher Thorpe(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
9 Post-Modernist ParadigmsFrom the mid 1980s onwards, words that were unavoidable throughout the social sciences and humanities were ‘post-modernism’ and ‘post-modernity’. They had become the fashionable terms to use when talking about cultural and social issues. Claims were made, both inside universities and among cultural commentators like journalists, that Western societies had undergone such fundamental changes in the last few decades that one could no longer understand them as being ‘modern’, in the senses that the classical sociologists had understood that term (see Chapter 1 ). Instead, new ‘post-modern’ social and cultural situations had emerged, which were radically different from the ‘modern’ society they had allegedly replaced. It was argued that the understanding of these new conditions would mean abandoning established forms of theorizing, and embracing new, properly post-modern ways of thinking and seeing in order really to see what was happening. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it seemed that post-modernist thinking was thoroughly shaking-up and undermining previously dominant theories and paradigms. But by the late 1990s, the high-tide of post-modernism in the social sciences and humanities was receding. By the early 2000s, post-modernism and post-modernity had themselves come to be seen by many as rather dated concepts. Now that the hype has died down, what remains of post-modern thinking that is still of interest and value?In this chapter, we will first examine the various contexts from which post-modernist thinking derived and took inspiration. Then we will turn to look at the main post-modernist thinkers, and their distinctive views on what post-modernism and post-modernity are, especially Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. We will then see how Marxist critics accused post-modernism of both ignoring and covering up the iniquities of the capitalist system. By reviewing the claims of the post-modernists, and the counter-claims of their critics, we can move towards an understanding of what today may be more and less useful in the post-modernist legacy.
eBook - ePub- Stuart Sim(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
I Postmodernism: Its History and Cultural Context
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1 Postmodernism and Philosophy
Stuart SimDOI: 10.4324/9780203813201-1Philosophy, particularly the recent French philosophical tradition, has been both a prime site for debate about Postmodernism and a source of many of the theories of what constitutes Postmodernism. Probably the leading figure to be cited is Jean-François Lyotard, whose book The Postmodern Condition is widely considered to be the most powerful theoretical expression of Postmodernism.1 Lyotard's plea that we should reject the ‘grand narratives’ (that is, universal theories) of Western culture because they have now lost all their credibility, sums up the ethos of Postmodernism, with its disdain for authority in all its many guises. There is no longer any point in engaging with, for example, Marxism, the argument goes; rather, we should ignore it as an irrelevance to our lives. Postmodern philosophy provides us with the arguments and techniques to make that gesture of dissent, as well as the means to make value judgements in the absence of such overall authorities.One of the best ways of describing Postmodernism as a philosophical movement would be as a form of scepticism – scepticism about authority, received wisdom, cultural and political norms and so on – and that places it in a long-running tradition in Western thought that stretches back to classical Greek philosophy. Scepticism is a primarily negative form of philosophy, which sets out to undermine other philosophical theories claiming to be in possession of ultimate truth, or of criteria for determining what counts as ultimate truth. The technical term to describe such a style of philosophy is ‘anti-foundational’. Anti-foundationalists dispute the validity of the foundations of discourse, asking such questions as ‘What guarantees the truth of your foundation (that is, starting point)?’ Postmodernism has drawn heavily on the example set by anti-foundationalist philosophers, perhaps most notably the iconoclastic nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose call for a ‘revaluation of all values’ constitutes something of a battle-cry for the movement.2
eBook - ePubSubject to Ourselves
An Introduction to Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Social Theory
- Anthony Elliott(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
sensitivity to difference : involvement without classification, heterogeneity without hierarchy. Instead, reasoning becomes equated with the principle of equivalence; thinking is shifted from the idea of a central rationality of knowledge to a local processing of ‘difference’, with the experience of oscillation and disorientation to the fore. In this new cultural setting, experience is marked by plurality and multiplicity; the holding together of complex, contradictory images and signifiers, without the pressure or demand for a closure of horizons.To put it in a different way, the postmodern world-view entails a radical dissection of the notion of normativity. The attempt to prescribe ideal norms as an objective ground for truth or meaning is deconstructed as a conservative, modernist desire for the universalization of order and hierarchy. The main objection here concerns the profoundly anti-democratic tendency of thinking society as unilinear; a centralization of power which ruthlessly excludes any difference or opposition of local rationalities and identities in the name of progress (as can be gleaned from even the most cursory glance at the history of colonialism and imperialism in the twentieth century). The postmodern sensibility, by contrast, refuses to engage in any such rationalistic foreclosure of conflict and contradiction in the contemporary political world. On the contrary, postmodernity marks an opening up of sites of contestation, all the way from the divisions of gender and sexuality to issues of democracy and citizenship rights. The wave of ‘particularism’ that has swept over social theory and philosophy of late is wedded to precisely such a political understanding of democratic contestation.‘Long live heterogeneity!’: this might well be the rallying cry of politics in the postmodern. There is, however, a deeper political irony in this underwriting of difference and otherness. On the one hand, postmodernity enters into an egalitarian compact with politics, marked as it is by an ability to reflect back difference and multiplicity, and thus to destabilize the ordered, hierarchical domains of expert knowledge in the contemporary world. On the other hand, however, this valorization of difference is often achieved only at the expense of value , of the disconnection between meaning and human social relationships. The irony, then, is that postmodern culture comes to have less and less time for the differences it fosters. The emotional processing of experience, this would suggest, cannot be adequately performed. In Bion’s terms, this amounts to saying that postmodernity is a culture which notices the sheer amount of experience, or information, available; but, crucially, subjects are unable to think about it long enough to be socially useful. A volatile containing situation might thus be said to haunt the field of the postmodern, and it is perhaps for this reason that much of postmodernist culture is firmly discarding. Such forms of anti-thought can be given powerful connotations at the level of contemporary theory: the end of history, the death of the subject, the reductive conflation of reasoning and logic with totalization, and the demise of the ethical accompanied by the fashionable imperative of ‘anything goes’. Viewed as a kind of postmodern dreaming state, such pessimism can be said to encode powerful feelings of hatred and despair. As Paul Hoggett comments on the negativity of this vision of the postmodern: ‘It is the fantasy of an exhausted breast with nothing left to give and, at this deeper level, the abandonment of hope.’24
eBook - ePubUnderstanding Management Research
An Introduction to Epistemology
- Phil Johnson, Joanne Duberley(Authors)
- 2000(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Ironically, the seeds of this postmodernist epistemological challenge were sown by positivism itself. By extolling the power of human reason and holding out the promise of progress, the Enlightenment project of positivism had paradoxically institutionalized criticism and uncertainty concerning what the criteria of progress should be, the methods by which it might be obtained, and whether it is even desirable. Everything became open to the critique spawned by positivism’s articulation of a sceptical, calculating reason – ultimately that reason itself became open to critique. In this manner positivism–modernism eroded the versions of reality that it promulgated and which had made the fragility of the human condition easier to bear (Berger et al., 1973: 166). As Giddens (1991: 3) argues, ‘doubt, a pervasive feature of modern critical reason, permeates into every life as well as philosophical consciousness, and forms a general existential dimension of the contemporary social world’ (1991: 2). Indeed the increasing secularization of Western society, as a product of the Enlightenment rationalist dictum ‘dare to know’, may have only replaced the premodern belief in the providence of an immutable God-given order to life with a growing realization of the uncertainty and fallibility of the very human reason it propagated. In other words, positivism began to exhaust itself. It is in this realization that the development of postmodernist epistemology lies.Postmodernist writers such as Foucault, Lyotard and Baudrillard have all found avid audiences in many of the social science disciplines. In part this is due to a growing disillusion with the positivistic assumptions which still dominate these disciplines and the apparent demise of traditional critical alternatives, such as Marxism. Moreover, as Alvesson wryly observes, Postmodernism constitutes ‘a new brand image … on the edge of the intellectual frontier’, a fad which has advantages for those concerned to market their ‘knowledge products’ by ‘defining out earlier work and creating space for new careers’ (1995: 1068). Thus Postmodernism may be seen as offering a new and distinctive means of understanding science that, at first sight, has some radical cachet yet may also be seen as something of a bandwagon for aspiring academics.Postmodernism, grand narratives and the linguistic turn
A recurrent theme in postmodern epistemology is a rejection of the modernist or the positivist (the terms are generally used interchangeably) ‘grand’ or ‘meta’ narrative (see Berg, 1989; Parker, 1992) and that it is possible to develop a rational and generalizable basis to scientific inquiry which explains the world from an objective standpoint. For instance, Lyotard defines the postmodern ‘as an incredulity towards metanarratives’ (1984: xxiv), while Harvey (1989: 10) suggests that it entails a rejection of overarching propositions that assume the validity of their own truth-claims. In particular Lyotard (ibid.) and Bauman (1989) attack the ‘fallen’ Enlightenment metanarrative of science as the source of human progress and emancipation through rational control located in reliable knowledge. For Lyotard the promise of the Enlightenment to emancipate humanity from poverty and ignorance died in the Nazi concentration camps and the Stalinist gulags. Indeed Bauman (ibid.
eBook - ePubThe Philosophy of Social Science
New Perspectives
- Garry Potter(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
The chapter begins with the question of personal and collective identities in relation to the many varieties of feminism. The recognition of difference between groups and the shifting nature of our multiple identities are seen as central features of Postmodernism. The question of the stability of an individual identity over time is explored in this context, as is a further examination of the issue of collective identities in relation to political action. The introduction to the consideration of Postmodernism is complete when the question is raised concerning whether or not these issues have themselves changed in relation to profound shifts in contemporary social reality.1. Postmodernism is described as an anti-epistemological position because of its rejection of the modes of thinking it associates with modernism. It is pointed out, however, that this is itself an epistemological position.2. Lyotard’s postmodernist perspective as developed in The Postmodern Condition is the first of these to be described.a. There is a radical distinction to be made in terms of the different language games of ought and is.b. Science belongs to the language game of ‘is’, that is, of providing descriptions and explanations of how things are.c. Science is dependent upon a different sort of language game from its own to legitimate itself as a human activity. In Lyotard’s terms it is dependent for this upon ‘narrative knowledge’. Science’s legitimation is expressed in terms of the grand narratives of the Enlightenment and modernity.d. According to science’s own standards, ‘narrative knowledge ’ is no knowledge at all.e. breakdown of knowledge and understanding has occurred whereby knowledge has been reduced to being merely a fragmented informational commodity. And collectively we have now reached a position of incredulity towards the grand narratives of the past in which we made sense of human history in terms of progress and civilisation.3. The contradictions between the above and Habermas’s position are explored.4. A clarification of the need (or not) to mark a distinction between poststruc-turalism
- Michael A. Peters, Marek Tesar, Liz Jackson, Tina Besley(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Postmodernism’s educational ideals speak of dialogue and multiculturalism, talk against western superiority, and it is all so liberating when you first read about them (Peters, 1995). In the light of Postmodernism, even science education is relaxed (Zembylas, 2000). It informs about what some scientists in some cultures currently believe; their limited consensus is the only norm by which to teach their theories; and at the end of the day, it just teaches us about which discourse politics and manoeuvres made it all the way, until the final cut, which is any day now, since all is always moving. But seeing science as mere socio-historical consensus can only go so far. On the postmodern hype, ideals of universalism and cross-cultural rationality were mocked as cultural imperialism; claims of truth and knowledge were presented as the winners of some worldviews’ power-play (Nola & Irzik, 2006; Schulz, 2007). Moreover, trying to resist the postmodern view of science, you were immediately accused of scientism; trying to resist a simplistic view of science as a bunch of Truth-given statements, you were a postmodern (Loving, 1997). Polarisation is easy and when you are on hype, it gets worse fast.Day by day, Postmodernism has helped dismantle theoretical tools and ideals that could potentially undermine superstition, fake news, vaccine resistance and cults’ apocalypses. And sure, the discussion about genes, quanta, AIDS and dark matter is still on, but if truth is not even our ideal end-station, the slope gets slippery. When, even talking about criteria is dismissed as despotism, and rationalism becomes synonymous to dogmatism, rock bottom is reached. We are there. Today. Already reached the new consensus of social media democracy, which is excused, once again, in the name of the weak, the outcast, the oppressed.Today’s epistemic crisis happens at the same time with the decline of philosophical and educational Postmodernism. And for those of us who never subscribed to its ideals - for there are such - its decay is hardly comforting. The damage is done: the irrational is already the new consensus. In the day after Postmodernism is not dead enough.Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.References
Loving, C.C. (1997). From the summit of truth to its slippery slopes: Science education's journey through positivist-postmodern territory. American Educational Research Journal, 34(3), 421–452.Nola, R., & Irzik, G. (2006). Philosophy, science, education and culture. Signapore: Springer.Peters, M. (Ed.). (1995). Education and the postmodern condition
eBook - ePub- D. A. Carson(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Zondervan(Publisher)
The discussion in this chapter so far has already included some response to the various forms of Postmodernism. Postmodernism has been a useful antidote to modernism, not least because modernism is part of its own pedigree. It has shown, more clearly than modernism, how many and diverse are the personal and social factors that go into all human knowing. In its insistence on the inescapable entailments of human finitude, it has done a reasonable job of destroying foundationalism. In consequence it has emphasized the importance of relationships and aesthetics. In the assortment of collateral movements that Postmodernism has reinforced (and from which it has benefited), it has exposed the painful and odious side of absolutism.On the other hand, strong Postmodernism is awash in moral relativism and is in its own structure of thought embarrassingly absurd. It tries to control the argument by deploying a manipulative and finally foolish antithesis, in either demanding the kind of absolute and exhaustive knowledge that only Omniscience enjoys, or relinquishing all claims to objective knowledge.Yet, although this antithesis goes too far, Postmodernism reminds us, again and again, that all of us see things from our own perspectives. In that sense we are all perspectivalists. I recall Carl F. H. Henry’s shrewd remark about presuppositionalism: “There are two kinds of presuppositionalists:those who admit it and those who don’t.” Similarly, we may happily aver that there are two kinds of perspectivalists: those who admit it and those who don’t.What I discuss next takes the discussion forward in two respects. Before I do that, however, I must offer some justification for the soft postmodernist. Granted Postmodernism’s insights, how can it affirm that there are truths, universal truths, that can in some measure be known and taught?How does one escape the drift toward relativism intrinsic to hard Postmodernism? To put the matter another way, what warrant is there for rejecting the absolute antithesis by which postmoderns so often seek to control the discussion? What alternative is there to this absolute antithesis?
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