It seems you can’t go far these days without encountering something–whether it be art or architecture, a book or blog, music or anything else–that comes with the label ‘postmodern’ attached to it. The funny thing about it is that this word is being carelessly thrown around, yet most people could not explain precisely what ‘postmodernism’ is. In that respect, it has become something of a buzzword; throw it around and see what sticks to it. The truth is that the idea of postmodernism is anything but that. It is not a simple rebellion against all things ‘mainstream,’ but has roots in a much deeper place. So would you like to know the definition of postmodernism is? Get ready, here it is…

Postmodernism is “incredulity towards metanarratives.” Got it? Good. If not, then I’ll explain. These are the words of Jean-Francois Lyotard, and this definition was coined in his groundbreaking work The Potsmodern Condition. What it means to be incredulous towards metanarratives is, extremely simplified, questioning whether or not we (as in our culture and society) have got the answer to life–the big One, the end-all, the Truth. Metanarratives (don’t worry about the intimidating name) are simply the history and story of our society (in our case, Western Enlightenment thought) that prompts us to believe that we are better suited to find the truth than, say, ancient Greece, or the Persian Empire. Our metanarrative tells us thatwe–although we may owe these past societies various bits of our tradition and customs–are better in whatever regard, and anybody using just plain reason will be able to see that. Postmodernism essentially denies this: it says that we don’t have any way of judging what is ‘better’ (like our method of governance vs. the Persian Empire’s), and anything that asks us to evaluate such things on reason alone is a metanarrative. Let’s break it down a little further.

Metanarrative, as you can probably tell, combines the prefix Meta and the word narrative. A narrative is simply a story. Our nation’s narrative would involve things like the fight for freedom, the history of our country, the story of our becoming and being. But when you attach the Meta and the word becomes Metanarrative, the meaning changes a bit. A Metanarrative will not only claim the same type of story as a narrative will, but place valueupon it. A Metanarrative is not simply a story–it is something that claims to be True (with a capital T–as in absolute truth). 

For instance: America fights for what we call freedom. We have a long and storied history of doing so. Our national narrative chronicles these events as a way of preserving our past, grounding ourselves in tradition and so on. The national Metanarrative that results from these fights, however, tells us that fighting for freedom is the best thing we can do, that it is absolutely True and that it must be right in all places and times. How does the Metanarrative back up this claim? The Metanarrative says that any person with common reason, American or not, will see that this value and claim, is absolutely True. 

Of course, whether or not American values will be perfectly acceptable to someone on an appeal to their reason alone is certainly up for debate. Europeans are sceptical of the brash individualism that Americans display–reason alone dictates to, say, a French or German person that Americans are mavericks or cowboys, not sensible about things, or highly idealistic in their worldview. This is certainly not the kind of conclusion about ourselves thatwe reach on reason alone! Already, we can see cracks in the idea of a metanarrative–everybody, every culture, every society, has a distinct and individual point of view. 

Let’s review:

Narrative: A story.

Metanarrative: A story that claims it can justify itself somehow upon reason alone. 

Postmodern Philosophers

I cannot comment upon how the emerging postmodern trend has affected other parts of society other than philosophy or in a broad social sense, so I’ll narrow my scope to that area. It’s important to narrow the scope of what we mean when we use a term like postmodernism, and be careful to avoid making statements that are too broad and sweeping. What is postmodern for architecture may or may not have any sort of bearing on what postmodernity means for literature, and so on and so forth. While it is tempting, as philosophers such as Richard Rorty have noted, we ought to steer ourselves away from making broad societal observations where the connection is anything less than certain. Lucky enough for us, philosophy just happens to be a discipline whose reach extends (often unnoticed) out as far as the furthest fringes of society. Postmodern philosophy, then, is in a unique postion–in a way, it has the luxury of being able to pick and choose what may or may not be relevant. 

Here is a short list of some notable philosophers who have either assumed or been given the label ‘postmodern’ in one way or another: 

Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, Jean Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Soren Kierkegaard, to just name a few. 

This has been an intentionally brief and, admittedly, scant overview of what postmodernism is. Hopefully the framework provided here will be enough to follow along with future blog entries and discussions about postmodernism and what it’s proponents and detractors have to say. Enjoy!

The word ‘Pragmatism’ doesn’t sound like a school of philosophical thought. It sounds more like an old time disease–like the story your grandpa told you about how he came down with the Pragmatism when he was a boy. However the name sounds, Pragmatism is not a disease, but rather a philosophy that a lot of philosophers treat as though it were one. So what is it? You might be surprised to find that in many ways (particularly if you’ve ever taken an Intro to Philosophy course, or asked ‘why does this matter?’) you may be a pragmatist!

Most Western philosophies are concerned with questions like: “What is there in the world?” “What can we know?” or “What if there’s another world in my thumbnail, and this world is a part of some other guy’s thumbnail?” Pragmatism takes these questions and hurls them out the window. Why? Because, say Pragmatists, they’re completely pointless. 

Pragmatism gets its name from the Greek word pragma, which means ‘action.’ Consequently, Pragmatism is a philosophy of action. It says that unless your ideas have some sort of practical consequence, then they aren’t of much use. You can imagine the tailspin that this sends traditional philosophers into. 

One prominent contemporary pragmatist, Richard Rorty, says in an essay that pragmatists do not need metaphysics or epistemology–the traditional backbones of philosophical thought! So where does this lead pragmatism? If it rejects the basic tenets of what philosophy has always been, then what does it do? What does it say? Here are a few broad tenets of Pragmatism:

Rejection of ‘Truth’: Pragmatists don’t believe in such a thing as Truth (in the Platonic sense). They don’t think that we can jump outside of our heads and discover what the world is really like–they think that what we know is simply what works, rather than what is inherently true. Instead of seeking some ‘Universal Standard’ of goodness like the Greeks were after, Pragmatists are more concerned that we find a measure of goodness that works. Why must ‘goodness’ come from a standard outside of us? If we can all, or mostly, agree that something is ‘good’ (like Americans agree that democracy is generally good), then what’s wrong with that? Pragmatists say, to continue the analogy, that democracy is not inherently true or good–but that we have found democracy to work better and be more agreeable than anything else! 

Rejection of Epistemology: As a result of the rejection of truth, pragmatists reject epistemology. (Epistemology is the study of human knowledge–essentially asking ‘what can we know?’) We, in a very real sense, say pragmatists, create our own epistemology. We make things like math and science, rather than discover them. Again, society dictates what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ rather than some outside, non-human standard of universal ‘goodness’ and ‘badness.’ Epistemology is no longer a ‘discipline’ of study, but becomes more of a by-product of humanity. 

Rejection of Metaphysics: On a broad scale, pragmatists reject metaphysics. (Metaphysics includes questions like ‘Do I have free will?’ and ‘Is this world a part of a guy’s thumbnail?’) This rejection is based on one simple question: what do the answers to any of these questions matter? Unless there is a practical consequence to the metaphysical question you’re asking, pragmatists will generally tell you to get your head out of the clouds (or other various places). For example: will you ever discover the answer to the question of free will? The answer is most certainly no–the idea of someone discovering the answer as though it were a physical thing is almost comical. So what practical difference does it make one way or another? In fact, why do we even bother asking the question? How do we know that something beyond us (be it the Universe, God, or whatever) has made it so that our will must fall into one of those two categories? Unless something has a real, practical consequence, it is of no use to the pragmatist. 

It ought to be clear now why traditional philosophers have such a difficult time with Pragmatism. Traditional philosophers argue that pragmatists aren’t really ‘doing philosophy,’ and that their ideas bleed off into other academic disciplines. Pragmatists argue back that traditional philosophy has become isolated and stale; unchanging and unwilling to learn from other disciplines. Instead of asking traditional philosophical questions that seemingly have little value or practical application, pragmatists insist that we must do something to change our actual world. It’s better that we produce something of value than simply sit around and philosophize in an ivory tower.