From Modernism to Postmodernism (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies)

From Modernism to Postmodernlsm: An Anthology LawrenceE. Cahoone

MBLACI(WELL

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BLACKWELLPHILOSOPHYANTHOLOGI ES Eachvolumein this outstandingseriesprovidesan authoritativeand comprehensivecollectionof the essentialprimary readingsfrom philosopl'y'smain fieldsof study.Designedto complementthe BlackwellCompanions to F'hilosophy series,eachvolumerepresents an unparalleledresourcein its own right, and will providethe idealplatformfor courseuse. 1 Cottingham: WesternPhilosophy: An Anthology 2 Cahoone:FromModernismto Postmodernism: An Anthology 3 LaFollette:Ethicsin Practice: An Anthology 4 Coodin and Pettit: Contemporary/ PoliticalPhilosophy:An Anthologl, 5 Eze:African Philosaphy:An Anthologlr 6 McNeill and Feldman:ContinentalPhilosophy: An Anthollgy 7 Kim and Sosa:Metaphysics: An Anthology 8 Lycan:Mind andCognition: An Anthology(secondedition) 9 Kuhseand Singer:Bioethics: An Anthology 10 Cumminsand Cummins:Minds,Brains,andCompufers: An Anthology Forthcoming: 1 1 Sosaand Kim: Epistentalogy: An Anthology 12 Patterson Philosophyof Law:An Anthology

For my son, HarrisonBaetenCahoone

Copyright @ Blackwell PublishersLtd, 1996 Selection and editorial matter O Lawrence Cahoone. 1996 The right of Lawrence Cahooneto be identified as author of this work hLasbeen assertedin accordancewith the Copyright, Designsand PatentsAct 1988. First published1996 Reprinted 1996 (twice), 1997, 1998,2000 Blackwell PublishersInc 350 Main Street Malden, Massachusetts02148, USA Blackwell PublishersLtd 108 Cowley Road Oxford OX4 I JF, UK All rights reserved.Except for the quotation of short passagesfor the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publicationmay be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted,in any form or by any means,electnonic, mechanical,photocopying,recordingor otherwise,without the prior permission of the publisher. Except in the United Statesof America, this book is sold subjectto the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,be lent, re-sold,hired out, or otherwisecirculatedwithout the publisher'sprior consentin any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is publishedand without a similar condition including this condition being imposedon the subsequentpurchaser. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data From modernismto postmodernism:an anthology/[compiledby] LawrenceE. Cahoone. p. cm. Includes bibliographical referencesand index. ISBN l-55786-602-3 - rSBN l-55786-603-l (pbk) l. Postmodernism.I. Cahoone.LawrenceE.. 1954-. B 8 3t . 2 . P . 6 7 7 1 9 9 5 9 5 -r I 5 8 3 149-dc.20 CIP British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP cataloguerecord for this book is availablefrom the British Library Typesetin 10.5 on 12.5pt Photina by Pure Tech India Ltd, Pondicherry Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall This book is printed on acid-freepaper

Contents Preface

IX

Acknowledgments

XI

Introduction

and its Critics P a r t I M o d e r nC i v i l i z a t i o n From Meditationson First Philosophy ReneDescartes From "Discourseon the Sciencesand the ArtS" lean-lacquesRousseau 3 "An Answer to the Question:What is Enlightenment?" ImrnanuelKqnt on the Revolutionin France From Reflections EdmundBurke From Sketch for an HistoricalPicture of the Progressof the Human Mind Marquis de Condorcet "AbsoluteFreedomand Terror" GeorgWiIheIm FriedrichHegel "Bourgeoisand Proletarians" KarI Marx and FriedrichEngels "The Madman" "The Natural HistorYof Morals" of Morals From The GenealogA Power Wiil to From The F riedrich L'{ietzsche

ro2 ro4 L20 130

Contents

P ar t l l M o d e r ni t y R e a l i z e d From "The Painterof ModernLife" CharlesBaudelaire 10 From "How to MakeOur IdeasClear" CharlesS. Peirce

136

r45

11 From TheProtestantEthic and the Spirit of Capitalism From "Scienceas a Vocation" Max Weber

r57 r69

12 From Coursein GeneralLinguistics Ferdinandde Sauss ure "The 13 Founding and Manifestoof Futurism" Filippo TommasoMarinetti I 4 "Lecture on Ethics" From TractatusLogico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein

777

15 From Towardsa l{ew Architecture Le Corbusier 16 From Civilizationand its Discontents SigmundFreud T 7 "The Crowd Phenomenon" lose Ortegay Gasset 1 8 From The Crisis of EuropeanSciences and Transcendental Phenomenology EdmundHusserl 1 9 From Dialecticof Enlightenment Max Horkheimerand TheodorAdorno 2 0 From "Existentialism " lean-PaulSartre

185 191 198

20a 212 2L9

226 243 259

P a r tl l l P o s t m o d e r n i s m a n d t h e R e v a l u a t i oonf Modernity 2 I "Letter on Humanism"

274

Martin Heidegger

2 2 "The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions"

309

Thomas Kuhn

2 3 From Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture Robert Venturi VI

325

Contents 2 4 "The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing" lacquesDerrida 2 5 "Nietzsche,Genealogy,History" From "Truth and Power" Michel Foucault 2 6 "POSTmodernISM:A Paracritical Bibliography" lhab Hassan 2 7 From Anti-Oedipus:Capitalismand Schizophrenia GiIIesDeleuzeand F elix Guattari

2 8 From The Comingof Post-IndustrialSociety

336 360 379 382 40L 423

DanielBrII

2 9 From SymbolicExchangeand Death lean Baudrillard 3 0 "The Sex Which is Not One" Lucelrigaray 3 1 "The Death of Modern Architecture" From What Is Post-Modernism? Charleslencks 3 2 From The PostmodernCondition:A Reporton Knowledge Lyotard lean-Franqois

3 3 From Erring: A PostmodernAltheologA 34

35 36 37

38

Mark C. Taylor "The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life and the Concept of a Tradition" AlasdairMaclntyre From "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" Fredriclameson "solidarity or Objectivity?" RichardRorty "An Alternative Way out of the Philosophy of the Reason" Subject:Communicativeversus Subject-Centered Habermas Itirgen From "From Feminist Empiricismto Feminist Standpoint Epistemologies" Sandra Harding

3 9 "The Cartesian Masculinization of Thought"

437 46L 469 47r 481 5L4

534 556 573

589

6L7 638

Susan Bordo

40 From The Reenchantmentof Science

665

David RaA Griffin vLr

Contents 4L "Towards a PostmodernPedagogy" Henry A. Giroux 42 From "Modern China and the PostmodernWest" David HaII SelectBibliography lndex

vlll

687 698 7TL 719

Preface The problem with introducing students to any discussion of postmodernism is not merely the notorious difficulties of the meaning of the term. It is that most students do not adequately understand what is "modern," what it is whose obsolescencethe term "postmodern" presumably announces. Any discussion of postmodernism assumes a great deal of knowledge about modernism, or modernity, or the modern world, and how it has been interpreted. It is senselessto try to teach students about the sophisticated methods of contemporary postmodernists without lirst teaching them the tradition from which these methods are a departure. Yet current anthologies of postmodernism generally ignore history and collect only contemporary essays;indeed, usually essays representing only a narrow range of philosophical perspectives.The purpose of the present volume is to examine both modernism and postmodernism by presenting prominent philosophical components of, and sociological theories about, modernity as background for the various writers involved in the debate over postmodernism. Its aim is, in short, to put postmodernism in context. Certainly this is a task to which no anthology can be'adequate,yet some attempt in that direction is, I believe, better than none. In making the selections I have tried to balance a number of preferences for: writers who formulate positions, rather than comment on them; substantive,rather than minimal, selections;selectionsthat are historically connected to each other; and pieces that engender a deeper understanding of the philosophical basis for postmodernism, rather than those that are more superlicially relevant to postmodern themes. The last of these has led me to omit some well-known essaysthat explicitly express or comment on postmodernism, but remain inscrutable unless the reader already has a deeper familiarity with the author's perspective, a familiarity I hope my selections will better provide. So the volume aims at philosophical understanding rather than a hit parade of recent cultural politics. The selections are arranged chronologically. Every step has been taken to make the volume user-friendly. Author's notes appear at the end of each selection.Editor's annotations to historical IX

Preface references and technical terms appear at the foot of the page. Headnotes introduce each selectedauthor. Referencesto the selectedworks on the first page of each selection indicate whether the relevant textual subdivision (book, essay, chapter, section) appears whole or in part. A select bibliography is included. This volume would not exist but for the vision and encouragement of stephan chambers of Blackwell. Steven smith of Blackwell has ushered the book admirably into print. Judy Marshall's careful copy-editing has saved me from numerous embarrassments.A semester sabbatical from Boston university gave me the time to turn a skeletal list of selectionsinto a flesh and blood book. Margaret Rosewas helpful and encouraging in my search for early uses of the term "postmodern." The staff of the Department of Philosophy at Boston university, carolyn Evans and Sara Martin, have helped to make my professional life these past years not onry more productive, but more human. During the planning and composition of the volume, Jeffrey Jampel and especially Deborah Hirschland have been of invaluable help to me.

Acknowledgments The editor and the publisher wish to acknowledge with thanks the permission to reprint from the following previously published material: Ren6 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Elizabeth Haldane and G.R.T. Ross,in ThePhilosophicalWorks of Descartes,vol. I (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press,7975), Meditations One and Two, pp. 144-57' Reprinted with the permission of CambridgeUniversity Press. and the Arts, Part One, in fean-|acquesRousseau,Discourseon the Sciences Rousseau, trans. Donald Cress Writings of The Basic Political lean-Jacques permission pp. of Hackett 3-10. Reprintedby (Indianapolis:Hackett, 1987) Publishing Company. Immanuel Kant, "An Answer to the Question:What is Enlightenment?" in Kant's Political Writings, trans. H.B. Nisbet, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I97O), pp. 54-60. @ Cambridge University Press 1970. Reprinted with the permission of CambridgeUniversity Press and the editor. Edmund Burke, Reflectionson the Revolutionin France, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Indianapolis:Hackett, 1987), pp. 12-19, 25-6, 29-3I, 5I-2, 76-7, 216-18. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, Sketchfor an Historical Picture of the Progressof the Human Mind, trans. June Barraclough (New York: Hyperion, rpt. of 1955 Noonday Press edition), "The Ninth Stage: From Descartes to the Foundation of the French Republic," pp. 124-37. Reprinted with acknowledgment to Hyperion Press. of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, PhenomenologA (Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress,I977), pp. 355-63, paragraphs582-95. O Oxford University Press I977. Reprinted by permissionof Oxford University Press. Karl Marx with Friedrich Engels,"Bourgeoisand Proletarians," SectionOne of Manifestoof the CommunistParty, trans. SamuelMoore, in Robert Tucker,

XI

Acknowledgments TheMarx-EngelsReader(New York: Norton, 7928), pp. 473-83. Reprinted with acknowledgment to W.W. Norton & Company. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science,Part Three, Sec. 125, trans. with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, l9T4), pp. 181-2. Copyright @ 1974 by Random House, Inc. Beyond Good and Evil, trans. with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (New york: Random House, 1989), Part Five: "The Natural History of Morals," Sec.186-203, pp.97-178. Copyright A 1966 by Random House, Inc. The Genealogyof Morals, trans. by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (New york: Random House, 1989), Sec.24-28, pp.148-63. Copyright @ 196T by Random House,Inc. TheWiII to Power,ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. f. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967), para. 1067, pp. 449-50. Copyright @ 7962 by Random House, Inc. All four selectionsreprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. charles Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life," trans. Jonathan Mayne, copyright @, in The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays(London: Phaidon, 1964), sec. 3-4, pp. 5-15. Reprinted by permission of phaidon PressLtd, in accordancewith the information given on the imprint page of the book. charles s. Peirce, "How to Make our ldeas clear," co]lectedpapersof chartes sand.ers Peirce,ed. charles Hartshorne and paul weiss (cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), vol. v, para. 394-4O2, pp. 252-60, and para. 405-10, pp. 265-TL Copyright @ 7934, 1935 by the president and Fellows of Harvard college. Reprinted by permission of Harvard university Press. Max weber, "Author's Introduction" to The protestant Ethic and the spirit of Capitalism,trans. Talcott Parsons(New york: Scribner,1958), pp. 13-31. copyright o 1958 charles scribner'ssons. Introduction copyright @ rgz6 GeorgeAllen & unwin (Publishers)Ltd. Reprinted with permissionof simon and Schuster from the Macmillan college text. "science as a vocation," in From Max Weber: Essaysin Sociology,trans. and ed. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 138-40, 743-9, 155-6. Copyright @ Oxford University press 1946. Reprintedby permission of Oxford University Press. Ferdinand de saussure, course in GeneralLinguistics,trans. wade Baskin (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), Part One, chapter 1, pp. 65-70, and Part Two, chapter 4, pp. I2O-2. Reprinted by permission of McGraw-Hill, Inc. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism," trans. R.w. Flint and Arthur w. coppotelli, in Marinetti: selectedwritings, ed. R.W. Flint (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 7972). Copyright O xii

Acknowledgments 1971,, 7972 by Farrar, straus & Giroux, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, [nc. Ludwig wittgenstein, "Lecture on Ethics," The PhilosophicalReview, 74, no. 1, fanuary 1965, pp.3-12. Reprinted with acknowledgmentto The trans. D.F. Pears and PhilosophicalRsview. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1961) para. 6.53Paul, and Kegan (London: Routledge B.F. McGuinness Ltd, 1961' Reprinted Paul Kegan & 6.57, pp. 73-4. CopyrightO Routledge by permission of Routledge. Le Corbusier, Towardsa New Architecture,trans. Frederick Etchells (New York: Dover, 1986), pp. 1-8, 29-3I, 47-64. Reprinted with acknowledgment to Dover Publications' Sigmund Freud, Civilizationand its Discontents,trans. from the German by and 7, pp' 64-8O' fames Strachey(New York: Norton, 1961), chapters6 by AIix strachey. 1989 renewed Strachey, copyright o 1961 by fames Inc' Company, Reprinted by permission of W.W' Norton & I, The RevoltoJ 'the fose ortega y Gasset,"The crowd Phenomenon," chapter Masses,trans. from the spanish by Anthony Kerrigan, ed. Kenneth Moore (Notre Dame,Ind.: Universityof Notre DamePress,1985)' pp' 3-10' copyright o 1985 W.W. Norton & Company,Inc. Reprintedby permission of W.W. Norton & ComPanY,Inc. PhenoEdmund Husserl, The Crisisof EuropeanSciencesand'Transcendental Press, university (Evanston: Northwestern menology,trans. David carr pp' 48-59' 9h-91' sec' Two, lgTO), Part One, sec. 3-5, pp'7-1-4 and Part copyright o by Northwestern university Press.Reprinted by permission of Northwestern UniversitY Press. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment,trans. pp.23-9, and pp' 81-93' ]ohn Cumming (New York: Seabury, 1972), company. Reprinted by Publishing Continuum The copyright @ 1gg3 Company. Publishing permission of The Continuum in Existentialfean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism," trans. Bernard Frechtman pp' and pp' 15-24, (New 1935)' York: Citadel, ism and.Human Emotions Published 46-51. Copyright @ 1957, r985 by PhilosophicalLibrary, tnc. by arrangement with Carol Publishing Group. Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism," from David Farrell Krell (ed.), Martin Heidegger:Ba,sicwritings, trans. Frank A. capazzi, with J. Glenn Gray and David Farrell Krell (New York: Harper and Row, 1977)' pp. 193-242. English translation copyright @ 1977 by Harper & Row, Publishers, [nc. General Introductions and Introductions to each selection copyright o Lg77 by David Farrell Krell. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers,Inc. xtu

Acknowledgments Thomas Kuhn, Thestructure of ScientificRevolutions(chicago: University of chicago Press, 1962), chapter IX, "The Nature and Necessityof scienlilic Revolutions," pp. 92-170. copyright a 1962, rg70 the university of chicago. Reprinted by permission of university of chicago press. Robert venturi, complexity and contradiction in Architecture (New york: Museum of Modern Art, 1966) pp. 16-1 7, 23-5, 3g-41, gg, and IO2_4. copyright o rhe Museum of Modern Art, 1966, 1977. Reprinted by permission of The Museum of Modern Art. Jacques Derrida, "The End of the Book and the Beginning of writing," chapter 7, of Grammatology,trans. Gayatri chakravorty spivak (Baltimore: fohns Hopkins university Press,rgz4), pp. 6-26. Reprinted by permission of lohns Hopkins University Press. Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche,Genealogy,History," trans. from the French by Donald Bouchard and sherry simon, in Language,counter-Memory,practise: selectedEssaysand rnterviews,ed. Donald Bouchard (Ithaca, Ny: cornell university Press,1977), pp. 139-64. copyright @ 1977 by cornell university. used by permission of the publisher, cornell university press. ,,Truth and Power," trans. colin Gordon, in powerlKnowledge:selected lnterviewsand other writings 7972-77, ed. colin Gordon(New york: pantheon, 1972),pp. 131-3. Text copyright@ 1972, r975, 1976, 1g77 by Michel Foucault. collection copyright @ 1980 by The Harvester press. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House,Inc. Ihab Hassan, "PoSTmodernISM:A paracritical Bibliography," in paracriticisms;sevenspeculationsof the Times (urbana: university of lllinois press, 1975), pp' 39-59. copyright @ r97s by the Board of Trusteesof the university of lllinois. used with permissionof the author and the universitv of lllinois Press. Gilles Deleuze and F6lix Guattari, Anti-oedipus: capitalism and schizophrenia trans. Helen Lane, Mark Seem, and Robert Hurley (New york: viking Penguin, 1977), chapter 1: Introduction, pp. 1-g and 22-35. Translation copyright @ 1977 by viking Penguin, a division of penguin Books USA Inc., English language translation. used by permission of viking penguin, a division of Penguin Books usA Inc., and by permission of Athlone press of London. Daniel Bell, The coming of Post-rndustrialsociety (New york: Basic Books, 1976), "Foreword: 7976," pp. ix-xxii. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books.copyright @ L973 by Daniel Bell. Foreword copyright o 1976 by Daniel Bell. Reprinted by permissionof BasicBooks,a division of Harpercollins Publishers,Inc. Jean Baudrillard, symbolic Exchangeand Death, trans. Iain H. Grant (London: Sage,1993), chapter 1, pp. 6-12; from chapter 2, pp. 50, 55-61, xiv

Acknowledgments 70-6. Bnglish translation copyright @ Sage Publications 1993. Introduction and Bibliography copyright O Mike Gane 1993. Originally published as L'rlchangesymboliqueet Ia mort, copyright @ Editions Gallimard, Paris, I976. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd' Luce lrigaray, "The sex which is Not one", trans. claudia Reeder,in Naw FrenchFeminisms,ed. Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Courtivron (New York: Schoken, 1981), pp.99-106. Copyright o 1980 by the university of MassachusettsPress. Reprinted by permission of University of Massachusetts Press. Architecture(New York: Rizzoli, CharlesJencks,TheLanguageof Post-Mod.ern 1984), Part One, "The Death of Modern Architecture," PP.9-10. Reprinted by permission of Rizzoli of New York. what Is Post-Modernism?(London: Academy Editions,1936), chapter 2, pp' 14-20, and chapter 7, pp' 57-9' Reprinted by permission of Academy Group Ltd. Report on Knowledge, |ean-Frangois Lyotard, The Postmoderncondition: A University (Minneapolis: Massumi Brian lruor. Geoff Bennington and and 14, 11, to 9 and sections of Minnesota Press, 1984), Introduction La condition as pp. xxiii-xxv, 3l-47, 64-7. Originally published in France pistmod,ern:rapport sur Ie slvoir, copyright @ 1979 by Les Editions de ivlinuit, Paris. English translation and foreword copyright O 1984 by the University of Minnesota. Reprinted by permission of the University of Minnesota, and by the kind permission of Manchester University Press. Mark Taylor, Erring: A PostmodernAltheology (chicago: university of chicagoPress,1984), pp. 6-13, 703-7,115-20. Copyrighto 1984 by the University of Chicago. Reprinted by permission of University of Chicago Press. Alisdair MaclntYre, "The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life and the Conceptof a Tradition," chapter 15 of,After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), PP' 204-25 . Copyright C 19 84 (Revised Edition) by the University of Notre Dame Press.Reprinted by permission of the publisher and the author' Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism,Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalor, The cultural Logic of Late Capitalism ism," chapter 1 of Postmodernism, (Durham: Duke UniversityPress,1991), pp' l-6, 32-8,45-51 and 54' Reprinted by permission of Duke University Press' Richard Rorty, "solidarity or Objectivity" in fohn Rajchman and Cornel West, post-AnalgticPhilosophy(New York: columbia university Press, 1985). Copyright @ 1985 Columbia University Press.Reprinted by permission of Columbia University Press,CambridgeUniversity Press,and the author. ftirgen Habermas, Philosophical Discourseof Modernity, trans. Frederick Lawrence(Cambridge:MIT Press,1987), chapter l1' pp' 294-326' TransXV

Acknowledgments lation copyright e 1987 by the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. Original publication copyright C 19 8 5 Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, Federal Republic of Germany. Reprinted by permission of MIT press and the author. sandra Harding, "From Feminist Empiricism to Feminist standpoint Epistemologies,"chapter 6 of her Thescienceeuestionin Feminism(Ithaca, Ny: cornell university Press,1986), pp. 141-61. copyright o 1996 by cornell university. Published in England by open university press of London in 1986. Reprinted by permissionof cornell university press, open university Press,and the author. susan Bordo, "The cartesian Masculinization of Thought," chapter 6 of The Flight to objectivity: Essayson cartesianism and culture (Albany: state university of New York press, l98T), pp.97-11g. copyright @ 19gz state university of New York. Reprinted by permissionof state university of New York Pressand the author. David Ray Griffin, "lntroduction: The Reenchantment of science," in his edited volume, The Reenchantment of science(Albany: state university of New York Press, 1988), SectionsOne and Three, pp. 2-g and 22_3O. copyright @ 1988 State university of New york. Reprinted by permission of State University of New york press. Henry A. Giroux, "Towards a postmodern pedagogy," section of the Introduction to Postmodernism,Feminism, and cultural politics (Albany: state university of New York press, 1991), pp. 45-55. copyright @ lggl state University of New york. Reprinted by permission of State universitv of New York Press. David Hall, "Modern china and the postmodern west," in culture and. Modernity: East-west Philosophicperspectives,edited by Eliot Deutsch (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, press 1991), pp. 57-62. Copyright @ the university of Hawaii 1991. Reprinted by permissionof university of Hawaii Pressand the author. The publishers apologize for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in the next edition or reprint of this book.

XVI

Introduction The term "postmodern" has in the last decade become an increasingly popular label for something about the end of the,twentieth century. It also refers to a contemporary intellectual movement, or rather, a not very happy family of intellectual movements. But as it often happens, dysfunctional families are the most interesting ones. The members of the postmodern family not only express conflicting views, but are interested in barely overlapping subject matters: art, communications media, history, economics, politics, ethics, cosmology, theology, methodology, literature, education. Some of the most important members of the family refuse to be called by the family name. And there are distant relations who deny that they are related at all. Philosophical opinion regarding the postmodernfamily is deeply divided. For some, postmodernism connotes the final escapefrom the stultifying legacy of modern European theology, metaphysics,authoritarianism, colonialism, racism, and domination. To others it representsthe attempt by disgruntled left-wing intellectuals to destroy Western civilization. To yet others it labels a goofy collection of hermetically obscure writers who are really talking about nothing at all. All three reactions are misguided. Certainly the term "postmodern," like any slogan widely used, has been attached to so many different kinds of intellectual, social, and artistic phenomena that it can be subjectedto easy ridicule as hopelesslyambiguous or empty. This shows only that it is a mistake to seek a single, essential meaning applicable to all the term's instances. As one of the inspirers of postmodernism would say, the members of the postmodern clan resembleeach other in the overlapping way that family members do; two members may share the same eye color, one of these may have the same ears as a third, the third may have the same hair color as a fourth, and so on. More important than discovering an essentialcommonality is recognizingthat there are some important new developmentsin the world that deserveexamination, that "postmodern" labels some of them, and that there are some very important works, raising deep questions, written by people labelled "postmodernists." Neither

Introduction membersof the family, nor their critics, ought to be too concernedwith the label. Theoretical labels are nothing to be feared, they have a purpose as long as they are thought's servant, rather than its master. postmodernism deservescareful, sober scrutiny, devoid of trendy enthusiasm, indignant condemnation, or reactionary fear. Its appearanceis unlikely either to save the Western world or destroy it. when most philosophers use the word "postmodernism" they mean to refer to a movement that developedin France in the 1960s, more precisely called "poststructuralism," along with subsequent and related developments. They have in mind that this movement denies the possibility of objective knowledge of the real world, "univocal" (single or primary) meaning of words and texts, the unity of the human self, the cogency of the distinctions between rational inquiry and political action, literal and metaphorical meaning, science and art, and even the possibility of truth itself. Simply put, they regard it as rejecting most of the fundamental intellectual pillars of modern western civilization. They may further associate this rejection with political movements like multiculturalism and feminism, which sometimesregard the rejectednotions as the ideology of a privileged sexual, ethnic and economic group, and aim to undermine establishededucational and political authorities and transfer their power to the previously disenfranchised. This view is neither entirely right nor entirely wrong. There certainly are writers who make the philosophical denials listed above, and there is a connection between some of them and the political aims of feminists and multiculturalists. But not everyonewho engagesin the postmoderncritique of truth or meaning can be politically characterized;and not all feminists or multiculturalists could accept all that goes under the name of postmodernism. Postmodernism,multiculturalism, and feminism representoverlapping but different intellectual tendencies. At a minimum, postmodernism regards certain important principles, methods, or ideas characteristic of modern western culture as obsoleteor illegitimate. In this sense,postmodernismis the latest wave in the critique of the Enlightenment, the critique of the cultural principles characteristic of modern society that trace their legacy to the eighteenth century, a critique that has been going on since that time. Modernity has been criticizing itself all its life. Some postmodernistsexplicitly make the historical claim that modernity is or ought to be at an end. others never speak of "the modern" or "modernism" at all, but instead criticize certain principles that most philosopherswould regard as essentialto the modern world. Some call for the rejection of modernity, while some only question it, problematize it, without implying that there is any alternative. Facing all this diversity, the sincere observer of the debate may be understandably confused. The present volume will try to lift some of the )

lntroduction confusion by putting philosophical postmodernismin context, or rather in severalcontexts.The aim is to arm the reader with most of the background that is necessaryto participate in the current debate over postmodernism among philosophers.That means knowing something about: modernism, or the characteristic doctrines of modern philosophy that postmodernism is criticizing; the wide variety of criticisms of modern thought that are current today, of which postmodernismis only one; and postmodernism as it is expressedin a number of fields - architecture, literature, sociology- not just philosophy. The effect of this contextualization will be to render postmodernismless mysterious and less frightening, which may also make it lessexciting. Whether the last effect is for good or ill will be up to the reader.

The History of Postmodernism The term "postmodern," understood as distinguishing the contemporary scene from the modern, seems first to have been used in 1917 by the German philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz to describe the "nihilism" of twentieth-century Western culture, a theme he took from Friedrich Nietzsche.l It appearedagain in the work of the Spanishliterary critic Federicode Onis in 1934 to refer to the backlash against literary modernism.2It was taken up in two very different ways in English in 1939: by the theologian Bernard Iddings Bell, to mean the recognition of the failure of secular modernism and a return to religion;3 and by the historian Arnold Toynbee to mean the post-World War I rise of mass society, in which the working classsurpassesthe capitalist classin importance.4It then most prominently appeared in literary criticism in the 1950s and 1960s, referring to the reaction against aesthetic modernism, and in the 1970s was pressedinto the same use in architecture. In philosophy it came in the 1980s to refer primarily to French poststructuralist philosophy, and secondarily to a general reaction against modern rationalism, utopianism, and what came to be called "foundationalism," the attempt to establishthe foundations of knowledge and judgment, an attempt that had been a preoccupation of philosophy since Ren6 Descartes in the seventeenth century (although arguably since Plato). At the same time, the term was adoptedin the social sciencesto indicate a new approach to methodology, and even served this purpose,although more controversially,in the natural sciences.sIt became linked to the concept of "post-industrialism," the notion that advanced industrial societieswere in the post-World War II period radically changing their earlier industrial character. Eventually, the word burst into popular attention through journalists who have used it for everything from rock

Introduction videos to the demographicsof Los Angeles to the whole cultural style and mood of the 1990s. Despite the divergence among these usages of "postmodern" one could find some commonality centering on: a recognition of pluralism and indeterminacy in the world that modern or modernist thought had evidently sought to disavow, hence a renunciation of intellectual hopes for simplicity, completeness,and certainty; a new focus on representation or images or information or cultural signs as occupying a dominant position in social life; and an acceptanceof play and fictionalization in cultural fields that had earlier sought a serious, realist truth. This is a vague commonality, to be sure. In order to gain some finer resolution in our picture, let us focus on the development of the most famous strain of postmodernism in philosophy. For this we must travel to France. In the 1960s philosophyin France underwent a major change. A new group of young intellectuals emergedwho were not only deeply critical of the French academicand political establishment- a rebelliousnessnot new in French intellectual circles - but also critical of the very forms of radical philosophy that had given the establishment headaches in the past, primarily, Marxism and existentialism,and to some extent phenomenology and psychoanalysisas well.6 Marxism, existentialism and phenomenology had been, perhaps awkwardly, combined by the great French philosophers of the middle of the century, especially Jean-Paul sartre and Maurice Merleau-ponty, along with a dash of Freudian psychoanalysis.Theseintellectual movements had pictured the individual human subject or consciousnessas alienated in contemporary society, estranged from his or her authentic modes of experience and being - whether the source of that estrangement was capitalism (for Marxism), the scientific naturalism pervading modern western culture (for phenomenology), excessivelyrepressivesocial mores (for Freud), bureaucratically organizedsocial life and mass culture (for existentialism), or religion (for all of them). Methodologically, they rejected the belief that the study of humanity could be modeled on or reduced to the physical sciences,hence they avoided behaviorism and naturalism. unlike physics, chemistry, or biology the human sciencesmust understand the experience,the first person point of view, of their objectsof study: they are concerned not merely with facts but with the meaningof facts for human subjects.TTo diagnosecontemporary alienation they produced an historical analysis of how human society and the human self develop over time, in order to seehow and why modern civilization had gone wrong. what was needed, it seemed, was a return to the true, or authentic, or free, or integrated human self as the center of lived experience.This meant not an abandonment of modern industry, technology, and secularism, but some reconstruction of society (for Marx), or of moral culture (for Freud), or of 4

Introduction our openness to the vicissitudes of our own authentic experience (for phenomenology and existentialism). Now, Marxism, existentialism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis never ruled the academic roost in France or anywhere else. They representedthe major theoretical opposition to the status quo in the first half of the century. Young intellectuals dissatisfiedwith the neo-Scholastic,rationalistic, theologically or scientifically oriented forms of thought dominant in the academy - forms of thought which seemedwell-suited to endorsing current institutional and political authority - tended to see these movements as the main alternatives. In the post-World War II period they constituted a major intellectual subculture in Europe,gradually influencing American thought as well. The new French philosophers of the 1960s - the most influential of whom were Gilles Deleuze,facques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and feanFrangois Lyotard - also wanted to light the political and academic establishment. But their approach was different from that of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. They had been schooledby another theoretical movement, structuralism, developedearlier by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussureand championed after the war by the anthropologist Claude L6vi-Strauss. Structuralism rejected the focus on the self and its historical development that had characterizedMarxism, existentialism, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis. The social or human sciences,like anthropology, linguistics, and philosophy, neededto focus instead on the super-individual structures of language, ritual, and kinship which make the individual what he or she is. Simply put, it is not the self that createsculture, but culture that creates the self. The study of abstract relations within systems or "codes" of cultural signs (words, family relations, etc,) is the key to understanding human existence.Structuralism seemedto offer the student of humanity a way of avoiding reduction to the natural sciences,while yet retaining objective,scientificmethods, unlike the apparently subiectiveorientation of phenomenology, existentialism, and psychoanalysis.At the same time, it also implied that nothing is "authentic," that there is no fundamental, originary nature of the human self against which we could judge a culture. The new philosophers of the 1960s accepted structuralism's refusal to worship at the altar of the self. But they rejected its scientilic pretensions. They saw deep self-reflexive philosophical problems in the attempt by human beings to be l'objective" about themselves.They applied the structural-cultural analysis of human phenomena to the human sciencesthemselves,which are, after all, human cultural constructions. Hence they are best named "poststructuralists." The import of their work appearedradical indeed. They seemedto announce the end of rational inquiry into truth, the illusory nature of any unified sell the impossibility of clear and unequivocal meaning, the illegitimacy of Western civilization, and the

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Introduction oppressivenature of all modern institutions. They appeared critically to undermine any and all positive philosophical and political positions, to exhibit hidden paradoxesand modes of social domination operating within all products of reason. Whether they were really as radical as they appearedis less clear, as we shall see.In the 1960s and 1920s. however. their critique had a patently political meaning. It servedto undermine the claims to legitimacy by academic authorities and the State, and was connected to the critique of western imperialism and racism, especially during American involvement in Indochina, and eventually to the feminist critique of male power. Simultaneously,in British and American philosophy, where phenomenology, existentialism,Marxism and psychoanalysishad been far lessinfluential, a related albeit quieter change was taking place. Logical empiricism, also called positivism, which had by mid-century swept asidethe indigenous American pragmatist philosophical tradition (of charles sanders Peirce,william James,GeorgeHerbert Mead, fosiah Royce, and John Dewey) as well as English idealism and empiricism (e.g. of F.H. Bradley and John stuart Mill, respectively),believedthat a systematization of human knowledge was possiblebasedin the certainties of modern logic combined with a scientific explanation of "sense data." philosophy had traditionally been hoodwinked by a failure to employ a perfectly clear, logical, "ideal language," which the new advances in rogic - rooted in Gottlob Frege's BegrifJsschnlf(or "concept notation," 1879) and Bertrand Russell'sand Alfred North whitehead's attempt to reduce mathematics to logic in their PrincipiaMathematica(\9ro-13) - had made possible.Ludwig wittgenstein's attempt to undercut traditional philosophy by distinguishing all that could be said clearly from what is "nonsense" in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) had a powerful effect. philosophy was to shed its metaphysical musings and ethical pretensions and concern itself with logic, the clarification of science'smethod and results, and the dismissalof traditional philosophical questions through a careful analysis of linguistic errors. Positivism was only one of a wide variety of philosophical movements of the lirst half of the twentieth century that attacked the very possibility of philosophical inquiry into the ultimate nature of reality, the existenceof God, the meaning of existence. But subsequentphilosophers of language, logic, and sciencehad begun to cast doubt on the adequacy of the positivist picture. A complete and consistent logic complex enough to include arithmetic was shown by Kurt G