Summary of Stephen R. C. Hicks's Explaining Postmodernism

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Postmodernism is a movement that has swept through the intellectual world, and its leading lights are now familiar: Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, and Richard Rorty. They have deconstructed reason, truth, and reality because they believe that in the name of reason, truth, and reality, Western civilization has wrought dominance, oppression, and destruction.

#2 Postmodernism is a theory that states that the pain of the world is not experienced equally. The rich have their hands on the whip of power, and they use it to brutally mistreat the poor, women, and racial minorities.

#3 Postmodernism is a philosophical and cultural movement that began in the 1960s. It is characterized by the rejection of traditional views of reality, language, and knowledge. It is inspired by the philosophies of Marxism and deconstruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669399797

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Book preview

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Postmodernism is a movement that has swept through the intellectual world, and its leading lights are now familiar: Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, and Richard Rorty. They have deconstructed reason, truth, and reality because they believe that in the name of reason, truth, and reality, Western civilization has wrought dominance, oppression, and destruction.

#2

Postmodernism is a theory that states that the pain of the world is not experienced equally. The rich have their hands on the whip of power, and they use it to brutally mistreat the poor, women, and racial minorities.

#3

Postmodernism is a philosophical and cultural movement that began in the 1960s. It is characterized by the rejection of traditional views of reality, language, and knowledge. It is inspired by the philosophies of Marxism and deconstruction.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Postmodernism is defined by its fundamental philosophical premises, which state what it takes to be real, what is human, what is valuable, and how knowledge is acquired. Those premises are anti-realist, social-linguistic, and constructivist.

Insights from Chapter 3

#1

Modern philosophy is the result of the Enlightenment, which was a period of radical thinking that took place in the eighteenth century. The modern philosophers believed that reason was a human faculty, and that the individual was the unit of reality. They stressed human autonomy and the human capacity for forming one’s own character.

#2

The Enlightenment thinkers laid the foundations of all the major branches of science. As individualism rose in the modern world, feudalism declined. Liberalism is the principle of individual freedom, and democracy is the principle of decentralizing political power to individuals.

#3

The Enlightenment was the dominance of naturalistic, reason and science-based ideas in intellectual circles, as well as their translation into practice. As a result, individuals