Download What is Postmodernism?

What is Postmodernism?
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A complicated term
A set of ideas emerged as an area of academic
study since the mid-1980s
It is hard to define
it is a concept that appears in a wide variety of
disciplines or areas of study
It's hard to locate it temporally or historically
It's not clear exactly when it begins
Philosophy of
Postmodernism
All truth is limited, approximate, and is constantly evolving
(Nietzsche, Kuhn, Popper).
 No theory can ever be proved true - we can only show that a
theory is false (Popper).
 No theory can ever explain all things consistently (Godel's
incompleteness theorem).
 There is always a separation between our mind & ideas of
things and the thing in itself (Kant).
 Physical reality is not deterministic (Copenhagen
interpretation of quantum physics, Bohr).
 Science concepts are mental constructs (logical positivism,
Mach, Carnap).
 Metaphysics is empty of content.
 Thus absolute and certain truth that explains all things is
unobtainable.
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Human Condition in
Postmodernism
Postmodernism may be considered a reaction against that confidence
in reason.
There is no God up there we are alone here.
The concept of finite is a barrier that can never be leapt..
There is nothing above us
There is no transcendent reality.
There is no objective truthavailable to us.
We are finite, limited people in a particular space and time.
There is no way to have access to objective truth
There is no possibility to really know anything.
The brain may beconsidered only an organism that can be known
through anexperiment in a laboratory.
Human beings have only got Language.
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Another Postmodernism's
definition
Postmodernism is the belief that:
Most theoretical concepts are defined by their role in the
conjectured theoretical network. (A subset are
'operationally' defined by a fairly direct tie to
observations.)
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The theoretical network is incomplete.
It follows that theoretical concepts are 'open', or what
logicians call 'partially interpreted'. Research continues
precisely because they are open; the research task is to
'close' them, although never completely.
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Features of
Postmodernism
Socioeconomic
part:
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Poetics:
Multinational capital
Reproduction
Information / Service
Decentred subject
 Caricature
 Labyrinth
 Intertextuality
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Postmodernism from a literary
perspective
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An emphasis on impressionism and subjectivity in writing (and in visual arts as well);
an emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading or perception itself) takes place, rather than
on WHAT is perceived. An example of this would be stream-of-consciousness writing.
A movement away from the apparent objectivity provided by omniscient third-person
narrators, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions. Faulkner's
multiply-narrated stories are an example of this aspect of modernism.
A blurring of distinctions between genres, so that poetry seems more documentary
(as in T.S. Eliot or ee cummings) and prose seems more poetic (as in Woolf or Joyce).
An emphasis on fragmented forms, discontinuous narratives, and random-seeming
collages of different materials.
A tendency toward reflexivity, or self-consciousness, about the production of the
work of art, so that each piece calls attention to its own status as a production, as
something constructed and consumed in particular ways.
A rejection of elaborate formal aesthetics in favor of minimalist designs and a
rejection, in large part, of formal aesthetic theories, in favor of spontaneity and
discovery in creation.
A rejection of the distinction between "high" and "low" or popular culture, both in
choice of materials used to produce art and in methods of displaying, distributing, and
consuming art.
Language
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We produce ourselves in language
We use different types of language according to
the different situations we have to face.
Language is the only way to characterize a
character in a text.
Texts and Intertestuality
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There is nothing outside the text
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All texts are the product of Intertestuality
Example of Postmodern
Texts
Nice Work
Possession
by David Lodge
by A.S. Byatt