ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief characterization of philosophical modernity. It suggests that modern thought in general, especially modern philosophy, has been characterized by Foundationalism in epistemology, Referentialism in philosophy of language, Atomism and reductionism in metaphysics. The chapter explains that there are new ways of understanding knowledge, language, and reality itself that are in various senses holistic and that together constitute a radical enough break with modern atomistic modes of thought to deserve to be called postmodern. However, not all kinds of holism are postmodern; some are merely modern reactions against atomism that share the most basic assumptions of the positions against which argued. To see the kind of scientific holism or antireductionism that represents a true break with modernity, we must first distinguish from this authentic break several modern counter positions. The chapter examines that variety of significant changes in the Anglo-American intellectual world can be understood as various instances of a new 'thinking strategy'.
