ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the differences between the modernist and the postmodernist paradigm. It highlights the major differences that have emerged by the early 1990s. The chapter presents some of the salient differences between modernist and postmodernist thought. A number of comparisons occasionally arise in the literature between modernist and postmodernist analysis, usually as an introduction to some further study. A considerable amount of literature from those who are committed to the modernist approach is of a defensive sort when confronted with the epistemological directions advocated by postmodernist analysis. Modernist thought had its origins in the Enlightenment period. Sensitized by the insights of some of the classic thinkers, ranging from Karl Marx, to Max Weber, to Luhmann Durkheim, S. Freud, and the critical thought of the Frankfurt School, postmodernist thought emerged with a new intensity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Postmodernist analysis had its roots in French thought, particularly during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
