ABSTRACT
What is (or was) the distinctive feature of postmodern thinking? Despite the heterogeneity of postmodern approaches, there are two features which are not necessarily constitutive but paradigmatic for many postmodern approaches. The first feature refers to the assumption that a certain x is either impossible or nonexistent (truth, objectivity, historical facts, education for autonomy, etc.), a feature often rather selectively ascribed to a certain domain or problem (e.g. objective facts do not exist, but climate change does). The second feature (which is, in a way, the performative affirmation of the first feature) consists in a philosophical and sociological diagnosis that provides a justificatory and metaphorical framework to make sense of the first feature (such as the grand narrative of the end of grand narratives), in many cases without, however, actually providing arguments for the relevant positions, whose truth is just more or less dogmatically assumed (‘That’s just the way it is, things will never be the same …’). This rather paradoxical combination of dogmatism and anti-dogmatism, anti-realism and realism and universalism and relativism which is distinctive of many postmodern approaches expresses itself in an almost religious belief in the epistemological and evaluative framework that grounds one’s own position and an equally radical disbelief in the potential power of arguments that may question this framework. Taking this into account, it is perhaps a less ironic peculiarity of the postmodern project, that it aimed at the deconstruction and critique of all normative, metaphysical and epistemological foundations, but in most cases abstained from applying this project to its own theoretical assumptions and core values. Along these lines, it has often been argued that postmodernity as a philosophical and political movement is itself expressive of radicalised versions of modern conceptions of individual liberty and autonomy (Taylor, 1989), that bear a striking resemblance to neo-liberal interpretations of these values which emerged at the same historical period. This is also why many allegedly ‘postmodern’ critiques of autonomy and liberty as educational aims are not postmodern in a strict sense, because they cannot plausibly be understood as complete departures from Enlightenment ideals (Culp, 2017). Thus, it is not very surprising that many postmodern approaches have inherited some of the predominant tensions of modernity (such as potential tensions between the value of autonomy and authenticity), without providing the conceptual and theoretical tools to make sense of these tensions. As a philosophical and political project that aimed at a fundamental critique of modernity and modern philosophy, postmodernism has certainly posed a variety of important questions concerning the justification of ethical, political, epistemic and aesthetic validity claims. This project, however, ultimately failed, among others, because it was not able to provide a plausible account and justification of its own evaluative foundations.
