ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a discussion of postmodern theory and its critique of Enlightenment rationality. There are, at the very least, warranted reasons for criticizing the Enlightenment tradition from the side of those historically denied – or subjugated because of – its universal and ethical products. A defence of Enlightenment is not helped by the evasive attitude of contemporary champions of that tradition towards “actually existing Enlightenment” and its harsh consequences for many of its subjects. Interestingly enough, the vogue for social constructionism in establishing the difference-based identities of new social movements is also frequently coupled with some kind of naive naturalism. Postmodern theory and deconstruction abound with immanent theoretical objects and concept-metaphors that are transcendental and defined as ineffable. Postcolonial theory, an increasingly influential academic tendency, overlaps considerably with the above territories.
