ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how Heidegger is, for Tom Rockmore, the 'dark star' of post-Second World War French philosophy, and explores the implications of this for the later generations (poststructuralists and postmodernists) in particular. The optimistic, anti-traditionalist side of existentialism also finds its echoes in postmodernist thought. Authority and social convention are no more inevitable constraints on our behaviour in the philosophy of Lyotard than they are in Sartre: the little narrative thrives on just that realisation. Echoes of Sartre abound in the work of Derrida and Lyotard in particular, and, like it or not, help to create the agenda for the poststructuralist/postmodernist paradigm. Poststructuralist and postmodernist thought can be seen in general as carrying on the struggle against authority and determinism that is such a hallmark of existentialist philosophy, and as being at least as concerned with creating a space within which the individual subject can proceed to make choices and express ideological commitment.
