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What comes after postmodernism?
Postmodernism is an interesting development in the history of human philosophical thought. It seems to have first arisen as a reaction to modernism, and has been seen by some as a way of making sense out of what was left after modernism (after all, many people still had faith in science), since it appeared that there were no longer any absolutes (which could be found by looking at things on their own terms). As postmodern philosophy slowly took hold, however, it became clear that there was much more going on than this -- for one thing, postmodernists began to question not only absolute knowledge claims but also the reality of objective truth itself. This led eventually to an outright rejection of objectivity itself -- or rather relativism-as-subjectivity came into view: The idea that every statement must be viewed relative to its context instead of viewing statements from some kind of 'objective' viewpoint outside space and time. This led ultimately away from certainty about anything and toward even more skepticism: And so it went until we arrived at complete deconstructionist theory - which held nothing sacred whatsoever! For these thinkers something like religion would have no validity whatever; everything would need interpretation according with the motives or intentions behind each assertion; if Christianity existed then surely God himself must have died long ago...and yet paradoxically such theories seemed unable ever completely stop questioning themselves...
Most of the postmodernists, however, were not quite so extreme as to be completely nihilistic in this way; they all believed to varying degrees that there was some kind of 'objective' reality out there -- it just that we could never really know what it was. Yet even among those who seem most skeptical and relativistic about objective reality - for example Foucault or Derrida - there are still many signs (especially when read closely) indicating an underlying faith in something like a 'world-out-there' which exists independent of human beings...the problem with writing philosophy is that once you have become famous enough to write books people tend to quote them without reading them carefully - and then after these ideas get repeated time and again by people who haven't actually read the original source material they begin to take on a life of their own. So much gets lost along the way! Anyhow...
Most of the more skeptical postmodernists claim that all we can really know is what our language games allow us to know. And this amounts to rather little, in their view. But I do not agree with such views - or at least I find them extremely pessimistic and uninspiring. For if there was nothing beyond space-time then why would we even bother getting up in the morning? If there was no 'world out there' for us to discover how could anything be interesting at all? Surely it would just be easier to stay home!
So I am led to a rather different conclusion, which is that the universe can be discovered by us -- but that there are no absolutes or certainties. Certainly we may never know what lies beyond our space-time bubble...but surely it must be something! I would say therefore that ultimately postmodernism was an interesting attempt at making sense of modernity's weaknesses; and yet one which failed in its quest because it did not realize that objectivity is possible even in philosophy (though perhaps not quite in science) -- despite all the problems with 'objective' knowledge, especially when viewed from within time and space. Instead they began to believe their own rhetoric - fatal error! So true postmodern thought became simply another pseudo-religion.
The question is then what comes after postmodernism? Like it or not, we are still in our modern age - and most people have yet to realize this. Postmodern philosophy was the first step in thinking about what might come next, but it did not arrive at any definite conclusions...so now we must go on to think of ways that philosophy can develop further.
One theory that has been advanced is the idea of 'weak objectivity' - for example, some claim that you can never say anything about reality as it really is, but if you accept certain tools and procedures then they will ultimately lead to knowledge. In my view this reflects a misunderstanding of what modern science actually does -- which is to create theories that are objectively true within their own domains. We can always ask why we have these models in the first place - but at least we know where our assumptions begin and end.