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POST-MODERNISM
TRUTH AS PREFERENCE
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Pre-modernism (upto 1600)
God/gods furnished the basis of:
absolutes
Morality
human dignity and
truth (upto 1600s)
Best illustrated by Anslem:
I believe in order to understand
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Premodernism Major themes
There is an overall explanation of things, in
terms of inclusiveness with respect to all of
reality and of the whole of history.
Reality has a rational character. History is
going somewhere, fulfilling some discernible
pattern. It is therefore possible to make sense
of reality.
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Premodernism Major themes
Observable nature does not exhaust all of
reality. There are real and important entities
lying beyond nature.
The meaning, happiness and fulfillment of
humans require understanding these realities
and responding to them correctly. An element
of faith is required.
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Premodernism Major themes
The time, as we know it, is not the whole of
reality. An additional dimension of life, and in
many ways its most important aspect, lies
beyond time.
The unchanging and the permanent are most
important. Without these, the flux of
experiences would have no real meaning.
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Enlightenment - Modernism (1600-1960s)
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Scientific Discovery and inter-relationsbetween the sciences
Temporal life as very significant in itself
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Isaac Newton
Admit no more causes of natural things than
such are both true and sufficient to explain
their appearance.
Law of universality of cause and effect.
Deterministic universe
Absolute space and time God as creator
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Rene Descartes
Foundationalism
Definitional undeniability and deductive logic.
Cogito ergo sum Pure and attentive mind as opposed to
fleeting testimony of the senses or the
deceptive judgment of imagination with itsfalse constructions.
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Immanuel Kant
Mind at the center of knowing process.Knowledge involves both the logical structure
supplied by the understanding as form and
sensation to provide content. Objectivity of knowledge. One individual
knower can have the knowledge that is same
as another individual as the structure ofreason is same for everyone
Objectivity of morality.
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Modernism main points
Knowledge is considered to be a good that is to be
sought without restriction. Knowledge will provide
solution to humanitys problems. This confidence inknowledge therefore contributes to a belief in
progress.
Objectivity is both desirable and possible. It is
believed that any personal or subjective factor canbe eliminated from the knowing process, thus
rendering the conclusions certain
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Modernism main points
The structure of reality is rational. It follows an
orderly pattern. The same logical structure of
the external world is also found in human
mind, thus enabling the human to know and
organize the world. This order is usually
believed to be immanent within the world,
rather than deriving from some transcendentsource.
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Modernism - Principles
Reason
Principles of Nature
Autonomy no appeal to authority
Harmony
Progress
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Modernism
Principles of Modernity basis for:
Absolutes
Morality human dignity
Truth
Best illustrated by Descartes:
I think therefore I am
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Some key features of postmodern thinking:
A commitment to plurality of perspectives, meanings,methods, values-everything!
2. A search for and appreciation of double meanings andalternative interpretations, many of them ironic andunintended.
3. A critique or distrust of Big Stories meant to explaineverything. This includes grand theories of science, and mythsin our religions, nations, cultures, and professions that serveto explain why things are the way they are.
4. An acknowledgment that-because there is a plurality of
perspectives and ways of knowing-there are also multipletruths.
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Four easy steps to becoming a
postmodernist:
1. Consider concepts, ideas and objects as texts.Textual meanings are open to interpretation.
2. Look for binary oppositions in those texts. Someusual oppositions are good/bad, progress/tradition,
science/myth, love/hate, man/woman, andtruth/fiction.
3. "Deconstruct" the text by showing how theoppositions are not necessarily true.
4. Identify texts which are absent, groups who arenot represented and omissions, which may or maynot be deliberate, but are important.
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Developments in the
Western World
Pre-modernism:
God/gods furnish
basis of absolutes,morality, human
dignity and truth
Modernism: Absolutes,
morality, human dignity
and truth rest onfoundations other than
God
Postmodernism: No universal foundationfor truth, morality, human dignity and
truth exists. All meta narratives are suspect
whether religious or not
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Pre-modernism:
upto 1600s
Anslem: I believein order to
understand
Modernism: 1600
to 1960
Descartes : I thinktherefore I am
Postmodernism: 1960 to..
I belong therefore, I am
Developments in the Western
World
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Gods of the Eras
Pre-modernism:
Priest
Modernism:
Scientist
Postmodernism:
Artist
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How did it happen?
1.Change in epistemologyAccording to Foucault, Western society believed:
1. That an objective body of knowledge existsand is waiting to be discovered
2. That they actually possess such knowledgeand that it is neutral or value-free
3. That the pursuit of knowledge benefits allhumankind and not just a specific class
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Changes in structures of
life
Deterritoralization
Cyberspace and Virtual Reality
Consumerism
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Post-Modernism
Fathers of Radical Doubt:
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)Psycho-analysis
Karl Marx (1818-1883) Socio-Economics
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) - Morality
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - Science
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The Traditional Humanist Model
That there is a real world out there that we canunderstand with our rational minds.
That language is capable of (more or less) accuratelydepicting that real world
That language is a product of the individual writer'smind or free will, meaning that we determine whatwe say, and what we mean when we say it; thatlanguage thus expresses the essence of ourindividual beings (and that there is such a thing as anessential unique individual "self").
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The Concept beneath Humanist Model
a totalizing concept puts all phenomena under oneexplanatory concept (e.g. it's the will of God)
an essentialist concept suggests that there is areality which exists independent of, beneath orbeyond, language and ideology -- that there is such athing as 'the feminine', for instance, or 'truth' or'beauty'
a foundationalist concept suggests that signifyingsystems are stable and unproblematicrepresentations of a world of fact which isisomorphic with human thought.
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The Humanist Concept of Man
Individuals are sacred, separate and intact.
Their minds are the only true realm of
meaning and value.
Their rights are individual and inalienable.
Their value and nature is rooted in a universal
and transhistorical essence -- a metaphysical
being.
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Structuralism A blow to humanist
concept
Linguistics as a model for the structure of thought De Saussuresign= signified + signifier
Binary oppositions Male/female
Adult/child Good/ evil
Dark/light
Nature/culture
Life/ death
Rich/poor
Reason/emotion
Truth/illusion
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Derrida
Difference
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Derrida
Logocentricism.
Speech/writing binary. Speech gets associated withpresence and both get favoured over writing andabsence. e.g. Let there be light.
This favoring of presence over absence that everysystem ( It could be a philosophical system, but theidea works for signifying systems as well) posits aCENTER, a place from which the whole systemcomes, and which guarantees its meaning--thiscenter guarantees being as presence.
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Center
Self as a system. . At the core or center of ones
mental and physical life is a notion of SELF, of an "I",
of an identity that is stable and unified and coherent,
the part of one that knows who one means whenone says "I". This core self or "I" is thus the CENTER
of the "system", the "langue" of ones being, and
every other part of one (each individual act) is part of
the "parole". The "I" is the origin of all one says anddo, and it guarantees the idea of ones presence,
ones being.
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Text as Reality
Author as a site Barthes
Text as a play
All meaning is textual and intertextual: there is no "outside ofthe text," as Derrida remarked. Everything we can know isconstructed through signs, governed by the rules of discoursefor that area of knowledge, and related to other texts throughfiliation, allusion and repetition. Every text exists only inrelation to other texts; meaning circulates in economies ofdiscourse. This understanding does not mean that all reality istextual, only that what we can know of it, and how we can
know, is textual, constructed through discourse, with all itsrules; through symbols, linguistic and otherwise; throughgrammar(s).
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Deconstruction
Texts are marked by a surplus of meaning; the result
of this is that differing readings are inevitable, indeed
a condition of meaning at all. This surplus is located
in the polysemous nature of both language and ofrhetoric. It must be kept in mind that language is
what is, that our sense of reality is linguistically
constructed. Consequently the 'meaning of it all' is
continually differing, overflowing, in flux. Deconstruction
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Gurus of Post Modernism Jacques Derrida
Abandon Onto-Theology & Meta-physics of presence
Michel Foucault
Every interpretation is to exercise power Jean Francois Lyotard
Meta-narratives loosing power
Richard Rorty
Give up search for truth and be content with interpretation
Jean Baudrilard
Illusion and reality
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Characteristics of Post Modernism1
There is no meta-narrative (grand story) that
can account for all reality
There are only narratives (small stories) It is the view that there are no world-views
There is no universal foundation on which
knowledge or reality is based
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Characteristics of Post Modernism2
Objectivity is an illusion
Truth mind-dependent, mind-created
Truth is made not found
Everything depends on perspective
History is always the version of the powerful andmasks a power agenda which must be exposed and
hidden voices heard, particularly the voices of themarginalized which includes women, the weak, theinsane, the homosexual
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Characteristics of Post Modernism3
Deconstruction - there is no meaning in the
text
Language does not reflect reality
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VaclavHavel,
CzechRepublic
.We live in a
postmodern world,
where everything ispossible and almost
nothing is certain
M d i P t d i
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Modernism
Belief inUniversals
Faith in humancapacities
Conquest ofNature
Mechanistic
Universe
Postmodernism
Believes all isdifference
Cynicism andsuspicion
Cooperation withnature
Relational
Universe
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M d i P t d i
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Modernism
Personal view of
truth Appearance IS
reality
Just the FACTS,please
The universal
Postmodernism
Community based
view of truth Appearance is not
necessarily reality
Onlyinterpretations
The local
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M d i P t d i
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Modernism
Uniformity andSingularity
Beliefs as timelessand transcendent
The factory as
symbol (industry) Purity in
style(forms..)
Postmodernism
Radical Relativismand Pluralism
Beliefs as sociallylocated & constructed
The computer as
symbol(information) Impurity(playfulness.)
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M d i P t d i
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Modernism
Timeless ideals
Singular reality
Rationalmanagement
Postmodernism
Transience;
nothing lastsCo-existing or
multiple realities
Creativedisorder; chaos
theory
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Stanley Grenz:
Critical Engagement with postmodernism cannotend with a simplistic rejection of the entire
ethos We must engage postmodernism in order
to discern how best to articulate the Christian
Faith to the next generation
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The Post-Modern Gospel
A Post-Individualistic Gospel
A Post-Rationalistic Gospel
A Post-Dualistic Gospel
A Post-Noeticentric Gospel
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Stanley Grenz
Our task as Christs disciples is to embody andarticulate the never-changing good newsin a
manner that the emerging generation can
understand. Only then can we be vehicles of theHoly Spirit in bringing them to experience the life-
changing encounter with the Triune God from
whom our entire lives derive their meaning