Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 13:19:23 -0600 From: Jim Elson <jlelson-AT-utdallas.edu> Subject: Re: Postmodernism On Sat, 11 Mar 1995 WIDDER-AT-vax.lse.ac.uk wrote: > > The point is that the use of the term 'postmodernism' is a 'modern' trope > par excellance. With the exception of Lyotard, the term is almost never > advanced by those who are subsumed under it, or it is only employed for the > most pragmatic purposes -- i.e., as a term used VERY loosely to describe a > GENERAL form of thought that a number of thinkers are BROADLY associated > with. Having read the posts in this thread with considerable interest, I have held my tongue in hopes that someone would raise the very cogent points which Nathan Widder has. I suspect that the problems concerns a conflation of two different conceptions of post-modernism which is typically understood as some sort of "new fashion" which many of its derogators claim is rapidly becoming passe. As will become obvious, this is a thoroughly modernistic perspective. The other conception--of course, there are not necessarily only two, however, it is rhetorically useful to speak as if there were--is Nietzschean. In this sense, it is more accurate to speak of post-modernity since this underscores that instead of an academic fashion we are speaking of an age/era/epoch as is modernity which can be said to have begin with Descartes and his contemporaries. Gianni Vattimo addresses this issue extremely well in _The End of Modernity_. He follows Nietzsche's lead by defining modernity as the age of "overcoming" and the "new" which rapidly becomes dated and is replaced by something still "newer". I have written about this previously in this mailing list. Instead of repeating myself, I'll answer the question of who is a post-modern thinker: anyone who has abolished the "apparent" world along with the "real" one. --Jim ===========================================================================James L Elson: |<o When you stare into the abyss too long o>| School of Arts & Humanities |<o the abyss stares back into you. o>| University of Texas-Dallas | --Nietzsche-- | BTW, I would greatly appreciate anyone telling me of passages in _Human, All Too Human_, or elsewhere, where Nietzsche addresses the notion of modernity. Vattimo suggests that he finds that definition there. Even though I agree that it is implicit, I have yet to come across places where N. comes close to stating Vattimo's definition of modernity. Have I just overlooked it? Thanks in advance. --- from list nietzsche-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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