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Chapter IV
Postmodernism 132
Chapter IV
Postmodernism
Socratic way. For it (also) know that it knows very little, if anything
at all/'^o Zygmunt Bauman accentuated postmodernity as "modernity
conscious of its true nature." ii It is a social and intellectual self-
reflexive mood within modernity.
Modernism and postmodernism have been compared from
different views. Here the philosophical and cultural points are
emphasized:'2
Postmodernism 142
Postmodern/Post
Modernism/Modernity
modernity
Hierarchical Anarchical
Permanence Transience
Navigation, information
Knowledge mastery, attempts to
management, just-in-time
embrace a totalit}'. The encyclopedia.
knowletige. The Web.
Communicative, prefer to be
Prefer to be arcane
understood
it and what it is used for, who determines and controls the flow of
knowledge, and how it shapes our lives and experiences of the
world."'7
Lyotard believes that the situation of knowledge has changed
in the second half of the twentieth century. This change has
happened after the appearance of the post-industrial age and
postmodern culture. The technological transformations have made a
considerable impact on knowledge and research and the transmission
of acquired learning has reached a new condition. Today, cybernetics,
miniaturization and commercialization have changed all human
knowledge. "The nature of Knowledge cannot survive unchanged
within this context of general transformation. It can fit into the new
channels of information. We can predict that anything in the
constituted body of knowledge that is not translatable in this way
will be abandoned and that the direction of new research will be
directed by the possibility of its eventual result being translatable
into computer language."^^ The producers and users of knowledge
need computer now and "along with the hegemony of computers
comes a certain logic, and therefore a certain set of prescriptions
determining which statements are accepted as "knowledge"
statements."!^
Language games
Lyotard examines the status of knowledge and culture in the
contemporary world by the term 'language games'. This term was
made by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and was defined and
considered in treaties of philosophical investigations. According to
Wittgenstein, there are many different language games. For example,
a denotative utterance, a performative utterance, orders, commands,
instructions, recommendations, requests, prayers, pleas, etc. "He
argues that, 'the meaning of a word is its use in language', which
implies that words gain their meaning from what they do rather than
being fixed labels for things. Language is therefore an active part of
our day-to-day existence, and we use words in order to explain this
idea, Wittgenstein developed the theory of language games."2o
Language games are activities and usage of language that
follow determined roles and arrangements. Language games show
that the usage of language is a form of man methodical act and
Postmodernism 149
Grand narrative
Lyotard was the first thinker who recommends the term of
'grand narrative' in definition of modern and to describe the kind of
story that underhes, gives legitimacy, and explains the particular
choices a culture prescribes as possible courses of action.
Grand narrative is foundational and thus to be avoided, since
works to limited the abuse of language power. "A grand narrative (or
metanarritive) is a narrative form which seeks to provide a definitive
account of reality (e.g. the analysis of history as a sequence of
developments culminating in a workers' revolution offered by
classical Marxism).270n the basis of encyclopedia of postmodernism,
"A grand narrative, also called a 'master narrative,' provides
coherence by covering up the various conflicts, the differeds that
arise in the history of society.''^^ Some of the grand narratives are
religions like Islam, Christianity and the different schools like
Rationalism, Marxism and Capitalism. In other words, grand
narratives are generic principal or theoretical systems that justify all
individual and sociological activities of man.
Legitimating of Knowledge
The problem of legitimating of scientific knowledge is one of
the most important points that Lyotard has accentuated in his reports.
On the basis of his thought "scientific knowlecige does not represent
the totality of knowledge; it has always existed in addition to, and in
competition and conflict with, another kind of knowledge, which I
will call narrative in the interests of simplicity."^^
Of course, each statement is not accepted as a scientific
statement. A scientific statement has some special characters and
Postmodemisin 155
community-"^^^
In view of Lyotard, the legitimating of science is inseparable
from the legitimating of the legislator. This question has been since
the time of Plato. Therefore the right to decide what is true is related
to the right to decide what is just, even if the statement consigned to
these two authorities differs in nature. And there is also a
relationship between scientific language and the language of ethics or
politics, "they both stem from the same perspective, the choice called
the Occident [In current status] knowledge and power are simply
two sides of the same question: who decides what knowledge is, and
w h o knows what needs to be decided? In the computer age, the
question of knowledge is now more than ever a question of
government. "^^
Lyotard believes that the legitimating of statements depends on
the authority of its teller. A sender, w h e n invested with the authority
of addresses and referent and when he uses his authority feelingly,
then his authority legitimates his statements. Therefore, what is
different between reasonable consequents of a statements and
authority that is in statements for demonstrating statements to others?
Postmodernism 156
Ethics
Ethics, like so many epistemic discourses, became shaky by
postmodernists fundamental critique of epistemology. Modern
thinkers rejected metaphysical ethics and focused on the meta-ethics
which analyzes and provides rational foundation and justification of
ethical principles and systems. Postmodernists based on their critical
approaches, seeped modern views about existence of single ethical
system. Therefore, the ethical meta-narratives lost their legitimating
along with instability of other grand narratives. "Postmodernism
holds that morality is not necessarily rational, that there is no
foundation discoverable by reason which is available to justify any
particular ethical system, there is no neutral perspective from which
one might rank moral principles and system, moral values and beliefs
are subjective rather than objective, there is no "true" human nature
that, with the help of reason, will be expressed with the adoption of
any particular ethical system, and that autonomy and rationality
cannot be identified as the ideal and defining characteristics of the
person qua moral subject."^3
Notes
36. Ibid., p . 7.
37. Ibid., p. 8.
38. Ibid., p. 8.
39. Ibid., p. 10.
40. Ibid., p. 18.
41. Ibid., p. 18.
42. Ibid., p. 18.
43. Ibid, p. 19.
44. Ibid, p. 19.
45. Ibid., p p . 19-20.
52. Ibid., P. 5.
53. Encyclopedia of Postmodernism, p. 253.