Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

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Postmoderns promote individualism and community at the same time. ‘Power’ is a
negative concept for postmoderns, for these are the tools of corrupt and self-serving
institutions, but at the same time, they themselves promote an agenda that can only be
attained via the exercise of cultural and intellectual powers.
The term and notion, ‘postmodern,’ can be traced to circa 1932, when it was used to
describe the contrast in Hispanic poetry between Borges and others, a work that seemed a
reaction to modernism -- ultramodernismo, as it was called. Later, Arnold J. Toynbee the
historian, called the period from 1875 to the present (for him, c.1940), ‘postmodern.’
Others have used the term sporadically as well, though not until more recently has there
even been a general consensus about its meaning. Some have used the term to signify the
continuation of modernity, though perhaps in new directions, while others have used it to
mean the end of modernity. The term ‘postmodernism’ as a philosophical discourse first
entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, especially because of the publication of The
Postmodern Condition by Jean-Francois Lyotard.
Among the most recognized as postmodernists, or contributors to postmodern thought,
are: Roland Barthes (1915-1980), French; Jean Baudrillard (1929- ), French; Jacques
Derrida (1930- ), French; Michel Foucault (1926-1984), French; Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), German; Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), German; Edmund
Husserl (1859-1938), German; Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German; Soren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855), Danish; Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), French; Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-
1998), French; Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German; Richard Rorty (1931- ),
American; Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), Swiss; and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-
1951), Austrian-born British. Others would add, or subtract names to this list. Yet, most
I think would agree that Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty are the three
principal voices of postmodernism.
Postmodernism attempts to understand and describe the condition of being
postmodern. Thus, postmodernism philosophically describes the cultural movement,
with postmodernity as a response, or reaction to the condition, or state, of being
postmodern. It is a highly sceptical, doubtful and critical movement, especially in its
philosophical form. It is notoriously difficult to describe and categorize, for that is part of
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa