Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

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then how is it found Who holds the deconstructionist critics accountable
Postmodern Epistemology
“Epistemology is the theory of how we know, or how we can be sure that what we
think we know of the world is correct” (Schaeffer, 1990:6). Truth, knowledge and
absolutes require that something is either true, or not true. Postmoderns, however,
dismantle and reject all such notions. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is probably the
person most responsible for undermining the traditional Western worldview that had been
dominated by the Kantian theory of transcendental categories. Nietzsche believed truth
was nothing more than an illusion, that truth is a metaphor -- an illusion of our
perception. Things seem real only because of our familiarity with them.
Descartes made the self an objective observer of the universe, which Kant reinforced.
Nietzsche dethroned all this, promoting nihilism, which “accepts the conclusion that
everything is meaningless and chaotic” (Schaeffer, 1990:57). Rooted in Nietzschean
thought, the postmodernist rejects traditional epistemology, sceptically and critically
attacking ‘facts’ as inseparable from the observer and his/her culture which supply the
categories to discern them (Gellner, 1992:24). For the postmodernist, cultureindependent
‘facts’ do not exist, because the observer cannot be objective about even
himself (ibid.).
This crisis of truth can be comforting to none.
The decline of the spiritual and moral
dimensions of Western society increasingly
suggest that a society which is gradually
relinquishing the quest for truth may
eventually have nothing to pursue. Freedom
for freedom’s sake has never sustained a
civilization. It does not promise to make
amends in the future either. Freedoms based
on widely held truths have in the past
generated great civilizations but never
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa