Trends in the Development of Contemporary World Philosophy

Postmodernism

The term "postmodern" is employed to denote the sweeping changes in the intellectual climate of highly developed Western countries and the sociocultural transformations that transpired in the last third of the twentieth century. Within the realm of postmodernism, a multitude of philosophers, sociologists, linguists, philologists, and art critics are presently at work. Among the most prominent figures of this movement are Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Félix Guattari, Fredric Jameson, and others.

Postmodernism emerged in the mid-twentieth century as a reaction to the information-technology revolution in culture, which led to the collapse of totalitarian thinking and the paralysis of human rational and perceptive capacities due to an overload of information. It also arose from disillusionment with the ideals and values of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Literally, postmodern signifies that which follows modernity—an era encompassing the period from the beginning of the modern age to the mid-twentieth century. The modern epoch was characterized by a universalist worldview, a breakthrough into the foundational aspects of existence, a cult of reason, the necessity of its enlightenment, a belief in absolute truth and the limitless potential of humanity, and confidence in the existence of unity among all that is, alongside an historical consciousness that recognizes the dominance of progressive historical development.

The primary features of postmodernity within the aesthetic context include a rejection of the conception of the artist as a creator, a blurring of the boundaries between "high" and "mass" culture, and a shift in focus from the generation of the new to play with that which has already been created. This reorientation results, as is well known, in eclecticism, a primacy of parody, and collage.

In addition to the aesthetic dimension, two other fundamental aspects of the sociocultural transformation of postmodernity are identified—social and intellectual-theoretical (it should be noted that postmodern philosophy does not represent a singular direction), which are characterized by a number of common traits.

From a social standpoint, the situation of postmodernity manifests itself in the fundamental changes occurring in contemporary Western societies, which are described as post-industrial or informational. In these societies, what is known as symbolic production has reached vast proportions, signifying a reorientation from the production of material goods to the creation of immaterial signs. The postmodernist vision of the world consists of simulacra. A significant role in the elaboration of this concept belongs to Jean Baudrillard, particularly in his works "The System of Objects" and "Simulacra and Simulation," where he analyzes the formation of a simulated reality in contemporary society. The world of the modern individual is one in which exchanges of real objects increasingly give way to exchanges of signs (for instance, in the form of advertising images), which become self-sufficient and no longer represent actual objects. Within the framework of simulated reality, the boundary between the real and the fictitious disappears. The realm of reality appears as a world of simulacra. Thus, postmodernists shift their focus to the subjectivity of individuals, dissolving the very problem of objective reality. They argue that objective reality is vanishing, replaced by a diversity of sign-symbolic representations of the world. The epistemological premise of this position is that postmodernists are content with a world of simulacra (traces that denote), which lack any connection to the objects they signify. Consequently, the world is perceived as a construct from which no sources or archetypes can be discerned. This has led to the consideration of reality as a potential for realization, as something imagined, illusory. As a result, there arises a "trace perception" of postmodernism, understood as the movement of the subject across the "surface" of phenomena, without grasping their essence.

American philosopher Fredric Jameson speaks of a radical transformation of social reality, albeit in different terms. He notes that all aspects of social life—political, economic, and other processes—present themselves to the contemporary individual as mediated by images produced by mass media, which shape our understanding of the significance of various events. Social occurrences, experienced not in real social interaction but "on screen," lose their practical importance. Thus, the social fades away. This is also manifested in the fragmentation of social life within the postmodern world: the loss of traditional social bonds that connected individuals within society and the transformation of subjects into isolated social atoms. There is also a fragmentation of the subject itself—individuals lose stable self-identities, continually changing under the influence of power and mass media.

Deleuze and Guattari highlight a characteristic phenomenon of postmodernity known as deterritorialization—the emergence of entire social groups that lose their place within the hierarchy of cultural and social institutions, transforming into a "mass" without a fixed location. Another significant feature of the postmodern situation is decentralization—the disappearance of the notion of a center as a focal point and symbol of power, rendering meaningless the binary oppositions characteristic of the mentality of previous epochs. Decentralization in the economic sphere is expressed in the decentralization of production, while in the cultural realm, it manifests as a rejection of ethnocentrism—thus emphasizing the polyphony of various cultural worlds existing within a decentralized cultural space, where the opposition between "high" and "low" culture disappears. Most dramatically, decentralization is evident in relation to personality: the fragmentation of the subject leads to a crisis of the personal principle.

The peculiarities of postmodernism in the intellectual-theoretical dimension lie primarily in the rejection of ontology, that is, the description of the world as it is—without interpretations. From the postmodernist perspective, most vividly articulated by Lyotard in his work "The Postmodern Condition," all knowledge, teachings, and theories are merely narratives—stories that do not reflect any genuine reality. Scholars, historians, and philosophers—bearers of these teachings—simply narrate stories they have invented, which lack any grounding in a true reality. Consequently, Lyotard proclaims a loss of trust in teachings that make claims to all-encompassing explanations of the world and universal applicability. He refers to them as grand narratives or metanarratives. Such ideologies encompass any worldview system—scientific, Enlightenment, or religious. Among them are the narrative of salvation (Christianity) and the narrative of emancipation (Marxism).

By claiming the status of being the only true systems and seeking to eliminate all other alternatives, these frameworks harbor a totalitarian charge, usurping the right to define the nature of social order, which inevitably leads to violence against dissenters. Moreover, the constant replacement of one ideology by another confirms that the belief in the supremacy of reason and social progress has been undermined. The crisis of values and ideals of the Enlightenment and modernity signifies a departure from the totality of the universal and a return to the intrinsic worth of individual experience. It is imperative to reject metanarratives and embrace the proposition that the world is radically pluralistic, representing a diversity of narratives—ways of thinking, ways of life—that can coexist peacefully only when none seeks to claim sole truth.

According to Lyotard, postmodernist philosophy should elucidate the situation of the world's multiplicity and the repressive nature of any unity. In contrast to the orderly, universalist vision of the world, it examines the world as pluralistic and fragmentary, heterogeneous and dynamic. The social whole disintegrates into a multitude of worldviews, ideologies, and ways of life. The pluralistic world of the postmodern individual cannot be reduced to any unifying principle, which, notably, finds its reflection in catastrophe theory and synergetics.

From the standpoint of postmodernists, reason has led humanity into a deadlock of global problems and placed it on the brink of extinction; thus, reason and science cannot be trusted. Humanity must live by emotions, intuition, and play. For postmodernism, the principal focus is on freedom in all its forms: in creativity, in culture; a freedom that approaches chaos.

Postmodernism characterizes an attitude toward the world as an object of awareness, the results of which are captured in texts, rendering the world itself a text. The self-awareness of the individual also constitutes a "sum of texts" that interact with other texts, forming culture. Thus, all culture becomes a series of texts. Derrida, regarded as the father of deconstruction philosophy, asserts: "Nothing exists outside of the text." In texts, meanings constantly intertwine. The entire world manifests as an infinite text, and human activity comprises various language games. The interpretation of texts necessitated a particular methodological approach—"deconstruction"—aimed at dismantling the certainty that a text possesses a singular, fixed meaning. Deconstruction works toward uncovering one text within another, revealing hidden meanings that may even elude the author, which are inherited from past linguistic practices and solidified in language in the form of unconscious cognitive stereotypes.

Overall, postmodernism is marked by an anti-rationalistic and anti-scientistic stance. Its central meaning revolves around a negative attitude toward scientific thought, and in a broader context, toward the rationalist tradition as a whole, which is viewed by postmodernists as a paradigm imposed on humanity during the dominance of classical tradition in philosophy.