Understanding Postmodernism from a Confessional Stance
This is the second of two talks on Postmodernism. The first talk covered section (1) of the notes below. This talk covers the remaining sections of the notes.
The challenge of terminology
(1) Historical overview: the centrality of epistemology
(a) Premodernism
(b) Modernism
Its six defining characteristics:
- beginning with the finite “I”
- epistemological certainty is both desirable and attainable
- foundationalism
- the focus on method
- the assumption of “a-historical universality”
- the rise of philosophical naturalism
(c) Postmodernism
- historical antecedents
- twentieth-century contributions of Germans, French, Americans
- the overthrow or the revision of the six characteristics of modernism
(2) Correlatives of Postmodernism
(3) The Advantages of Postmodernism
(4) The Weaknesses and Dangers of Postmodernism
