“The all-destroyer” — was how Moses Mendelssohn described his contemporary Immanuel Kant. For more on the context for Mendelssohn’s strong conclusion, see p. 50 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is available at this dedicated page.
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Chart 1.3: Defining Pre-modernism, Modernism, and Post-modernism Pre-modernism Modernism Post-modernism Metaphysics Realism: Super-naturalism Realism: Naturalism Anti-realism Epistemology Mysticism and/or faith Objectivism: Experience and reason Social subjectivism Human Nature Original Sin; Subject to God’s will Tabula rasa and autonomy Social construction and conflict Ethics Collectivism: altruism Individualism Collectivism: egalitarianism Politics & Economics Feudalism Liberal
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British philosopher John Gray claims: “We live today amid the dim ruins of the Enlightenment project, which was the ruling project of the modern period.” For more on the implications of Gray’s pessimistic assessment for postmodernism, see p. 23 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is
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Friedrich Nietzsche on why the rise of the philosophers meant the fall of man: Once reason took over, men “no longer possessed their former guides, their regulating, unconscious and infallible drives: they were reduced to thinking, inferring, reckoning, co-ordinating cause and effect, these unfortunate creatures; they were reduced to their ‘consciousness,’ their weakest and most
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G.W.F. Hegel said: “This *Good*, this *Reason*, in its most concrete form, is God. God governs the world; the actual working of his government—the carrying out of his plan—is the History of the World.” For more on the meaning of Hegel’s quotation and its implications for postmodernism, see p. 58 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism
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In Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard defends faith by going on the offensive against reason: “Faith requires the crucifixion of reason.” For more on the context of Kierkegaard’s irrationalism and its implications for postmodernism, see p. 98 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is available at this
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed: “Reason is what engenders egocentrism and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself. Reason is what separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him. Philosophy is what isolates him and what moves him to say in secret, at the sight of a suffering man, ‘Perish if
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Early in the development of analytic philosophy, Moritz Schlick claimed: “Does the external world exist?” is an unintelligible question, for “both its denial and affirmation are meaningless.” For more on the meaning of Schlick’s and its implications for postmodernism, see p. 80 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions
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