Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Paperback)

by Stephen R.C. Hicks (Author) "By most accounts we have entered a new intellectual age..." (more)
Key Phrases: relativistic arguments, postmodern epistemology, Soviet Union, Frankfurt School, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"By the end of the book, the reader may remain ill at ease with the postmodernist malaise, but Hicks's lucid account will demystify the subject. Hicks's impressive grasp of the history of philosophy over the past few centuries enables to explain postmodernism by identifying its signposts. He lets sensitive analysis of the memorable episodes of postmodernism speak to the essential issues that drive it. His treatment of the importance of Kant s skepticism in getting the postmodernist engine going down the track is especially instructive." --Professor Curtis Hancock, Review of Metaphysics (December 2005)<br /><br />"Readers of Explaining Postmodernism will find much to reflect upon and engage with in the pages of this lucid study of the background, themes, and consequences of postmodernist thought and practice. With clarity, concision, and an engaging style, Hicks exposes the historical roots and philosophical assumptions of the postmodernist phenomenon. More than that, he raises key questions about the legacy of postmodernism and its implications for our intellectual attitudes and cultural life." --Professor Steven Sanders, Reason Papers (Spring 2006)<br /><br />"Stephen Hicks has written a trenchant and provocative book on a vital topic. ... Though I have at times disagreed with Hicks, he has an excellent eye for essential issues and his views always repay careful consideration." --Dr. David Gordon, The Mises Review (Fall 2005)

Product Description
Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left - the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism - now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism? Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Scholargy Publishing, Inc.; First edition, Eighth printing edition (August 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592476422
• ISBN-13: 978-1592476428
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #316,445 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNMASKING POSTMODERNISM, October 17, 2006

By	F. Carr "FJC" (New Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book isn't an introduction to postmodernism (PM). There are several introductions to PM on Amazon if that's what you want. Rather, its task could be described as turning some of the techniques of academic PM on its founders - Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, & Co. The title could have been "Unmasking Postmodernism" because Hicks does so with devastating effect.

I have read several hundred books on philosophy from Plato to the present and I cannot think of one that I consider to have been more clearly written than this. The exposition is admirably jargon-free and straightforward, although some terms might be unfamiliar to some folks. This is the only book in many years that I began re-reading and marking up as soon as I had finished reading it the first time - I think it's that good.

It's important to distinguish between PM in the arts, which is largely an aesthetic trend, and academic PM, which exists almost exclusively in some humanities departments in the universities and identifies with particular epistemological and linguistic assumptions. This book is concerned with the latter group and Hicks provides a well documented case for the following historical sequence:

1) Leftist socialists had traditionally believed that reason and facts would show the superiority of socialism - theoretically, morally, and economically.

2) Academic PM's creators were all leftist socialists around the time that leftist socialism was failing - theoretically, morally, and economically (1950s on).

3) The reaction of leftist academic socialists to this wasn't to accept that they had been wrong. Instead, they availed themselves of recent developments in epistemology and linguistics as a pretext for dismissing reason and facts.

4) They then proceeded to impose leftist socialism on students from behind this mask.

This reaction parallels the Counter Enlightenment movements beginning over 200 years ago that were trying to save room for faith against the advance of science.

I was particularly interested to see Hicks point out the similarities between the tactics of creationists (anti-evolutionists) and PMs. I've been engaged in a running debate in print with a group of creationists for over a year and the similarities are striking and revealing. Academic PM definitely has a cult aspect to it; the movie "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" comes to mind. American philosopher John Searle once remarked that French PM philosopher Jacques Derrida's work is the kind of stuff that gives bulls**t a bad name.

Some people will say that Hicks is a Randist and that he's merely criticizing PM from that perspective without understanding it. That's a knee-jerk PM tactic - if you disagree with us, you don't understand us. I'm not a Randist, nor am I particularly sympathetic to Rand, yet I didn't feel a Randist presence in the text other than to the extent that Randists still think reason has value and that all opinions are not created equal.

Hicks ends appropriately by telling us that because the Enlightenment project remains unfinished the PMs will be able to carry on as though that project has failed. It could be that the final refutation of academic PM will entail a significant advance in the completion of the Enlightenment project, although it will almost certainly be an updated conception of that project.

There is a lot more value in this book than what I'm reporting here, including a wonderfully illuminating account of the philosophical trends that led to PM and an inventory of the rhetorical tactics used by PMs, so I strongly recommend getting it in your hands ASAP.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is how philosophy should be written!, June 4, 2005

By	Stanislav Rozenfeld - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just finished reading this book. It took me about a week of very leisurely reading. The book is about 200 pages. This is how philosophy should be written, brief and to the point. People like me do not have a lot of time on our hands to pour through thick philosophical tomes hoping to discover one grain of wisdom in a sea of verbiage. What makes this book special is that every page, every word counts. This is not some superficial popularization, but a serious book filled with important ideas and serious implication for the modern world.

This is intellectual history written like a novel, and it reads like a novel. It's a dark novel, unfortunately, but there is reason for hope. The story it tells is of how postmodernism evolved from its dual roots of socialist utopianism and counter-enlightenment philosophy to become the dominant intellectual force in today's universities.

Beyond being just an intellectual history, the book represents a call to action for all those who value their Enlightenment heritage to articulate and defend the premises upon which the Enlightenment was built, but which were never fully articulated. In this book, Enlightenment doesn't remain some historical abstraction, but a great movement that has brought us individualism, science, technology, capitalism and all the fruits of the progress in all these fields. It's something that's worth defending, and I hope this book is read widely enough to make an impact in that direction.

86 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book should be in every student's backpack. , September 7, 2004

By	Peter Cresswell "Organon" (Auckland, NZ) - See all my reviews

This book should be in every student's backpack. In the post-modern intellectual battleground in which each student find himself submerged - and sometimes drowning - this book offers essential intellectual self-defence for every student who still cares to think. No matter if you already know every answer to all the sundry irrationalities you face every day - herewith is a comprehensive summary of your intellectual enemy that for the first time clearly and comprehensively puts each of the post-modern heroes in their place.

Why is that so important? Well, what do you feel when you watch a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis? You watch it greet the sun, spread its wings and almost give thanks to existence for its rebirth. Imagine then another human being gleefully stamping their boot on that reborn butterfly, smilingly stamping the life out of it. Such is the situation in many places of academe. This book gives a defence to the fragile butterfly of the intellect.

One of the worst periods of my own life was spent at Auckland's Architecture School where I found myself being taught by intelligent human beings, many of whom seemed somehow intent on snuffing out young students' sense of certainty and their joy in learning about ideas and creating great art. I watched as many students became either irrational automatons emulating the noises made by these lecturers, or gave up in disgust - often questioning themselves and their own ability. They were crushed. That situation was not unique to my own alma mater - it pertains to nearly every grove of academia in the Western world. This book explains the mentality of scum who earn a pay-cheque by gleefully crushing impressionable young minds, and the strategies they employ to do it.

The book is a "great but very scary read." Written like an adventure story, it guides the reader confidently and clearly through the intellectual history of the last three-hundred years in order to explain why the `new intellectual age' we find ourselves in is in most respects a toxic Age of Crap.

My only gripe is that the adventure story does not end with a happy ending - although Ayn Rand and the Objectivist antidote to this intellectual poison are implicitly present on every page, where I expected their explicit appearance at the conclusion Stephen delivers only the truism that "what is still needed is a refutation of these [post-modern] historical premises, and an identification and defense of the alternatives to them." Here would have been an obvious opportunity to send the reader to cleaner Objectivist pastures elsewhere in which this work is being done. A recommended reading list would have been a welcome addition - perhaps he intends to set up such a thing online?

In any case, as with the recommendations given by others, this is "not a book review but flat-out endorsement." In many respects Stephen's book is a much-needed update of Rand's essay "For the New Intellectual' but this time expanded and with footnotes - it is like seeing the `director's cut' of Rand's earlier essay. It is that good.

Buy one for a student today. You might just save their life.