Continental Philosophy

19th Century American
Literary, Historical, and Cultural Studies

Online Resources
This site is designed to bring together at one place the best materials available on the Web for studying and teaching about 19th century American literature, history and culture. Our aim is to make the site useful to teachers, scholars and students at all levels of education. We recognize the uneven nature of Web-based scholarship and would remind users that few topics, if any, can be adequately researched only online without recourse to libraries and other traditional scholarly resources.

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HANDOUT ON POSTMODERNISM: LYOTARD AND HABERMAS


What's here


Reading assignments for this session

Definitions for key terms, including "modernism" and "postmodernism"

Background information on Lyotard and Habermas

What next?--suggestions on where to go from here

Assignment for next time

Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, introduction and sections 1-3, 9-10: xxiii-xxv, 3-11, 31-41. (on reserve)

Jurgen Habermas, "Modernity--An Incomplete Project," in The Anti- aesthetic, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983): 3-15. (on reserve)


Definitions (please note the plural)

As you'll soon discover, "postmodernism" has been defined in a number of different ways. And these definitions themselves depend on competing definitions of "modernism" itself. With that in mind, then, let me offer you three important and influential definitions of "modernism," "modernity," and "the modern":


1. "Modernism" is a movement in the arts: The "modernist" movement is often said to have reached its height in the 1910s and '20s, with the achievements of great writers like Joyce, Kafka, and Proust; great painters like Matisse and Picasso; and great composers and musicians like Stravinsky, Berg, and Schoenberg.
2. "The modern age" is a period in Western history: "The modern age" includes both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It might be said to begin with the French Revolution of 1789, in which old forms of government are cast off and new social experiments are begun. It might also be said to coincide with the consolidation and global expansion of industrial capitalism.

3. "The modern spirit" is the driving force behind scientific and rationalist thought: "The modern spirit" is what has motivated and inspired Western thinkers for the last 350 years or so. It has led thinkers such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Jefferson to make ambitious claims for the power of human reason. Such thinkers have argued that reason makes it possible for human beings to penetrate the mysteries of nature, or to develop forms of government that will ensure human rights and expand human liberties.


Lyotard, selections from The Postmodern Condition (1979)

In Lyotard, there is much that might be confusing. As you read, however, you'll be safe in assuming that Lyotard is working with the third definition of modernity, the one that associates modernism with the Enlightenment.

In the postmodern era, Lyotard argues, scientific and rationalist discourses have lost their "legitimacy." To figure out he means, you'll need to poner the concept of "legitimacy" and the process of "legitimation." Here are some questions to ask: How do various discourses and disciplines, not to mention particular arguments, "legitimize" themselves? How do they show, demonstrate, prove that they are worthy of serious attention--or that they should be viewed as reliable and indeed authoritative? To what standards, what protocols, what values do and must they appeal?

In addition, you should know a bit more about the "grand narratives" mentioned throughout the text. Think in particular about the narratives most frequently associated with the history of science or, somewhat more generally, with the development or "triumph" of human reason. (For example, consider the narrative that tells us how we emerged from the "Dark Ages," dominated by priests and princes, into a period of "Enlightment," dominated by scientists and philosophers.) Such narratives, Lyotard says, are crucial to the process of "legitimation" (see xxiii). Do you see why they might be? Do you agree with Lyotard's assertion that there is now an "incredulity" towards, a deep suspicion of, such narratives? Are you yourself suspicious of them?


Habermas, "Modernity--An Incomplete Project" (1981)

Habermas is a German thinker, widely regarded as the most compelling and interesting critic of postmodernism. Although he begins this piece by talking about aesthetic modernity, Habermas (like Lyotard) is really more interested in the third definition of "modernity." Indeed, he is convinced that the scientific and rationalist modern spirit is still worth embracing and defending.

In this essay and in many of his other writings, he expresses a great deal of faith in human reason, urging humans not to abandon the modern hope that more careful uses of reason might lead to the eventual betterment of humankind. Indeed, Habermas insists that far from being exhausted, "the modern project" has yet to be fulfilled (see 13).

In reading Habermas, try to get a fix on what his political position might be. He has a lot to say about conservatives and neoconservatives. Is he a conservative himself? And why does he identify Derrida and Foucault as "young conservatives"? Do you think he's right to do so?