Deep Postmodernism: Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Polanyi

Tue 10.11. 12-14 U40 lr 10 (kok.)

Wed 11.11. 12-14 U40 lr 9

Thu 12.11. 12-14 U40 lr 10 (kok.)

Fri 13.11. 10-12 U40 lr 10 (kok.)

Content

Postmodernism is a term used to describe a contemporary school of philosophy that takes a highly critical stance toward the conceptual underpinnings of the modern worldview. Such leading postmodernist thinkers as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, and Pierre Bourdieu are also often called “deconstructionists” because their work deconstructed basic modernist assumptions such as fixed conceptual and linguistic meanings, the very idea of objective knowledge, and the possibility of constructing a systematic and complete understanding of the world.

Jerry H. Gill points out that, however insightful the critiques of the postmodernists, they did little or nothing to offer constructive approaches to overcoming the impasse that their criticism of modernism created. Gill turns to an earlier generation of twentieth-century philosophers who anticipated later postmodern trends but offered alternative approaches to the dilemmas of modernism regarding the nature of reality, knowledge, and language.

Gill shows how Alfred North Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Michael Polanyi reinterpreted reality, meaning, the mind-body problem, and knowledge in refreshingly new ways. Essentially, these four thinkers provide us with a deeper understanding of postmodernism by viewing the nature of reality as interactive and open-ended, meaning as contextual and functional, the role of the body as integral and axial, and knowledge as dynamic and tacit. To tie together the main themes of his study, Gill concludes with a brief analysis of the key insights offered by J. L. Austin, especially his "linguistic phenomenology."

Jerry H. Gill (Vail, AZ) is an adjunct professor of philosophy and humanities at Pima Community College. Previously, he was a professor of philosophy and religion at the College of St. Rose in Albany, NY, and at Eastern University in St. Davids, PA. He is the author of seven other books, including Native American Worldviews, Wittgenstein and Metaphor, and Merleau-Monty and Metaphor.

Jerry H. Gill: "Deep Postmodernism: Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Polanyi". Fortcoming from: Prometheus Books – May 2010