Richard Pennycuick on post-modernism:

>...  I keep seeing the word used as if it's taken for granted that
>everybody knows what it means.  I once spent some time on the web in
>search of an explanation until I admitted defeat.  Enlightenment,
someone,
>please!

Post-modernism is a term used not only about fine arts but also a term used
in a more philosophical context.  The term is often used in many different
ways but some common themes can be found.

1..  The central role of the discourse - the constitutive character of
the language is emphasised and "natural" objects is said to be created
by/within the discourse.  Every man is born into discourses which have a
material and active appearance.  The sense of the world is structured by
these discourses which provide patterns of social identity.

2..  Fragmented identities - subjectivity becomes a process and the idea of
an autonomous and self determinating individual with a confident identity
as a centre in the social world is rejected; the self is currently created.

3..  Critique of the philosophy of presence and representation - the
focus is on the uncertaintes of the language instead of the language
as a reflector of reality and transmitter of meaning.

4..  Loss of foundation and great storys - its a question of plurality
of voices and local politics rather than theoretical frames and huge
political projects.  Standpoints have traditionally drawn there power
from either metaphysical foundations - the outer world for the empiricist
- or narrative foundations - the class struggle for the marxist.  Some
post-modernists asserts that the legitimating storys per se is a fraud.
Other establish that the distrust in big storys and the growing political
cynism amongst the public creates distrust towards different kinds of
legitimating.

5..  Connection between power and knowledge whereby knowledge loses its
innocence and neutrality.  Power is lying in the demarcations and the
discource systems that upholds them including material arrangements as
selection procedures, office arrangements and structures of awarding and
control.

6..  Science within the post modern paradigm is aiming at resistance and
indetermination - irony and play rather than rationality, predictability
and order.

I am not certain that this effort to explain the concept of post-modernism
is adequate to the context of this list or to the request of Mr Pennycuick
but maybe have I been able to shed some light over the, in my opinion,
interesting word.

Patrick