Editing Postmodern philosophy (section)

==Postmodern philosophers==
{{More citations needed|section|date=March 2023}}

=== Michel Foucault ===
[[Michel Foucault]] is often cited as an early postmodernist although he personally rejected that label. Following Nietzsche, Foucault argued that knowledge is produced through the operations of ''power'', and changes fundamentally in different historical periods.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-03-26 |title=Michel Foucault - Philosopher, Postmodernism, Power {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-Foucault/Foucaults-ideas |access-date=2025-04-08 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

===Jean Baudrillard===
Baudrillard, known for his [[Simulacra and Simulation|simulation theory]], argued that the individual's experience and perception of reality derives its basis entirely from media-propagated ideals and images. The real and fantasy become indistinguishable, leading to the emergence of a wide-spread [[simulation]] of reality.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last= Hannay |first= Alastair |title= Baudrillard, Jean |encyclopedia= The Oxford Companion to Philosophy|editor1-last=Honderich|editor1-first=Ted|year= 2005|publisher= Oxford University Press |location= New York|page= 81}}</ref>

=== Jean François Lyotard ===
The writings of Lyotard were largely concerned with the role of narrative in human culture, and particularly how that role has changed as we have left modernity and entered a "postindustrial" or [[postmodernity|postmodern condition]].  He argued that modern philosophies legitimized their truth-claims not (as they themselves claimed) on logical or empirical grounds, but rather on the grounds of accepted stories (or "[[metanarratives]]") about knowledge and the world—comparing these with Wittgenstein's concept of [[language-game]]s.  He further argued that in our postmodern condition, these metanarratives no longer work to legitimize truth-claims.  He suggested that in the wake of the collapse of modern metanarratives, people are developing a new "language-game"—one that does not make claims to absolute truth but rather celebrates a world of ever-changing relationships (among people and between people and the world).<ref>Lyotard, Jean François, The Postmodern Condition, 1979, translated 1984, [https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Lyotard_Jean-Francois_The_Postmodern_Condition_A_Report_on_Knowledge.pdf]</ref>

=== Jacques Derrida ===
Derrida, the father of [[deconstruction]], practiced philosophy as a form of [[textual criticism]].  He criticized [[Western philosophy]] as privileging the concept of [[Metaphysics of presence|presence]] and ''[[logos]]'', as opposed to absence and markings or writings.<ref>Derrida, Jacque, Of Grammatology, 1967, translated 1976, [https://monoskop.org/images/8/8e/Derrida_Jacques_Of_Grammatology_1998.pdf]</ref>

====Gilles Deleuze on productive difference====
The work of [[Gilles Deleuze]] developed a concept of {{em|difference}} as a productive mechanism, rather than as a merely negative phenomenon. He advocated for a critique of reason that emphasizes sensibility and feeling over rational judgment. Following Nietzsche, Deleuze argued that philosophical critique is an encounter between thought and what forces it into action, and that this requires training, discipline, inventiveness, and even a certain "cruelty". He believed that thought cannot activate itself, but needs external forces to awaken and move it. Art, science, and philosophy can provide such activation through their transformative and experimental nature.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Postmodernism |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/postmodernism |access-date=12 May 2019 |date=5 February 2015 |orig-date=1st pub. 2005 |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Spring 2015 |series=sep-postmodernism |last1=Aylesworth |first1=Gary }}, §4. Productive Difference</ref>

===Richard Rorty===
In the United States, a well-known pragmatist and self-proclaimed postmodernist was [[Richard Rorty]].  An analytic philosopher, Rorty believed that combining [[Willard Van Orman Quine]]'s criticism of the [[analytic-synthetic distinction]] with [[Wilfrid Sellars]]'s critique of the "[[Myth of the Given]]" allowed for an abandonment of the view of the thought or language as a mirror of a reality or an external world.  Further, drawing upon [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]]'s criticism of the dualism between conceptual scheme and empirical content, he challenges the sense of questioning whether our particular concepts are related to the world in an appropriate way, whether we can justify our ways of describing the world as compared with other ways.  He argued that truth was not about getting it right or representing reality, but was part of a social practice and language was what served our purposes in a particular time; ancient languages are sometimes untranslatable into modern ones because they possess a different vocabulary and are unuseful today.  Donald Davidson is not usually considered a postmodernist, although he and Rorty have both acknowledged that there are few differences between their philosophies.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unc.edu/~knobe/rorty.html|title=An interview with Rorty|website=unc.edu|access-date=7 April 2018}}</ref><ref>Davidson, D., 1986, "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge," Truth And Interpretation, Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, ed. Ernest LePore, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, afterwords.</ref>

=== Douglas Kellner ===
[[Douglas Kellner]] insists that the "assumptions and procedures of modern theory" must be forgotten. Kellner analyzes the terms of this theory in real-life experiences and examples.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kellner |first=Douglas |author-link=Douglas Kellner |date=1988 |title=Postmodernism as Social Theory: Some Challenges and Problems |journal=[[Theory, Culture & Society]] |language=en |volume=5 |issue=2–3 |pages=239–269 |doi=10.1177/0263276488005002003 |issn=0263-2764 |s2cid=144625142}}</ref> Kellner uses science and technology studies as a major part of his analysis; he urges that the theory is incomplete without it. The scale is larger than just postmodernism alone; it must be interpreted through cultural studies where science and technology studies play a large role. The reality of the [[11 September attacks]] on the United States of America is the catalyst for his explanation. In response, Kellner continues to examine the repercussions of understanding the effects of the 11 September attacks. He questions if the attacks are only able to be understood in a limited form of postmodern theory due to the level of irony.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lule |first=Jack |year=2001 |title=''The Postmodern Adventure'' [Book Review] |journal=[[Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly]] |volume=78 |issue=4 |pages=865–866 |doi=10.1177/107769900107800415 |s2cid=221059611}}</ref> The conclusion he depicts is simple: postmodernism, as most use it today, will decide what experiences and signs in one's reality will be one's reality as they know it.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Danto |first=A. C. |author-link=Arthur Danto |year=1990 |title=The Hyper-Intellectual |magazine=[[The New Republic]] |volume=203 |issue=11/12 |pages=44–48}}</ref>