Philosophy After Postmodernism: Civilized Values and the Scope of Knowledge (Routledge Studies in Twentieth Century Philosophy, 16)

246 Pages·2003·1.06 MB·English

by  Paul Crowther

Philosophy After
Postmodernism
Has the idea of civilization become outmoded? Do such things as postmodern
cultural relativism and the atrocities of September 11th 2001 mean that it is no
longer possible to talk of progress in the fields of knowledge and value?
In this book Paul Crowther answers no to both questions. Formulating a new
approach to philosophy which, instead of simply rejecting postmodern thought,
tries to assimilate some of its main features, the author identifies conceptual links
between value, knowledge, personal identity, and civilization understood as a
process of cumulative advance.
To establish these links Crowther deploys a refoundational mode of analytic
philosophy influenced by Cassirer. This approach recontextualizes precisely
those aspects of postmodernism which appear, superficially, to be fuel for the
relativist fire. This method also enables him to illuminate some of the great prac-
tical dangers of the postmodern era – most notably the widespread inability or
unwillingness to distinguish between signs and reality. Through these means
Crowther renews analytic philosophy as a searching form of conceptual and
cultural critique that pushes beyond the limits of postmodern thought.
Essential reading for advanced students and academics interested in
Twentieth Century Philosophy, Philosophy After Postmodernism will also be of value
to scholars working in the fields of Cultural Studies and Sociology.
Paul Crowther is Professor of Art and Philosophy at the International
University Bremen and was formerly a Fellow of Corpus Christi College,
Oxford. His previous books include Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism(Clarendon
Press, 1993).
Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century
Philosophy
1 The Story of Analytic 9 Gaston Bachelard
Philosophy Critic of Science and the Imagination
Plot and Heroes Cristina Chimisso
Edited by Anat Biletzki and Anat Matar
10 Hilary Putnam
2 Donald Davidson Pragmatism and Realism
Truth, Meaning and Knowledge Edited by James Conant and Urszula Zeglen
Edited by Urszula M. Zeglen
11 Karl Jaspers
3 Philosophy and Ordinary Politics and Metaphysics
Language Chris Thornhill
The Bent and Genius of Our Tongue
Oswald Hanfling 12 From Kant to Davidson
The Idea of the Transcendental in
4 The Subject in Question Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Sartre’s Critique of Husserl in Edited by Jeff Malpas
The Transcendence of the Ego
Stephen Priest 13 Collingwood and the
Metaphysics of Experience
5 Aesthetic Order A Reinterpretation
A Philosophy of Order, Giuseppina D’Oro
Beauty and Art
Ruth Lorland 14 The Logic of Liberal Rights
A Study in the Formal Analysis of
6 Naturalism Legal Discourse
A Critical Analysis Eric Heinze
Edited by William Lane Craig
and J. P. Moreland 15 Real Metaphysics
Edited by Hallvard Lillehammer and
7 Grammar in Early Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra
Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Richard Gaskin 16 Philosophy After
Postmodernism
8 Rules, Magic and Civilized Values and the Scope of
Instrumental Reason Knowledge
A Critical Interpretation of Peter Paul Crowther
Winch’s Philosophy of the Social
Sciences
Berel Dov Lerner
Philosophy After
Postmodernism
Civilized values and the
scope of knowledge
Paul Crowther
First published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
© 2003 Paul Crowther
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Philosophy after postmodernism: civilized values and the scope of
knowledge / Paul Crowther.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Postmodernism. 2. Civilization–Philosophy. 3. Knowledge, Theory of.
4. Values. I. Title.
B831.2.C76 2003
190'.9'051–dc11 2002045493
ISBN 0-203-41638-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-34070-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–31036–9 (Print Edition)
For Melvyn Marsden
28 February 1933–29 July 1935

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: postmodernity, perspectivalism and
supermodernism 1
PART I
Civilization, postmodernity and philosophy 5
1 The intrinsic value and scope of civilization 7
2 From civilization to postmodernity: a context for
refoundational philosophy 30
PART II
Questions of knowledge 47
3 Refoundational knowledge: Cassirer’s epistemology 49
4 Imagination and objective knowledge 66
5 The cohesion of the self: moment, image and narrative 78
6 The limits of objective knowledge: what mind-independent
reality must be 101
viii Contents
PART III
Questions of ethics 123
7 Narrative and self-consciousness: a basis for virtue ethics 125
8 Attacks upon civilization: some ethical and metaphysical
issues 135
PART IV
Critique 147
9 Against epistemological nihilism: contra Derrida, contra
Welsch 149
10 From rock music to deep signification: Lacan with ¯i¿ek 162
11 Sociological imperialism and the field of cultural production:
a critique of Bourdieu 173
12 Knowledge and the attack upon higher education 185
PART V
Conclusion 207
Conclusion: conditions of critical autonomy 209
Appendix: McDowell and the problem of mind-independent reality 217
Notes 222
Index 231
Acknowledgements
Chapter 7 was published under the same title in the Journal of Value Inquiry, issue
4, vol. 37, 2002. Chapter 10 was originally published as ‘Lacan and Zizek: An
Introduction’ and ‘Leaving the Twentieth-Century: Lacan, Zizek, and the
Sinthome’, both included in New Art From Eastern Europe: Art and Design, Profile no.
35, April 1994, pp. 76–9 and 88–95, respectively. Chapter 11 was originally
published under the title ‘Sociological Imperialism and the Field of Cultural
Production: The Case of Bourdieu’, in Theory, Culture, and Society, vol. II, 1994,
pp. 155–69.
All these papers have been revised for inclusion in the present volume.