Postmodernism vs. Relativism vs. Nihilism: Philosophy Forums

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Postmodernism vs. Relativism vs. Nihilism
What is the difference?

Postmodernism vs. Relativism vs. Nihilism

TheArchitect
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Posted 05/03/08 - 09:59 PM: Subject: Postmodernism vs. Relativism vs. Nihilism	#1
What are the similarities/differences between postmodernism, relativism, and nihilism? Thanks.

Absolutely Relative
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Posted 05/04/08 - 05:41 PM:	#2
Relativism is the belief that morality is relative to your situation, be it your culture, your surroundings, your understanding of life. A relativist believes that judging the actions of others is impossible without moral context. Nihilism gives us the post above, a belief that life is morally zero. There is no outside morality to judge our actions, all is fair game.
It is what it is.

Nihilistic Locomotive
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Posted 05/04/08 - 11:07 PM:	#3
Actually, just came from the bookstore where I browsed a very cool graphic introduction to Critical Theory. Seems to have dealt with in a very accessible explanatory manner the subjects of the OP, especially the movements of what we call postmodernity. Shows a sort of flow chart or map of the relations of these kinds of wild methods of interpretation and the people who brought them into being. Wild, wild stuff to say the least. Wish I could be helpful.
Be outrageous but don't be an ass.

quickly
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Posted 05/06/08 - 04:36 AM:	#4
Postmodernism is a rejection of the theory that any model or linguistic construct adequately describes the Real, if the Real is construed as the totality of everything, the playing-out of history, the moral universe, the whole of experience, the unity of the subject, etc. Essentially, postmodernism as a loose set of dogmas which reject the ability of the subject to know, in any encompassing way, a system which would identify and encompass inside a theory, the world. This, by way of rejecting a belief in objective knowledge (which doesn't mean the practice of science), would include grand narratives of history, science, and philosophy, including everything from Marxist economics to mathematics to the Enlightenment "myth" that all reality is, and at some point will be, knowable/known. It construes these as models, of varying degrees of predictive power, and of varying degrees of stability and tenability, which overlay and describe reality relative to their constitution by the socio-historically located subject. In addition, it is attached to a whole tradition of critical social theory. This includes the belief that the subject is constituted "outside of itself," or doesn't have the coherency of "man" as its baseline for operations. The individual is an effect of advertising, society, culture, language, biology, and psychology, all of which distort, shape, and construct, their ability to perceive in an objective way - that is, all reality is to an extent subjective. No one gets a free pass to Truth because the truth of Truth is an effect of history and culture. Note that this doesn't preclude the ability of the subject to know something - for example that multiple sclerosis is partially caused by the degredation of myelin sheaths around the axons - but that it precludes the ability of the subject to know themselves and the world around them without applying models and languages to reality, that is, all reality is semiotic or symbolic. All words signify and mean in relationship to the subject's situation within larger situations, and on to infinity. I can't comment as well on relativism or nihilism. Suffice to say, some thinkers associated with postmodernism have developed "absolutist" moral theories, merely those outside of traditional ethical discourse, such as Levinas.
"Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

at
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Posted 05/14/08 - 07:54 PM:	#5
I wonder what post-postmodernism will look like?!!

Rakitin
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Posted 05/16/08 - 03:28 PM:	#6
Nihilistic Locomotive wrote: Actually, just came from the bookstore ... What was this book? Sounds good...

ManiacJack
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Posted 05/29/08 - 08:01 PM:	#7
I can't really say too much about the older ones but I'm sure they are all quite different. Post-Modernism is something pretty much unexplainable. It likes to point to our limits to current foundations- such as the objectivity-subjectivity discourse. It promotes lattice understanding as opposed to linear thought. It likes sociology.
Future Tense Passed Relief the Escapist wrote: Bullshit, self-deception, self-aggrandizement. Explains everything, really...

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