This essay argues a case for viewing Derrida's work in the context of recent French epistemology and philosophy of science; more specifically, the critical‐rationalist approach exemplified by thinkers such as Bachelard and Canguilhem. I trace this line of descent principally through Derrida's essay ‘White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy’. My conclusions are (1) that we get Derrida wrong if we read him as a fargone antirealist for whom there is nothing ‘outside the text'; (2) that he provides some (...) powerful counter‐arguments to this and other items of current postmodern wisdom; (3) that deconstruction is more aptly viewed as continuing the epistemo‐critical approach developed by thinkers like Bachelard; and (4) that it also holds important lessons for philosophy of science in the mainstream Anglo‐ American ‘analytic’ tradition. (shrink)

Postmodernism has been criticized as failing to offer, on the one hand, authoritative explanations for social phenomena that might provide a scientific basis for policy formation or, on the other, the philosophical justification for emancipatory work – its radical scepticism about claims to knowledge leaving its advocates, including many nurses, with little scope to transform oppressive social and political regimes. Various approaches to this important problem have been offered, both philosophical and mediodological. Some critical theorists have rejected certain aspects of (...) postmodernism as dangerous and distracting. Some more accommodating solutions are troubled by unacknowledged inconsistencies. Others embrace post‐modernism's unavoidable ambiguity (towards the Enlightenment for instance) with a lighter heart. In this paper I will review some of the criticism of postmodernism and some proposed solutions to these problems. Using recent research into the impact of managerialism on nursing within the UK National Health Service as an example and drawing on deconstructive literary theory, I conclude by accepting a rhetorical agonistics of undecidability. I take postmodernism as a mandate for causing trouble for those groups who are currently having their say and whose version of truth and rationality has achieved domination over others. I do not take postmodernism as a place from which to champion the cause or privilege the view of any particular group. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing project of developing a specifically critical realist approach to discourse analysis. This is important not just because critical realist researchers n...

Through the critical examination of Baudrillard's concept of hyperreality, this article seeks to make a wider contribution to contempor ary debates about postmodernism. It draws on a post-Cartesian, Heideg gerian philosophy to demonstrate the weakness of the concept of hyperreality and reveal its foundation in a Cartesian epistemology. The article goes on to claim that this same Heideggerian tradition suggests a way in which the concept of hyperreality and nihilistic postmodern sociologies more generally might be dialectically superseded. Instead of these (...) theories being seen as saying anything insightful about recent social transformations, the epistemological void in which they position themselves should be inter preted as the intellectual expression of the wider cultural and postmodern trend of transgression. Key Words: Baudrillard • Cartesianism • Heidegger • hyperreality • postmodernism. (shrink)

This essay argues that Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, Jürgen Habermas's communication theory, and Jacques Derrida's deconstruction all fit together within one philosophical paradigm: metamodernism. Metamodernism, as defined, is opposed to both modernism and radical forms of postmodernism. Within metamodernism, a political conundrum provides the key clue for understanding the relations among Gadamer, Habermas, and Derrida as well as for elaborating the contours of the paradigm. Specifically, the political implications of the three philosophies are intransitive: they seem to shift around rather (...) than being in fixed relations to each other. So, for instance, Gadamer sometimes seems to the political right of both Habermas and Derrida, but then, at different times, he stands between them, and then again, at other times, he seems to be to the left of both. This political paradox suggests that the traditional political categories of liberalism and conservatism do not suitably reflect the critical positions within metamodernism. Gadamer, Habermas, and Derrida are far more concerned with explaining the possibility and techniques of interpretive and social critique, while remaining true to the metamodernist paradigm, rather than fitting themselves into the traditional liberal or conservative political camps. (shrink)

In this essay we contend that traditional theories of argument are consonant with and enrich the project of postmodernity. Reading postmodernity as ‘a rhetoric’ underscores how the process of discursively resolving conflicts is occasionally threatened by politically motivated efforts to misuse the methods of argument; it alerts us to the egregious acts that are and can be performed ‘in the name of,’ but not because of, rationality. Postmodernity is thus an attempt by a new generation of theorists to recast and (...) draw attention to perennial philosophical problems in the context of contemporary political difficulties. (shrink)

This article addresses the underestimation of Medieval philosophy in the contemporary curriculum by engaging its very origins in the ‘postmodern’ dislocation of philosophy. The leading question is what would be the prospects in the 21st century of reorienting Western philosophy from its idea-historical sources, which would include its ancient traditions and the Medieval exposition, as well as the Renaissance elucidation thereof. Critically engaging the works of numerous ‘postmodern’ philosophers as well as critics of the ‘postmodern’ departure from traditional philosophy, this (...) article argues for the re-establishment of the late Medieval notion of sensus communis, both as common sense and community sense. Against this backdrop, the article reappraises Medieval thought within the context of sensus communis to combat the contemporary dislocation of philosophy, by raising the possibility of the presentation of first-order judgments via sensus communis in a new pursuit for wijsbegeerte. (shrink)