Abstract

This article is a review of Deep Postmodernism by Jerry H. Gill. In this book Gill juxtaposes and compares the philosophies of Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Polanyi, and Austin—philosophies that on the surface are very different but, examined closely, are remarkably complementary and convergent in respect of their challenging and revising key assumptions of modern thought relating to topics of reality, linguistic meaning, embodiment, and knowing. Their critiques resonate with several of the critiques of well-known postmodern thinkers but go deeper by reconstructing the key assumptions in question. I compare Gill’s conception of deep postmodern philosophy with Polanyi’s conception of post-critical philosophy. Gill’s book is significant in setting out in one place the beachhead that these five thinkers have established in overcoming the philosophically sterile dead-ends that modernist and postmodernist thought have bequeathed us.