“Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century.
- Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world?
- Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences?
- Why has a significant portion of the political Left – the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism – now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism?
Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.”