Description
Book SynopsisThis book was written with a view to sorting our some of the muddles and misreadings - especially misreadings of Kant - that have charaterized recent postmodernist and post-structuralist thought. For these issues have a relevance, as Norris argues, far beyond the academic enclaves of philosophy, literary theory, and cultural criticism. Thus he makes large claims for the importance of getting Kant right on the relation between epistemology, ethics and aesthetics; for pursuing the Kantian question ''What is Enlightenment?'' as raised in Foucault''s late essays; or again, for recalling William Empson''s spirited attempt to reassert the values of reason and truth against the orthodox ''lit crit'' wisdom of his time. These are specialized concerns. But for better or worse it has been largely in the context of ''theory''- that capacious though ill-defined genre- that such issues have received their most scrutiny over the past two decades.
As its title suggests, The Truth About Postmod
Table of Contents
The "End of Ideology" revisited - old themes for new times; "What is Enlightenment?" - Foucault on Kant; for truth in criticism - William Empson and the claims of theory; Kant disfigured - ethics, deconstruction and the textual sublime; getting at truth - genealogy, critique and postmodern scepticism.
