Lecture 6 Post-modernism Flashcards
Positivist theories
Realism, Liberalism
Post-positivist
Marxism, Critical theory, Constructivism
Post-modernism timeframe
1980s
Post-modernism origins
Social theory that originated among post-war French philosophers - Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard.
Linked to other post-positivist theories
P.M. is critical
Believes in arbitrary nature of modernity.
Conceptual prison is of modernity itself and the whole idea that modernisation leads to progress
Condemns mainstream theories for being uncritical and its narrow thinking
Denies historical progress
Key thinker
Ashley 1986
Assumption 1 Objective truth
No objective truth, denies that there could be knowledge of human world.
Assumption 2 Mainstream theories
Lib and Real are thinking too narrowly.
R are wrong to focus only on major powers and miss the ideas of norms and ideas
contemporary positivists blamed for believing in science (Waltz), liberalists for believing in enlightenment (Kant)
Assumption 3 Deconstruction
P.M. wants to deconstruct existing theories without providing alternatives
DE constructivist who speak of other theories as narratives
Every theory decides for itself what counts as facts
Don’t believe in empirical theory
Assumption 4 Nihilism
Can deteriorate into nihilism - criticism for the sake of criticism
Can be estranged from pol and soc world
Assumption 5 Political reality
Pol reality determined by how we consider and define concepts
How we percieve each other and concepts
Assumption 6 Values
Pol values are mental constructs that are determined by culture, history, identity
Assumption 7 Actors
Missing, they are reduced to objects, they are divided into different groups
Assumption 8 States
Not rational as not unitary, they are abstractions
Assumption 9 National interest
No such thing as national interest - if states are abstractions they can’t set national interest, they are flexible
