Knowing And Being

Everyone knows that "postmodernism" implies pluralism anti-foundationalism, and, 'generally,a post-normative view of the self and teality. While many embrace it, few bother to tell us what is wrong with modernity. What are the problems that brought about its crisis and ultimate demise as a philosophical and cultural movement? What are the lessons for the postmodern movement that can he drawn from them?James Mensch here explains why modernism failed as a viable philosophical enterprise and how postmodernism must be understood if it is to serve as a defensible intellectual project in its stead. VIse heart 0f Mensch's argument is a reversal of the modernist view 0f the unitary subject as a ground of epistemological and ethical normativi tv. He Substitutes for modernism a view, beholden to Aristotle but adapted to fir our present age, that sees subjectivity as temporality in a world where subject and object are interactive. The result is a pluralism 0f forms 0f subjectivity corresponding to the different modes of temporality brought about by the world. In a series 0f analyses on the nature knowing, Mensch shows how we can embrace both the perspectivism of posrmodernism while avoiding the skepticism and relativism that have constantly threatened to undermine its insights.