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Question I know many philosophical positions today are often similar to Greek philosophical positions. Is there any Ancient Greek Philosophy that seems to correspond or relate to postmodernism?

Accepted:
March 16, 2006

Comments

This is an interesting question which could arguably yield a booklength study, or even a series of them. I should caution you at the outset, however, that in a sense there is no such thing as "postmodernism." The term largely stems from usages in architecture and from Jean-François Lyotard's 1979 book, The Postmodern Condition. But there's not really a "postmodern" philosophical movement or a definable "ism" in the way that there's a Marxism or a Platonism. Neither Derrida nor Foucault called themselves postmodernists, and you might be surprised to learn that the term is largely used in Anglo-American circles; the French hardly use it at all. Postmodernism is rather a family of texts, thinkers, and techniques that have been gathered together for various purposes. Post-structuralism you might coonsider as a more precise term.

Having said that, one can't really find an ancient school that "corresponds" to post-modernism. Different interepreters, however, will point to different moments in either content or processes in ancient philosophy that have a more or less "postmodern" ring. For myself, I might point to the sort of permanent critique and refusal of various criteria of truth and goodness, various philosophical principles or archai, one finds in the skeptics. But, perhaps paradoxically, I think certain Platonic critical moments regarding the obstacles to determining truth and of reading texts in the Phaedrus, the Republic, the Ion, the Symposium, the Theatetus and elsewhere have postmodern traits. Among them, I'd point out the constant play of images, the clashing of views, the at least apparent self-subverting nature of the texts. Heraclitus's fragmented, conflicted, puzzling, aphoristic remarks in some ways anticipate Nietzsche (or rather, Nietzsche followed upon them). Then, of course, the Sophists analyses of truth and power, say in Thrasymachus, anticipate Foucault. Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism is a good place to start concerning the skeptics.

Question I know many philosophical positions today are often similar to Greek philosophical positions. Is there any Ancient Greek Philosophy that seems to correspond or relate to postmodernism? Accepted:March 16, 2006

Question I know many philosophical positions today are often similar to Greek philosophical positions. Is there any Ancient Greek Philosophy that seems to correspond or relate to postmodernism?

Accepted:
March 16, 2006