Postmodernism: An Anti-Foundational Philosophy of Western Intellectual Tradition

Abstract

This article attempts to interpret the postmodern philosophy as an anti-essential philosophy of the western intellectual world by incorporating the ideas of postmodern thinkers: Jean Francoise Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jack Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe, etc. Postmodernism appears in a wide variety of disciplines in the contemporary world after World War II. It has dismantled the western intellectual tradition's center seeking tendencies and foundational structure exposing the inherent realities of formulated various discourses of them. The traditional discourses of the intellectual world are reshaped and restructured possessing no universalities in the postmodern era. Similarly, an absolute identity, consciousness, or ego, which is deferred, displaced, fragmented, or marginalized within the structure. Therefore, this article accomplishes the task to analyze how the existing grandnarratives and structure-based philosophical phenomena of the western intellectual circle are subverted using the ethos of poststructuralism and deconstruction, which lie under the postmodern umbrella.