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Explaining Postmodernism (Expanded Edition)

Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault

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Explaining Postmodernism (Expanded Edition)

By: Stephen R. C. Hicks
Narrated by: Scott R. Smith
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Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century.

Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not in the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political left - the same left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism - now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism?

Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.

This expanded edition includes two additional essays by Stephen Hicks: "Free Speech and Postmodernism" and "From Modern to Postmodern Art: Why Art Became Ugly".

©2004 Stephen Hicks (P)2018 Stephen Hicks Philosophy Social Sciences
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Provides the historical background to understand postmodernism, academically grounded but quite accessible. Also explores the contemporary debates taking a clear and critical position. The speaker isn’t as attractive as the author is, but a good performance in any case.

Outstanding review

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Notwendige Lektüre für jeden der seinen Teil dazu beitragen möchte den Untergang von Tugenden wie Wahrheit und Freiheit und damit ein erneutes Massaker wie z.B. in der UDSSR zu verhindern.
Also notwendige Lektüre für jeden wenigstens halbwegs guten Menschen mit etwas Verantwortungsgefühl.

Genial!

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I feel enriched with a new perspective by reading this book. Kudos to the author!

A Fascinating Tour Through Philosophy

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The first three chapter were amazing and seemed revelatory. Philosophical history was suddenly comprehensibly sifted into two elegant streams, Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. And then came chapter 4. The author suddenly changed tone and asserted essentially that capitalism had won some great historical struggle, capitalist nations had become happy and prosperous, and "socialism", without the least differentiation as to time or place, had broken down into despotism, poverty and social collapse and was over. "And thus history came to a ." as the saying goes. He then asserts that "leftists", some sort of undefined yet monolithic and homogeneous group, are nasty and have nothing left to offer but ad hominem attacks and vitriol. Then he tries to switch back to the scholarly voice and ask why this laughably grotesque generalization might be true. Sorry. Suddenly the elegance of the first three chapters became deeply suspect as merely a set-up for an ideological rant. After checking Hick's wikipedia page, I found my feeling confirmed. This book has been accused of outright fabrication through selective and misleading quotations. I had to turn it off and will be diligently trying to replace everything I thought I was learning with some real scholarship. Don't touch this with a ten-foot pole. Props to the narrator, though. He was thoroughly pleasant throughout and tackled some really tough material with great sensitivity.

Ideological rubbish

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Please check out "A Critique of Stephen Hicks' Explaining Postmodernism" on Youtube first. The author is a political hack and doesn't care about truth and objectiveness. Putting this on audible is the equivalent of right wing fake news. I strongly recommend classifying non-fiction books like this with the label "fiction" or "unverified" or whatever. The way how it's sold is highly misleading.

Not useful as an introduction - to say the least

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