Postmodernism
A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature,
art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary
criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to
the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to
explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that
reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but
rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own
particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism
is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for
all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses
on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding,
interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through
our interpretations of what the world means to us individually.
Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles,
knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily
be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.Postmodernism is "post" because it is denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody - a characterisitic of the so-called "modern" mind. The paradox of the postmodern position is that, in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning. As the philospher Richard Tarnas states, postmodernism "cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself."
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html
