The Postmodern

Abstract

“Postmodernism” is an often-used term in a periodical of humanities trend. The phenomenon of the “postmodernism” is now in the focus of philosophical interest, first of all because it expresses some kind of philosophising that is characteristic of modern culture. Postmodernism has a number of parameters (ontological, gnoseological, aesthetic, and historical-cultural). On the basis of the ontological aspect, there is a comprehension of hopelessness on the failure of any reforming programs. In postmodernism, the social world will consist of local fragments and cultural worlds, and this means a plurality of alternatives of development with uncertainty and a multi-variant approach. Thus, two distinctive features of postmodernism are the decomposition of the unity inherent in the modern, and pluralism. If earlier the world attitude was influenced by ideological systems (religion, history, science, Marxism, liberalism, etc. which J.-F. Lyotard calls “metanarratives”), providing its integrity, now there is a transition from unifying monocultures to a cultural variety of cultures of equal value. Owing to this, cultural fragmentation or multiculturalism becomes a characteristic feature of the society of the postmodern.