Philosophy

» RLSharp - Sorry :-)

That's the problem, Phil. As Brian says, philosophy is often divided into three periods. Kant, Descartes and others claimed modernism back in their day. All that was left was post-modernism, which broke from that enlightenment style philosophy (through Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment). Existentialism, which is one part of this, is the view that you create truth, but that oversimplifies the position. I guess I should start with an article on that, since I actually AM VERY well versed in existentialism.

The problem is that there is plenty of philosophy that is not modern and yet not really postmodern either. So some philosophers go with ancient, modern, and contemporary (instead of postmodern). This is to distance themselves from writers ranging from Hiedegger to Derrida, all of whom would be considered postmodernists.

Put more simply, postmodernists tend to be contintentalist philosophers in approach (see my article on this distinction..one of the first I posted), but not all present day (or past 2 centuries, even) philosophers are continentalists. Many are analytic. These philosophers would not like being called postmodern, because of the connotations.

Does that make sense?

-- posted by RLSharp