Fukuyama on post-mod/critical theory/post-struct

Question 1

Where liberalism accepts we can’t agree on the purpose of life/’the good’, but PM has moved us even further from moral-, to epistemic or cognitive-R____

Answer 1

Relativism. Even factual observation is regarded as subjective

Question 2

Root of critique of modern natural science. Which 19th century linguist identified the binary relations of words as ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’, rather than indicators of objective reality beyond speakers consciousness.

Answer 2

Ferdinand de Saussure. Act of speaking shapes way external world is perceived. System of signifier and signified reflects consciousness of those using language and therefore differ cross-culturally.

Question 3

Barthes, Lacan, Derida (deconstructionism) etc took on Saussure’s ideas to create the idea of radical …

Answer 3

The notion of radical subjectivity. External world we perceive is created by the words we use in talking about it.

Question 4

Deconstructionist methods focus on how writers unconsciously reflect the social structures in which they’re embedded. So we read to understand not meaning, but rather how the author

Answer 4

… betrays own intentions or reflects the power relations of the time

Question 5

Deconstructionism therefore provided the basis to argue that all langauge was

Answer 5

subjective

Question 6

Deconstructionism provides an intellectual foundation for attacking …

Answer 6

…the western canon

Question 7

Nietsche took this up and argued there are no facts, only …

Answer 7

interpretations

Question 8

Foucault took this PS thinking on and systematised this thinking, arguing that the language of modern natural science was used to mask the exercise of power

Answer 8

… the exercise of power (e.g. prison, mental health, sexual practices) - represented broader power structures which wanted to subordinate and control different classes of people

Question 9

People are unconsciously manipulated (via encoding of power interests) into affirming dominance of certain

Answer 9

ideas and groups

Question 10

Foucault’s critique was taken up by critical theory movements to attack

Answer 10

race, sex,gendered power structures in the 1980s onward American academy. E.g. Said’s Orientalism

Question 11

What is postcolonialism’s critique of objective knowledge?

Answer 11

That objective knowledge cannot exist unconditioned by the identity of the knowledge producer