Habermas vs Lyotard: Modernity vs Postmodernity?

Although today we are surrounded by discussions of a postmodern sensitivity or style, of postmodern social movements, and of a postmodern science, the term ‘postmodernity’ has been used in so many different ways that one can no longer be sure exactly what it means. It can be used to indicate non-conformative aesthetic attitudes (avant-garde movements), a refusal of grand political theories (the critique of totalitarianism), a critique of rationality and representation (Foucault, Derrida and Rorty), or a radical critique of empiricist scientific method (Feyerabend). But it has also been invoked in a more conservative defence of post-industrial societies (Daniel Bell), in defence of a new figuratism in art, or to eulogize the artificial intelligence model for a representation of knowledge. In a way, one longs for a clear-cut (re)definition both of ‘postmodernity’ and also, necessarily, of that ‘modernity’ which it is supposed to have followed or transcended. The problem, of course, is that the idea of the postmodern is itself sometimes used to challenge the possibility of a stable theory of meaning as reference or representation. Nevertheless, a review of the philosophical themes encompassed by these terms is more than ever urgent.