Deconstruction and the 'Unfinished Project of Modernity'

by Norris,Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780415929554
• ISBN10: 0415929555
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781000143454
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-03
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

Deconstruction has been widely and detrimentally misunderstood. In this provocative new book, Christopher Norris challenges the prevalent idea that deconstruction is merely a more specialized offshoot of postmodernism. Through a close engagement with some key thinkers-among them Derrida, Foucault, de Man, Habermas, Lyotard and Levinas--Norris argues that deconstruction is part of the "unfinished project of modernity"--a project whose interests and values deconstruction upholds by continuing to question them in a spirit of enlightened self-critical inquiry. Assessing the impact of postmodernist thought across a range of disciplines, the book presents a lucid analysis and guide to the problems and prospects of critical theory.

Author Biography

Christopher Norris is Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy at the University of Cardiff.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(5)
Deconstruction versus Postmodernism: epistemology, ethics, aesthetics	6	(19)
Postmodern Ethics and the Trouble with Relativism	25	(23)
Deconstruction and the `Unfinished Project of Modernity'	48	(27)
Deconstruction, Postmodernism and Philosophy of Science	75	(28)
`The Idea of the University': some interdisciplinary soundings	103	(16)
Ethics, Autonomy and Self-Invention: debating Foucault	119	(17)
`The Night in which All Cows are Black': Paul de Man, `mere reading' and indifference to philosophy	136	(17)
Conflict, Compromise or Complementarity: ideas of science in modern literary theory	153	(22)
Sexed Equations and Vexed Physicists: the `two cultures' revisited	175	(27)
Notes	202	(21)
Bibliography	223	(13)
Index	236