Explicitly, these philosophical movements try "to free up meaning". Implicitly, they're attacking the forces that dispute power, leaving the status quo all-powerful. For instance, without science, what's the force to counter religious pressure on society?

This answer greatly disregards the explicit and proud facetiousness postmodernists not just defended, but flaunted. It’s not straw-manning when postmodernists themselves agree with the criticism, such as being radical, overblown, absurd, irreverent, antirational, and even occult. They viewed these things as features. This answer borders on revisionism.

@JustSomeOldMan: I think you're conflating all this with DaDa. Regardless, it would be useful to know what specifically you're referring to, if only to separate it from serious philosophical efforts.

Your flag is well taken, Ted. Here's a more polite version: C'mon, Ted, gimme a break. Is what you are saying that, for instance, Lyotard's The PostModern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Foucault's Language Counter-memory, Parctice, and Derridean deconstruction are so limited as to address only aesthetic concerns? Yawn. Period.

So, again, do the referenced books limit themselves to the analysis and criticizing of representational, figurative, "realistic", works of art (ie painting, sculpture, poetry, prose, music, etc.)?

@gonzo: No, I'm saying that (with the possible exception of Lyotard's piece, which is serious reading), few people engaged with the field (and certainly not Derrida or Foucault, if they were alive) would cast these works as part of some 'postmodernist' school. I kind of suspect these three would bristle at being equated to each other. There is a clear and well-defined postmodernist school in the philosophy of art, so maybe we can tuck Derrida in there with respect to his work in language and literature. But it's a reach...

@gonzo: as I said, 'postmodernism' is a catch-all term adopted by non-philosophers (and usually by those with a bad attitude about philosophy) to refer to a wide range of materials that have little in common with each other except that non-philosophers find them wordy, abstruse, inaccessible, and (I imagine) consequently annoying.

@gonzo: P.s. I make it a practice to wait five or more minutes before responding, in case the other person wants to edit or expand. It saves on cross-talk. I suggest you do the same.

You are evading my query. Do you believe that what Foucault and Derrida were up to was revisionist aesthetics? No. What they were up to, if we are to use this domain for characterization, is (broadly brushed) reducing all epistemology and epistemic considerations to aesthetics/sociology (ie emotivism). And folk like Rorty wed poststructuralism/postmodernism and postpositivism, disregarding D. Davidson's caveat that "truth," while primitive and undefinable, need be contended with as the proper goal of inquiry bc not likely to lead us astray by charismatic rhetoricians.

@gonzo: I suspect Derrida was aware of work in the philosophy of aesthetics — Foucault not as much— but again, I'm simply stating that the term 'postmodernism' doesn't have much relevance outside of aesthetics. Aside from Lyotard's eponymous work, of course, which — while seminal — isn't considered defining; more of a commentary, really... I honestly can't figure out what point you're trying to make. Do you have one?

@gonzo: So... You agree with me? Or you disagree? Or you neither agree nor disagree? I've never personally had a problem with hubris — I'd look a god straight in the eye if I ever met one — and I'm rarely haphazard about what I choose to throw under the bus. And to be perfectly frank, I see no value in clinging to the sins of society out of some misguided fear that losing its sins will cost us its virtues. Any virtue built on and perpetuated by sin isn't worth spit.

@gonzo: You've forgotten the other possibility: that you yourself might be mistaken. We could probably work through the issue — to discover whether you or I have the stronger argument — except that from your very first comment you have committed yourself to using ad hominem argumentation. You've reduced what could have been a civil, informative debate about philosophical categories to an exercise in mud-slinging, for reasons internal to you that I can only guess at. You might want to reflect on that.

@gonzo: My patience has officially run out. In scholarly reasoning we discuss the argument, not the people making the argument; learn to differentiate. I'm flagging your previous comments as ad hominem reasoning, and I will flag every comment you make from now on that mentions me as a person in any way, without comment or response. If you will not listen to reason, perhaps you'll listen to moderation; we'll see.

Gotcha @Ted Wrigley. Adios amigo.