Postmodernism: Philosophical Aspects

Postmodernism is an unstable concept because of the complex ways in which it overlaps with other concepts such as postmodernity, poststructuralism, and pragmatism. It may be identified by reference to an open-ended list of themes, including a preference for plurality, difference, and identity over unity, universality, and identity. Postmodernism also privileges a nonreferential conception of signs and images as simulacra rather than representations, although no less real in their effects. It also seeks to account for the possibility of criticism and to maintain commitments to freedom and progress, however redefined.