LECTURE

‘An Oak Tree’

Michael Craig-Martin

Jacques Derrida

Gilles Deleuze

1. Modernity

II. Crisis (1900-1950)

III. Postmodernity (?)

Modernity 1: Faith in Reason

- The Enlightenment (17th/18th Century)

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity...

“The motto of Enlightenment is Sapere Aude [dare to know]: have courage to make

use of your own understanding”

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) from “Answering The Question: What Is Enlightenment”

(1784)

René Descartes (1596-1650)

Cogito Ergo Sum

“I think, therefore I am”

Modernity II: Power over nature

- Knowledge as power

“The sovereignty of man lieth hid in knowledge” -- Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)

- Industrial Revolution (18th/19th Centuries)

Modernity III: Idea of Progress

Voltaire (1694-1778)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

John Stuart Mill (1806-73)

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) -- theory of evolution and the idea of progress

“progress has been much more general [in human history] than

retrogression; ...man has risen, though by slow and interrupted steps, from a lowly condition to the highest standard as yet

attained by him in knowledge, morals and religion.”

from, The Descent of Man (1871)

1900 (Exposition Universelle, Paris)

Crisis: World War 1

Crisis: Wall St. Crash / Great Depression

Crisis: Rise of Fascism in Europe

Crisis: World War 1I

Postmodernity 1

Adorno & Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment

(1944)

“...we [have] set ourselves nothing less than the discovery of why

mankind, instead of entering into a truly human condition, is sinking into

a new kind of barbarism.”

“...the Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet

the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant.”

Postmodernity 11

“Simplifying to the extreme, I define ‘postmodern’ as

incredulity toward metanarratives [grand récits].”

“I will use the term modern to designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse... making an appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of spirit

[Hegel], the hermeneutics of meaning [Schleiermacher], the emancipation of the

rational subject [Kant] and the working subject [Marx], or the creation of wealth [Adam

Smith].”Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1979)

Postmodernity 111

a. Difference vs. universality“Underneath all reason lies delirium, and drift”

Gilles Deleuze, Desert Islands & Other Texts, 1953-74.

b. Truth, Morality & Power

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”

“...life simply is will to power.”Friedrich Nietzsche, 1880s Notebooks & The Gay Science (1882)

c. Power & Modern Institutions“Is it surprising that prisons resemble

factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?”

Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish (1977)