Metamodern Meaning 90. Modern vs. Postmodern (vs. Metamodern) Philosophy w/ Stephen Hicks
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Jun 26, 2026 Stephen Hicks, philosopher and author of Explaining Postmodernism, returns as a critic of postmodern thought. He contrasts Enlightenment-derived modernism with postmodern skepticism. The conversation hits epistemic pluralism, power-knowledge dynamics, and whether modernity can self-correct amid environmental and cultural crises.
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Modernism Centers Reason Over Tradition
- Modernism rejects supernatural starting points and centers naturalistic metaphysics with reason as the route to knowledge.
- Stephen Hicks highlights Bacon, Galileo, Descartes and Locke as founders who prioritized empirical and rational inquiry over tradition.
Postmodernism As Fundamental Skepticism
- Postmodernism is primarily skeptical about objective knowledge, seeing narratives as stories rather than truth claims.
- Hicks emphasizes Leotard and Foucault framing knowledge as narrative or power-driven rather than objective fact.
Critique Versus Self Correction
- Many postmodern criticisms target faulty modern subtheories but treat criticism as terminal rather than corrective.
- Hicks argues modernism already embraces self-correction, whereas postmoderns often declare the whole project failed.