Postmodern Concept of Logos

The Greek term "logos," literally translating into "word" or "speech," has both philosophical and theological implications. In the majority of applications, especially within philosophy, logos refers to the relationship between words and a universal truth or ultimate intelligence.

Greek View of Logos

Morton A. Kaplan, writing for the "International Journal on World Peace," states that the ancient Greeks placed "logos" at the center of all philosophical inquiry. The standard philosophical belief involved the univocal correspondence of a name with its reality, essentially meaning that a word corresponding to a particular object describes the unbreakable identity of that object.

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida, a postmodern French philosopher born in 1930, proposed a different way to consider logos. Cky J. Carrigan, Ph.D., explains that Derrida claimed that the rationality behind and purpose of the written word no longer came from a logos, i.e. a metaphysical connection. This loosened the connection between words and ultimate reality and became common postmodern thought.

Modernism versus Postmodernism

According to Purdue University, a postmodern contemporary of Derrida named Ihab Hassan provided several contrasts between modernist thought and postmodernist thought, including several concerned with logos. The modernist concepts of "mastery and logos" contrast with the postmodern emphasis on "exhaustion and silence." Similarly, modernist notions of "finished work, art object and logos" contrast with the postmodern "process, performance and antithesis."

References

• PBS: Logos
• BNET The CBS Interactive Business Network: "International Journal on World Peace"; Post-Postmodern Science and Religion; Morton A. Kaplan; March 2001
• OnTruth.com: Jacque Derrida, Deconstructionism and Postmodernism; Cky J. Carrigan, Ph.D.; April 1996
• Purdue Online Writing Lab: The Center Cannot Hold
• "The Resources of Rationality: A Response to the Postmodern Challenge"; Calvin O. Schrag; 1992