Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series IVA. Eastern and Central Europe, Volume 40 General Editor George F. McLean God and Post-Modern Thought: Philosophical Issues in the Contemporary Critique of Modernity Polish Philosophical Studies, IX by Józef Życiński Translated by Kenneth W. Kemp and Zuzanna Maślanka Kieroń The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2010 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Życiński, Józef [Bóg postmodernistów. English] God and post-modern thought : philosophical issues in the contemporary critique of modernity / by Józef Życiński; translated by Kenneth W. Kemp and Zuzanna Maślanka Kieroń. p. cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IVA. Eastern and central Europe ; v. 40) (Polish philosophical studies ; IX) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Christianity--Philosophy. 2. Postmodernism--Religious aspects-- Christianity. 3. God (Christianity) I. Title. BR100.Z9313 2010 2010038354 230.01--dc22 CIP ISBN 978-1-56518-267-7 (pbk.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations v Preface vii Introduction: In Search of Traces of the Invisible 1 I. The Main Trends of Postmodernism 7 The Names of Postmodernity The Fourth Man of Postmodernity The Multiplicity of Postmodernisms Constructive Postmodernism Perennial Philosophy in the Light of Postmodernism II. The Death of God or the Return of Polytheism? 23 Between the Dance and the Death of God Overcoming Despair Dancing Dionysius Christ and Dionysius Mystical Lightness of Spirit The Logic of Divine Paradoxes Inculturation into Postmodernity III. Anthropological Premises of the Dionysian Denial of God 35 Thinking Otherwise A Nomad in a Concentration-Camp Universe The Anthropology of the Nomads A Call from the Depths of Pain IV. Philosophizing after the Death of the Subject 51 Liberated from Subjectivity Human Life as a Form of Literature Properties without Man The End of Grand Narratives? Fetishes in Place of the Person The Ecology of Human Culture The Humanistic Dialogue with Culture The Humanism of the Gospel V. Dialogue between Systems as an Illusion of the Contemporary World? 67 The Defense of Relativism A Rainbow in Place of Logic? A Monologue in Place of Truth? iv Table of Contents The Imperialism of Epistemology? The Incommensurability of Systems and the Relativity of Values Monologue, Dialogue, Ethos The Symphony of Dialogue VI. The Postmodernist Conception of Truth 81 Philosophizing after the Death of Truth? Rorty’s Neo-pragmatism Homo pragmaticus? The Lightness of Being in Epistemology Pragmatic Totalitarianism The Borders of Creativity VII. The Quarrel over the Legacy of the Enlightenment: Achievement or Illusion? 97 Between the Enlightenment and Auschwitz At the Sources of the Antinomies The Critique of Enlightenment Reason Nihilism after Totalitarianisms The Axiology of Democracy Freedom or Truth? Postmodernism and Democracy VIII. The Kenosis of Meaning 111 The Cultural Face of Kenosis The Archaeology of Nonsense Rejecting Logos? The Semantics of a Linguistic Fog At the Limits of Meaning The Unbearable Lightness of Postmodernism Witnesses of Meaning IX. The Cultural Kenosis of God 129 In Search of a Heavenly Heteropolis Purity of Heart in Postmodernity The Semantic Death of Nietzsche The Return of the Sacrum The Upper Room or the Tower of Babel? X. Conclusion: A Symphony of Truth 147 Index of Persons 155 ABBREVIATIONS FeR John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (1999) ORT Richard Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) PG Graham Ward, ed., The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997) CIS Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) TeP Pierre Gisel and Patrick Evrard, eds., La Théologie en Postmodernité (Geneva: Labor et fides, 1996) VPT David Ray Griffin, William A. Beardslee, and Joe Holland, Varieties of Postmodern Theology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Professor George F. McLean for his many useful suggestions on clarity and style. We would also like to thank Mr. Timothy W. DeCelle for proof-reading the manuscript. PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION At the initial stage of its development, postmodernism was a reaction to an uncritical fascination with the ideas of Enlightenment and to the Nietzschean announcement of the death of God. Its claims seemed to be justified in an age when the faith that progress would accompany rational reflection had broken down in the barracks of Auschwitz and exceptionally profound cultural transformations led to the dominance of the principle: “Let us live as if God did not exist.” Those ideas pervaded the works expressive of the earliest form of postmodernism; they underwent, however, deep changes as a result of general cultural developments, as well as of controversies within an outlook marked by the disillusionment and doubt typical of postmodernism. The views of the late Richard Rorty (†2007) may be taken as characteristic expression of the transformations of the age. During the period of his fascination with pragmatism he considered atheism as a manifestation of the mature philosophical attitude. Under the influence of the variety of postmodernism developed by Gianni Vattimo, Rorty moderated his position, claiming that “atheism (objective evidence for the non-existence of God) is just as untenable as theism.”1 In an intellectual climate where relativism and nihilism were offered as an alternative to what religions had earlier proposed, new ideas began to grow: the ideas that strove to safeguard the basic principles of humanism and to find a hope, any kind of hope, that could act as a shield against despair. The ideas of postmodernism, however, are not developing in purely intellectual spaces; in this case, the interactions with the pragmatics of consumption prove particularly important. The society of the spectacle and the supermarket absorbs everything that can be offered as a commodity: ideas, values, programs and principles. The counterculture born of rebellion has been replaced by a mercantile pseudo-spirituality. A relatively mature form of such eclecticism is the attitude that Czesław Miłosz designated as that of “homeless religious minds.” The cultural determinants of such an attitude can be found in the phenomenon of “postmodern consumption” and in a practice characteristic of it, sarcastically dubbed McDonaldization of spirituality. It is based on the principle: “We are what we eat, what we build, what we buy.” In its generalized form, it announces: “I shop, therefore I am.” The classical 1 Richard Rorty, Gianni Vattimo, The Future of Religion (New York: Columbia University Press), 33. viii Preface principles of metaphysics are thus supplanted with marketing slogans and advertising jingles. A Christian reflection on such changes in culture, and especially on the phenomenon of creating a world of artificial absolutes, is presented in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Benedict XVI Caritas in veritate. There, an attitude where an instrumental approach to human beings goes hand in hand with indifference towards God is recognized as a threat to humane culture. The death of man is a consequence of the cultural death of God. This may in turn lead to the absolutization of relative values and the loss of the ethical dimension which shows the superiority of moral goodness over effective evil.2 Those who sympathize with postmodernism compare the debates it inspires not so much to the banquet (symposium) of Plato as to “a buffet supper in a British pub, where food, drink, and uninhibited conversation can circulate between a long oak bar top and a spitting log-fire.”3 Alongside that developing debate, however, in the very circles under the cultural influence of postmodernism, one can observe the growth of interest in issues central to the Christian intellectual tradition has been growing step by step. This is manifested, for example, in the controversies over the question of relativism4 and in the criticism of the classical understanding of rationality,5 as well as in works directly addressing the presence of God6 and the role of Christ in postmodern culture.7 Participants in the debate now include not only the classic postmodernist authors, but also Jean-Luc Marion, John D. Caputo, and Daniel Boyarin. Their polemics have become so representative of contemporary thought that Christian authors are sometimes accused of insufficient interest in the output of Michel Foucault, especially in the consequences of his perturbing claim: “The truth will enslave us.”8 2 Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, ¶9. 3 Graham Ward, “Introduction: ‘Where We Stand’” in: The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology, ed. G. Ward (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), xxv. 4 René Girard and Gianni Vattimo, Christianity, Truth, and Weakening Faith: A Dialoguе, trans. William McCuaig (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010). 5 Józef Życiński, “The Rationality of Logos instead of the Dictatorship of Relativism,” Acta Philosophica. Intervista Internazionale di Filosofia, 18 (2009): 1: 43-55. 6 Gianni Vattimo and Carmelo Dotolo, Dio: la possibilità buona, (Soveria Manelli: Rubbettino, 2009). 7 Frederiek Depoortere, Christ in Postmodern Philosophy: Gianni Vattimo, René Girard and Slavoj Žižek, (London: T&T Clark, 2008). 8 Cezary Kościelniak, Nowe krytyki Kościoła, (Cracow: Aureus,