Reconstructive Postmodernism
Discussion
Gary Hampson:
"Reconstructive Postmodernism What might be understood by reconstructive postmodernism? Griffin (2002), who identifies the term-idea as “a diffuse sentiment…that humanity can and must go beyond the modern” (p. vii), has promoted the term as an advancement on constructive postmodernism. Gare’s (2002) cosmological postmodernism can also be identified as closely related in that it is similarly identified as forming a binary with post-structuralist or deconstructive postmodernism. From a broader angle, all contemporary integrative theorising can be understood as a form of reconstructive postmodernism in that it seeks to go beyond the modern (whilst including appropriate aspects of the modern) in a cohesive manner. From a dialectical perspective, this may even attempt to include deconstructive postmodern elements (Hampson, 2007) where the deconstruction “is not so totalizing as to prevent reconstruction” (Griffin, 2002, p. ix).
Griffin (2002) identifies the modern worldview in relation to “Galilean-Cartesian-Baconian-Newtonian science” (p. vii). The vector of this reconstruction is toward “a new unity of scientific, ethical, aesthetic, and religious intuitions” (p. ix) involving “a creative synthesis of modern and premodern truths and values” (p. x). It does not reject science per se but rather scientism, the overregard for —or overapplication of — science, in relation to other domains or orientations. Cartesian commitment to determinable knowledge (Gill, 2000) and consequential human as machine metaphors are problematised (Gunter, 1993, p. 135). Rather, after Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (Gill, 2000), life involves “acts that are free and unpredictable” (Gunter, 1993, p. 135). Indeed, on Griffin’s (1993) understanding that “we have an individual piece of nature that we know from within as well as without” (p. 203) such “postmodern animism” (p. 201) indicates that the whole of “nature is comprised of creative, experiential events” (p. 202). Reconstructive postmodernism can be understood as a “broad church” encompassing a plethora of approaches. Figures foregrounded in the current narrative include Whitehead (1979), Jung (Jung, Adler, & Hull, 1981), Morin (1977/1992, 2005, 2007, 2008), Bhaskar (2002) and Wilber (1995, 1997). Nietzsche’s ideal of realizing one’s life as art (Tarnas, 1991, p. 370) could also be mentioned here. Given the themes arising in the genealogy, it might also be useful to mention discourse addressing wisdom – see, e.g., Hall (2010)."