The Poverty of Postmodernism rejects the current celebration of knowledge andvalue relativism on the grounds that it renders critical reason and commonsense inc... » 

The Poverty of Postmodernism rejects the current celebration of knowledge andvalue relativism on the grounds that it renders critical reason and commonsense incapable of resisting the superficial ideologies of minoritarianism thatleave the hard core of global capitalism unanalyzed. In this book John ONeillexamines the postmodern turn in the social sciences. From a phenomenologicalstandpoint Husserl Merleau Ponty Schutz Winch he challenges Lyotardspostrational reading of Wittgenstein and Habermas in order to defendcommonsense reason and values that are constitutive of the everyday lifeworld.In addition he argues from the standpoint of Vico and Marx on the civil historyof embodied mind that the postrationalist celebration of the arts ofsuperficiality undermines the recognition of the cultural debt each generationowes to past and postgenerations. In a positive way ONeill develops anaccount of the historical vocation of reason and of the charitableaccountability of science to commonsense that is necessary to sustain the basicinstitutions of civic democracy. The Poverty of Postmodernism will be ofinterest to anyone concerned to understand the continuing relevance of MarxWeber Husserl and Schutz to the debates around Wittgenstein Lyotard Foucaultand Jameson. «