postmodernity and the sociology of knowledge

The main lecture in my class “New Testament Seminar” was entitled “Postmodernity & The Sociology of Knowledge.” I found it very interesting. Here is the extent of the lecture given by The Esteemed Dr. Smith:

During the modern era, knowledge was viewed not as simple access to date but the access to date legitimized by a body of scholars. This is critical to understand, because while any random guy can ramble on and on about something, that does not make what he says “knowledge.” Anybody can come up with words fronted as knowledge, but they might be better-known as “pseudo-knowledge.” Knowledge, then, is critically understood as date validated by a body of scholars.

But people became discontent with this perception of knowledge. “Postmodernity” was a term coined in the 1950s to refer to a growing suspicion of the modern knowledge paradigm and theories. A new division of the evolving nature of knowledge throughout the history of mankind was developed, beginning with Premodernity and culminating now with Postmodernity. In each of these cycles, there is a certain “metanarrative,” or an overarching explanation to determine meaning, truth, and the value of all things.

Premodernity refers to the theory that knowledge comes from the sacred. The sacred in this sense refers to traditions unable to be questioned, usually fronted by sacred texts (i.e. the Bible, Koran, mythologies, etc.). This theory of knowledge is seen in every culture’s roots, and many cultures today still retain this theory of knowledge (i.e. African villages deep in the Congo).

Modernity, sandwiched between Premodernity and Postmodernity, refers to the theory that knowledge comes from the scientific. Premodernity transitioned into Modernity around the 1600s C.E., and in this period a great tension rose between tradition and methodology (the sciences). The “scientific” became the backbone of knowledge: discovery, exploration, questioning long-held assumptions, the scientific method, and looking at “hard, proven facts” became the norm. The “sacred”, held so dearly during the Premodern era, was questioned and often thrown out because many of its claims could not be proven or explained in scientific discourse; thus many claims of the sacred were viewed as fairy-tales, myths, and lies. Scientific discourse became the route for determining truth. Knowledge became information validated by the sociological discourse of the scientific method.

Postmodernity refers to a plurality of metanarratives. People are gradually becoming more and more suspicious of the modern approaches to truth and knowledge, and they are questioning the rejection of anything not provable by the scientific method. Eventually they ditch the metanarratives of scientific method’s overarching authority. “Science is good,” people say, “but it isn’t enough. Science should not dominate, because it cannot answer our questions about meaning, life, and values.” As this happens, people begin implementing their own metanarratives to try and reach truth, each person saying that their way is the way. These discourses begin competing, and now we have a big mess of a plurality of discourses. People begin embracing multiple metanarratives for themselves (some big metanarratives include intuition, feelings, experiences, and “I believe what I want to believe”; thus arguing people into certain beliefs using apologetics doesn’t really work anymore). Truth for one person might be different for another person because they are basing their perceptions off different metanarratives; thus truth becomes indefinable and unknowable.