In contemporary philosophy, we call ‘postmodern’ those ideas which, from the mid-nineteenth century, were to set about dismantling the humanist creed of modernity, in particular the philosophy of the Enlightenment. In the same way that the latter broke with the grand cosmologies of Antiquity and brought about a new critique of religion, so too postmodernity was to set about demolishing the two strongest convictions of the Moderns from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries: the belief that the human individual is at the centre of the world -which came to form the basis of all moral and political values; and the belief that reason is an irresistible force for emancipation and that, thanks to the progress of ‘Enlightenment’, we are going to become ever freer and happier.
Postmodern philosophy contested both of these ideas. It was to offer both a critique of humanism and a critique of rationalism. And, without any doubt, it is with Nietzsche that postmodernity arrived at its zenith. While there remain many reservations concerning Nietzsche, the radical aspect and the Violence of his assault upon the idols of modernity are equalled only by the genius with which he was able to marshall his forces.