He believed that there are certain self-evident principles that may provide a foundation for other types of knowledge. Descartes was rationalist he believed in reason, and he thought that human reason can grasp truths independent of time and place. However, let us not focus too much on Descartes and the etymology of the term postmodern. As I now turn to some characteristics of the postmodern, you will be able to see how it differs from Descartes, and not merely go into postmodernism as a historical phenomenon, but understand it qua philosophy. Relativism Postmodernism is associated with relativism.
Relativism is the idea that anything goes.
It is the position where one has left the belief in absolute truth, and instead embraced the idea that knowledge is dependent on one s perspective. For some reason, many people just accepted this, and thought that we are left with a contingent immanent reality. There are no eternal fix-points in life that s what many postmodern followers of Nietzsche believe. A narrative is a history a story. In his book from 1979, Lyotard emphasized that in postmodernism one has left the idea of a grand narrative.