THE ORDER OF THE SUBJECT: REFLECTIONS ON POSTMODERNISM STARTING FROM SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Abstract

The advent of the postmodernist shift has characterized the last thirty years of geographic debate with a vast theoretical production that has changed the familiar points of reference of the discipline. In particular, postmodernism appeared as a solution to the hegemonic and homogenizing character of the knowledge of the modern tradition. This paper will attempt to demonstrate that the objective of postmodernism has not only not been reached but has been totally contradicted, bringing about by means of will that which modernity had already experienced as rationality. In the first part some typical traits of postmodernism will be highlighted, mostly taken from geographic literature or in any case of interest for geographers, which are assimilable to a subjectivist prospective; the second part will demonstrate that the subjectivism present in postmodernism is not a vague individualism, but rather the transcendent modern subjectivism. Subjectivism, the theoretical key of modernity, shows itself to also be the foundation of postmodernism, a denuncia of the contradiction generated. Given the multiplicity of authors and sources linked to postmodernism it was decided to limit the field of analysis to two papers by young Italian authors, which however cover a wide ranging spectrum of analysis and are significant indicators of the attention being given by the new generations to the relationship between geography and philosophy.