Situating Postmodernism in cognitive developmental perspective

Abstract

Postmodernism’s critique of normative systems is insightful but also subject to reflexive self_negation and consequent political impotence. This essay attempts to both honor and rescue postmodernism by situating it as the part of a dialectical structure – Habermas’s “reconstructive science” – including both construction and deconstruction. Kohlberg’s sequence of moral reasoning stages is used to organize these various theoretical positions. Key words: Postmodernism; moral cognitive development; reconstructive science.