Hegel and the End of the End of Grand Narratives

Gary Browning

doi:10.2298/FID2402243B

Authors

Gary Browning Oxford Brookes University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2402243B

Keywords:

Hegel, Grand Narratives, Lyotard, Postmodernism, dialectic, difference

Abstract

Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1984) announces the end of grand narratives and the advent of postmodernity. The two go together. Moreover, they both involve the renunciation of Hegel and his philosophy. Hegel is condemned as the arch-exponent of grand narratives, framing a speculative theory that effaces difference and creativity in the interests of an overweening closed system. The popularity of postmodernism waned by the end of the twentieth century. Its rejection of grand theory was seen as neither novel nor unproblematic, in that analytic philosophy had long criticised theoretical speculation and the claims of postmodernism to put an end to large-scale theories were increasingly seen as unconvincing as theories of the historical development of globalisation and colonisation proliferated. The end of the end of grand narratives allows us to review how we might consider grand narratives today. The argument here is that they are to be seen as helpful and productive if engaged with in a critical spirit. More particularly, it is argued that Hegel remains a highly relevant theorist for today’s world if his thinking is seen as open-ended rather than being fixed and closed.

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