What is a Metanarrative? (Postmodern Philosophy)

A video explaining the concept of a metanarrative as it applies to postmodern philosophy, including how metanarratives were understood by Jean-Francois Lyotard.

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Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Collier-MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, and more! (#Postmodernism #Metanarrative)

[kingshelomah]

Funnily enough I was just wondering what metanarratives were, so this came out at the perfect time.

[cliffordhodge]

As rafilosofo pointed out in earlier comment, it would certainly seem that the metanarrative idea is itself a proposed metanarrative. I don't know anything about Lyotard or postmodernism, but this would seem to pretty well parallel the idea that we operate with a hierarchy of theories. For example, we have narrow, explicit theories (a scientific theory of Covid, e.g.); and we have broad tacit theories (I am not just a brain in a vat). I guess I don't see how the assumption of metanarrative advances what I will call the "theory of theories" approach.

[glamourdanegrajo]

Thank you for this vid. What a great help for my report!🥳

[Pfhorrest]

According to the annotation on a recent issue of Existential Comics (#392, A Postmodern Villain), 'postmodern theorists thought "postmodernism" was bad. They weren't advocating for it!' and Lyotard in particular (who is the titular "Postmodern Villain" in that comic) 'saw a broad movement in the culture where the majority of the intellectuals and the population at large no longer believed in "grand metanarratives".' This seems to conflict with the presentation here that seems to say that postmodernists like Lyotard were *advocating* for an incredulity to metanarratives, rather than just noting that there in fact does (or did at their time) exist in society such an incredulity already.

[rafilosofo]

And why we couldn't call the postmodernism a metanarrative? (yes, this would be the opposite of what they say, but call in that way as critics)
Since Lyotard write about it, we can think that this view is a worldview to understand the experience of theories and narratives.

[KahaniSonu]

Thank your explaining metanarrative in such simple words.
I used to believe the metanarrative that I can't understand videos by English speakers and would watch videos by our native speakers😎

[rafilosofo]

It seems weird to me that definition. I had a different notion that the metanarrative is "meta" because is a narrative about narratives. In this way of thinking i would see this way of understanding particular experiences as a narrative and the view about narratives as the metanarrative. So the classical macanics would not be a metanarrative, but the metanarrative would be the broader modern thinking that this science is a part. I think I associate this maybe with the Foucault's concept of episteme.

This make any sense? 🤣
Or I'm talking bullshit? I did not read Lyotard hahaha

[Pfhorrest]

To think that no metanarrative is better or worse than any other metanarrative is simply to give up on even trying to improve one's worldview. It's a relativism that gives free reign to all dogmatism, and a dogmatism that cloaks itself in the armor of relativism. It's a way for someone to say "you can't criticize me! there's no such thing as right or wrong! so I get to call myself right and you wrong and you don't get to question that!" That's importantly different from the much more sensible "of course I think that I'm right and that if you disagree you're wrong -- I wouldn't think something I thought was wrong -- but I'm open to the possibility that I might be missing something, if you can show me what it is, and I don't expect you to change your mind until I show you what I think you're missing". Liberty of thought, agreeing to disagree until reason is shown to prefer one view over another, is not the same thing as dogmatic immunity to all questioning.

[cliffordhodge]

Assuming that the metanarrative idea is itself a metanarrative, one might - tongue in cheek - characterize Lyotard's position thusly: "Keeping in mind that I may be wrong, I just wish to take this opportunity to point out that the previously prevailing hierarchy of theories, in which we always allow for the probability that any theory may be wrong, may itself be wrong."

[leonx.]

Could you do a video about YOU, what you believe, your ethics, ur kind of atheism, a video about you ? . I'm sure all of us would enjoy it so much . i really do appreciate ur works bro Peace

[Dayglodaydreams]

I know Nelson Goodman isn't a post-modernist. This does sound like his constructivism in Ways of Worldmaking. My understanding is he thinks some ways of worldmaking (means of understanding) are more exact than other ways of worldmaking (how Einstein's physics are more exact and detailed than those of Newton).

[TMANandMAISON]

Great explanation and a great video! Libertarianism mentioned also adds some points (imo)

[bobvanluijt]

Quick question: Is it ever proven if metanarratives are finite or infinite? I would think that a narrative can't be objectively right _only_ if there are an infinite amount of metanarratives because with a finite amount you should be able to keep distilling metanarratives inside metanarratives until you reach the "root-metanarratives" whereas an infinite amount of metanarratives you would find another metanarrative until infinity.

Or, could something be said about a metanarrative being objectively false if the metanarratives used are recursive? Maybe it could be proven that petitio principii metanarratives can be called objectively false?

Great video, many thoughts, looking forward to the rest of this series.

PS:
I assume that N, M, and P are finite, and therefore the number of sentences that we could use to construct a metanarrative.

[fellington]

I only agree with postmodernism in the study of history. Since the metanarratives there are changing constantly (obviously due to the fragmentary nature of history)

[narimen]

Can you please give me a paragraph of 5 lines about metanarrative by Jean-François Lyotard

[Josh-dxjw]

Seems to me that postmodern thinking is a big metanarrative in itself. A way of contextualising the whole world by saying it can't necessarily be contextualised. Is this wrong?

[Silent-Speaker]

How about a postmodernist meta-narrative?

[Overonator]

Doesn't postmodernism have metanarratives of their own?

[JohnVKaravitis]

Postmodernism: All viewpoints are valid.

[camargorafael]

I loved the way you saying everything it's just a metamarrive we invent to explain why we we work I. 3 jobs sleep 4 hours per night and we can't make enough for the month, it's all metanarrative. Lol