Neomodernism

Neomodernism is a term that has at times been used to describe a philosophical position based on modernism but addressing the critique of modernism by postmodernism. It is currently associated with the works of Ágnes Heller, Victor Grauer and Carlos Escudé and it is strongly rooted in the criticisms which Habermas has leveled at postmodern philosophy, namely that universalism and critical thinking are the two essential elements of human rights and that human rights create a superiority of some cultures over others. That is, that equality and relativism are "mutually contradictory".

Soon after the modern movement, reactions were formed based in the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard. The reaction took on the name of existentialism, and was characterized by the phrase "existence precedes essence". Existentialism was followed by postmodernism, which embraced Nietzsche's critique of the will to truth, which is the standing characteristic of modernism. Neomodernists maintain that truth still exists in a universal form and directly refute existentialist and postmodern viewpoints that the essence of an existent is formed in the observer's bias. Neomodernists stand against the discrediting of the concept of authorial intent in postmodern hermeneutics. Instead, they state that a text written in simple terms can only have the meaning that the author intended, rather than finding that even the most straightforward text can have multiple interpretations.

Ágnes Heller's work is associated with Moral Anthropology and "probing modernity's destiny for a non-predatory humanism that combines the existential wisdom of ancient theory with modern values."

Neomodernism accepts some aspects of postmodernism's critique of modernism, notably that modernism elevated the world view of dominant groups to the status of objective fact, thereby failing to express the viewpoint of "subaltern groups," such as women and ethnic minorities. However, in her view, neomodernism rejects postmodernism as:

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