At the Forefront*

Postmodern Interdisciplinarity

Roger P. Mourad, Jr.

Postmodern Philosophy and
the Study of Higher Education

In the last three decades, fundamental challenges to modern forms of thought have emerged in many realms of thought and activity. These challenges, referred to as "postmodern," are evident in the sciences, literature, politics, philosophy, the visual and performing arts, and cultural studies [End Page 113] generally (see, for example, Best & Kellner 1991; Culler 1982; Foster 1983; Game 1991; Harvey 1989). In the field of higher education, concern has been expressed that higher education "has no distinguishable philosophy" (Leslie & Beckham 1986, p. 124) and that higher education research "continues to reflect conventional approaches to inquiry" while lively debate about alternative paradigms flourishes in many disciplines (Conrad, 1989, p. 199). Important work in critical, feminist, multicultural, and qualitative approaches to the study of higher education has been recently introduced (Gumport, 1990, 1991; Lincoln, 1989, 1991; Lincoln & Guba, 1989; Rhoades, 1990, 1992; Slaughter, 1988, 1990, 1993; Tierney, 1991, 1993; Tierney & Lincoln, 1994). Although a diversity of modes of inquiry is generally consistent with postmodernism, there is a need to understand postmodern philosophy in its complexity in order to comprehend its significance for the study of higher education. In particular, there is a need to examine and explore French postmodern philosophy for this purpose, since it is the most widely influential source of thought in many fields of inquiry, especially in the social sciences and humanities.

This article seeks to begin to fill that void by analyzing the key ideas of three prominent French thinkers--Jacques Derrida, the late Michel Foucault, and Jean-Francois Lyotard--and those of an equally prominent American philosopher who has been influenced by them--Richard Rorty. Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1984) is regarded as the most illuminating exposition of postmodern philosophy. Foucault and Derrida are the most influential French postmodern philosophers. Foucault's most often-cited work by American scholars is probably Discipline and Punish (1979). Derrida's key work is Of Grammatology (1976). Rorty is an American philosopher from the Anglo-American analytic tradition who, in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), developed a postmodern position on knowledge which rejected that tradition and established him as the leading American postmodern philosopher.

There is another important reason to examine the implications of postmodern philosophy. If the study of higher education has not established itself within the university, as some within the field suggest (Fife & Goodchild, 1991), then one of the things it needs to provide is a philosophy that is relevant to intellectual issues of interest to scholars across the disciplines. Since a fundamental concern of higher education is the pursuit of knowledge and since postmodern philosophers take positions on knowledge that are intended to have broad implications for intellectual and social life, an analysis of these positions in the context of higher education provides an opportunity to elicit the significance of postmodern thought well beyond the confines of a particular discipline.

In this article, I address this need with a philosophical study that will make apparent the significance of postmodern thought for the idea of [End Page 114] "higher education." Research in higher education is typically focused on institutional concerns, particularly those that can be studied empirically. This focus ignores the fact that institutions of higher education are embodiments of a philosophical idea. Fundamentally, this idea involves the pursuit and transmission of knowledge for its own sake and for other purposes as well. For this reason, I will focus on what is most distinctive about postmodern thought as it pertains to the philosophical question of human knowledge. As I will show, postmodernism expands the study of higher education well beyond institutional concerns and critiques because it expands the idea of what counts as knowledge and what counts as legitimate research well beyond the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge and modern interdisciplinary approaches. First, however, I will provide a brief description of postmodernism as an intellectual current by contrasting it with a prevailing "modern" position.

The Postmodern and the Modern Project

The developing idea of postmodernism, or the diverse array of intellectual movements called postmodern, is still in its infancy. Accordingly, the significance and meaning of postmodernism is the subject of considerable contemporary debate. Among the thinkers that I will consider here, postmodernism can be understood in large part as a rejection of what philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who is decidedly not postmodern, calls "the project of modernity" and identifies with the French Enlightenment:

The project of modernity formulated in the 18th century by the philosophers of the Enlightenment consisted in their efforts to develop objective science, universal morality and law, and autonomous art according to their inner logic. At the same time, this project intended to release the cognitive potentials of each of their domains from their esoteric forms. The Enlightenment philosophers wanted to utilize this accumulation of specialized culture for the enrichment of everyday life--that is to say, for the rational organization of everyday social life. (Habermas 1983, p. 9)

Postmodernists claim that this project, which originally challenged the social order and which heavily informs education at all levels in most parts of the world today, has succeeded in becoming dominant as a cultural form yet falls far short of realizing its humane aims. While many contemporary modernists including Habermas agree with this assessment, postmodernists differ from them in attempting to move intellectual discourse and expression out of the modern, while Habermas and others seek to reform the modern project in some way. Postmodern challenges reject the modern idea that the intellect can direct human civilization toward a progressive realization of ideal forms of human existence and understanding that are universal, [End Page 115] knowable, and achievable through discoveries and applications in such areas as science, civil governance, and aesthetic expression. While not all strands of distinctly modern thought wholly correspond to this widespread belief and the "project of modernity" is but one version of that belief, it is one that the French postmodernists whom I examine reject.

Some critical theorists, including educational theorists who focus primarily on schools (Giroux, 1991a, 1991b; Kincheloe, 1993; McLaren, 1991, 1994; McLaren & Lankshear, 1993; Stanley, 1992) have made substantial efforts to incorporate some elements of French postmodern thought in their work. However, since their approaches to postmodern thought are shaped by their fundamental commitment to neo-Marxian political and social critique, they do not explore the potential of postmodern thought on its own terms. Postmodern philosophy is concerned with departing from modern concepts rather than reforming or enhancing them. In this regard, it is important to point out that, although many French postmodernists, including Lyotard and Foucault, initially took neo-Marxian positions in the 1950s, they rejected basic tenets of that critique in their postmodern work. Lyotard's critique of Habermas (1984, pp. 71-82) and Rorty's critique of both (1984) are especially illuminating on this point.

A position is often identified as postmodern because it asserts that knowledge is determined, or at least substantially conditioned, by the social rules that govern discourse and by a general emphasis on the centrality of culture and social relations. While these themes are common among many postmodern thinkers, as well as others such as the advocates of "critical theory," they are not particularly illuminating because they do not get at the core of postmodern thought. They represent some possible consequences of postmodern thought rather than its focal meaning. Postmodern philosophy in particular expresses a distinctive epistemological position, one that cannot be simply reduced to the idea that "everything is social" or "everything is cultural." This position, moreover, is not limited to the discipline of philosophy or to any other discipline. In fact, as I will show, it challenges the very idea of the disciplines, at least as they are generally construed. I interpret postmodern thought as reflecting a fundamental concern for expanding the possibilities and purposes of theoretical practice. In particular, it is concerned with opening up room for the intellect to pursue important ideas outside the notion that reality is composed of things to know.

Since Greek antiquity, philosophers have usually made a sharp distinction between knowledge and belief. In contemporary epistemology, this distinction is often predicated on the idea that for a belief to qualify as knowledge, it must be true and its truth must be based on good reasons, or justification (Moser & vander Nat, 1987, pp. 3-22). Traditionally, the epistemological problem is to come up with a theory of truth and justification that is permanent, universal, and objective, although many contemporary [End Page 116] epistemologists do not believe that a theory that meets all of these criteria is possible. If such a theory could be found, then there would be an ultimate basis for the distinction between knowledge and belief. Further, on the basis of having these attributes, such a theory would provide an absolute foundation upon which further knowledge could be gained.

Postmodernists hold that the idea of absolute foundations for attaining knowledge is inherently problematic, rather than a problem to solve or a problem that can be satisfactorily dealt with theoretically and methodologically (for example, by using statistical techniques of approximation and probability). However, the significance of postmodern thought is not its rejection of an absolute foundation. For most modern scholars, including many philosophers, the philosophical question or problem of an absolute foundation for knowledge is not a consideration in their work. Even so, the idea of an absolute foundation is implicit in the idea that a good theory explains some aspect or behavior of a broad group of similar objects. The significance of postmodern thought is that it attempts to explore alternatives to traditional conceptions of knowledge when the problematic of an absolute foundation is seriously acknowledged. Most importantly, postmodernists seek to draw out the intellectual consequences of this problematic to move beyond it. As I will show, in the context of the practice of pursuing knowledge, the postmodern critique fundamentally raises the question of what it is that scholars who pursue knowledge are engaged in and produce, if the difference between knowledge and opinion is not absolute.

In my analysis of Rorty, Lyotard, Foucault, and Derrida, I show (a) how the modern problematic of an absolute foundation is characterized and critiqued, and (b) the alternative conception of knowledge that is advocated in its place. I conclude each analysis by suggesting how the critique of knowledge implicates the modern discipline-based pursuit of knowledge. Space limitations preclude extensive discussion of their work. (For an in-depth analysis, see Mourad, 1995.)

Informed by my analyses, I then explore the broad significance of postmodern positions on knowledge for the practice and organization of the pursuit of knowledge in higher education. If one assumes that belief in an absolute foundation pervades modern knowledge claims and that it is problematic, it would seem that this belief is also present and problematic in the structure and practice of pursuing knowledge in universities and colleges. I identify this absolute foundation, claim that it is manifested in the form of the disciplines, and argue why this characterization of the disciplines is a problem for scholars. Drawing from the concept of cross-disciplinarity, I propose an alternative, postmodern foundation that responds to this problem by providing a philosophical basis for pursuing ideas that would be unconventional in the disciplines. I develop a framework for the pursuit of these intellectually compelling ideas. This framework emphasizes [End Page 117] collaborative inquiry by scholars from diverse disciplines in postmodern research programs that depart from disciplinary conventions. I conclude this article by distinguishing this postmodern form of interdisciplinarity from modern forms.

Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty (1979, 1982, 1991) claims that Western philosophy has pursued a mistaken notion of knowledge, the idea that knowledge refers to something objective and eternal. Rorty locates the origin of the allegedly mistaken view with the Platonic distinction between Forms, embodying permanent, unchanging, universal Ideas and accessible only by the intellect, and the transient flux of particular things experienced by the senses. He concentrates his critique on what he claims are inherent and fatal flaws in modern philosophical theories of knowledge beginning with Descartes.

Rorty's particular target is the assumption that (a) there is a fundamental relation between the intellect of a person who seeks knowledge and reality, (b) that this relation is akin to the relation between a mirror that reflects, or represents, things that are placed before it, so that (c) having knowledge of some thing essentially means to form good cognitive pictures, or accurate representations, of things, and (d) it is the task of philosophers to determine the nature of this relation. This assumption is basic to dominant modern epistemology, which is the foundation of Anglo-American analytic philosophy. Rorty (1979) argues that the epistemological project of determining a "permanent, neutral framework for inquiry, and thus for all of culture" (p. 8) cannot be realized on the basis that the representationalist paradigm is problematic. He alleges that this shortcoming is reflected in the fact that philosophers are able to identify theoretical flaws from Descartes to the present but are unable to advance a theory of knowledge that is not fundamentally flawed.

On this basis, Rorty claims that the epistemological project and the representationalist problems that emerge from it are essentially arbitrary. He argues that philosophers should release their creative intellects from the self-imposed limitations caused by the "optional" notion that knowledge needs a "theory" (pp. 132-59). Rorty believes that scholars should think of knowledge as simply a name or label for the subject of agreement among any group of humans concerning beliefs, values, and action "rather than a matter of interaction with nonhuman reality" (pp. 156-157). A persuasive truth assertion is fundamentally a "victory in argument" rather than an accurate representation of reality (p. 159). Truth assertions can be justified only in terms of the particular context within which a group pursues agreement (p. 210). The "ultimate" context is intellectual conversation rather than something outside it (p. 389). [End Page 118]

The kind of conversation Rorty desires is not one that assumes, as epistemology does, that there is a permanent neutral framework, whether that be objective, subjective, or linguistic, that can provide a "common ground" for all inquiry (pp. 315-317). Instead, the conversation is "hermeneutic," meaning that "relations between various discourses [are] strands in a possible conversation . . . which presupposes no disciplinary matrix which unites the speakers, but where hope of agreement is never lost so long as the conversation lasts" (p. 318). Most importantly, the conversation should be "edifying" rather than systematic. Edification may consist in "making connections between our culture and some exotic culture or historical period, or between our own discipline and another discipline which seems to pursue incommensurable aims in an incommensurable vocabulary. But it may instead consist in the "poetic" activity of thinking up such "new aims, new words, or new disciplines, followed by . . . the attempt to reinterpret our familiar surroundings in the unfamiliar terms of our new inventions" (p. 360). The ultimate point of edification is "to perform the social function which Dewey called breaking the crust of convention, preventing man from deluding himself with the notion that he knows himself, or anything else, except under optional descriptions" (p. 379).

Borrowing from the late Thomas Kuhn's (1970) account of scientific revolutions, Rorty (1979) asserts that his own pragmatic approach to knowledge construes the difference between discourses that are commensurable and those that are not as a contrast between "normal" and "abnormal" discourse. Normal intellectual discourse is conducted within an agreed-upon set of conventions about what counts as a relevant contribution, whereas "abnormal discourse is what happens when someone joins in the discourse who is ignorant of these conventions or who sets them aside . . . and there is no discipline which describes it, any more than there is a discipline devoted to the unpredictable, or of 'creativity'" (p. 320). The instrument by which abnormal discourse is created and becomes normal is metaphor. "A metaphor is, so to speak, a voice from outside logical space, rather than an empirical filling-up of that space. It is a call to change one's language and one's life, rather than a proposal about how to systematize either" (1991, p. 13).

Arguing that knowledge is the achievement of a consensus rather than the outcome of a successful scientific investigation, Rorty (1979) dissolves the distinctions between fact and value and, perhaps most controversially, rejects a fundamental distinction between science and nonscience on this basis (pp. 321-344). The distinction between science and other realms of thought is not based on the idea that science uses uniquely objective and rational standards, nor on the basis of its subject matter. Rather, its distinctions are a result of cultural considerations, "a function of educational and institutional patterns" (p. 331). [End Page 119]

In contrast to many contemporary calls for order, "college students badly need to find themselves in a place where people are not ordered to a purpose, where loose cannons are free to roll about" (Rorty, 1989, p. 9). Rorty acknowledges that much of what is assumed as "normal" in the Western heritage of ideas was initially "abnormal" to, and resisted by, that tradition. The abnormalities keep the conversation going. The scholar must learn to create new ideas, that is, new languages or ways of thinking, about human experience; one must learn to be "parasitic" upon the given (Rorty, 1979, p. 366).

The structure and practice of the pursuit of knowledge would change drastically if the spirit of Rorty's ideas were applied to the organization of higher education institutions. Higher education would explicitly encourage "abnormal" discourses that would not be bound by established disciplinary structures. The only reason to connect ideas or subject matter would be to keep the conversation going by creating abnormal discourses rather than to unify learning. Rorty's emphasis on conversation translates into an emphasis on the pursuit of ideas that depart from what is normal rather than on advancing and extending the reach of normal ones. If the disciplines are construed as structures that exist essentially for the sake of the latter, an application of Rorty's critique to the practice of higher education suggests that the meaning and significance of the disciplines themselves would substantially change.

Jean-Francois Lyotard

For Jean-Francois Lyotard, the most important aspect of knowledge is that it involves communication between people: to know is to discourse (Lyotard, 1984, 1989; Lyotard & Thebaud, 1985). For example, we use language to assert and describe what is true, and we use language to describe processes of scientific verification. Following Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose late work is the basis for this approach to understanding language as being, in effect, the ground of knowledge, Lyotard (1984) refers to this social interaction as a kind of "language game." All human interaction can be understood as embodying different kinds of language games. Further, each kind of game has particular rules. For example, the process of scientific proof is a matter of playing the language game for a particular field and "winning," that is, having one's truth assertion verified as in fact true, according to the rules followed by experts in that field (pp. 9-10).

Beginning in the 1930s, philosophers of science sought to perfect a metalanguage, formal logic, that would ground all knowledge claims. Eventually it was realized that, for any formal system to account for all phenomena and remain consistent, it must be grounded in assumptions that cannot themselves be demonstrated. Thus, no formal language can be universal [End Page 120] and remain consistent. In Lyotard's (1984) terms, there is no all-encompassing language game for science (pp. 41-43). For Lyotard, this realization means that the sciences are a plurality of incommensurable and discrete "truths" and their object, reality, is essentially unpredictable and unstable (p. 57). He claims that this epistemological condition is an outcome of the course of science itself:

Science--by concerning itself with such things as undecidables, the limits of precise control, conflicts characterized by incomplete information, "fracta," catastrophes, and pragmatic paradoxes--is theorizing its own evolution as discontinuous, catastrophic, nonrectifiable, and paradoxical. It is changing the meaning of the word knowledge, while expressing how such a change can take place. It is producing not the known, but the unknown. (1984, p. 60)

Therefore, all we can know are local contexts or "islands of determinism" rather than a complete, consistent whole (p. 59).

According to Lyotard (1984), there is another way to describe contemporary science in the wake of the loss of an absolute foundation, which he calls "performativity," or the principle of optimizing performance by technological innovation (pp. 44-46). Given the limitations of the human senses and the increasing complexity of empirical demonstration and proof, the principle of experimental replication has become increasingly dependent on sophisticated and expensive technology. The rules of technological application in capitalist society, argues Lyotard, enforce a game of efficiency. The production of scientific proof costs money, with the result that scientists who can maximize output (proof) while minimizing input expended in the process of proof (energy, and thus cost) get funded (although he acknowledges that there are exceptions). Lyotard claims that this game has demoralized research scientists and forced the university into a subordinate, functional role in the social system (pp. xxiv, 8).

Lyotard (1984) also alleges that the principle of optimal performance affects not only the pursuit of knowledge but the nature of its transmission as well. Higher education has become increasingly defined by its capacity to create and produce skills indispensable to competition in world markets and the efficient maintenance of internal social cohesion (p. 48). The goal of learning becomes problem-solving in the "here-and-now" and skill at organizing data "into an efficient strategy" (p. 53). Performativity follows a systems theory logic: whatever course of action increases the overall efficiency of the social system is legitimated, without decisive regard for its effects on human beings (pp. 62-63). For Lyotard, this situation entails the demise "of the professor," because under the performativity principle, "a professor is no more competent than memory bank networks in transmitting established knowledge" (p. 53). Moreover, Lyotard claims that modern systems theory, which assumes that a system is subject to stabilization, prediction, [End Page 121] and control, is contradicted by the rules of the postmodern game of science that there is only local determinism (p. 61).

Lyotard (1984) rejects modern forms of interdisciplinary knowledge for the reason that different kinds of pursuits of knowledge are not translatable. In his view, interdisciplinary knowledge can be legitimated only by performativity (p. xxv). In contrast to the trend to connect learning across disciplines, postmodern connections can be freely made only by individual knowers on a "local" basis. Lyotard's critique means that the structure of the pursuit of knowledge in a postmodern university would maximize the multiplicity of particular inquiries and their languages. Scholars would not seek to "master" language games because language cannot be mastered: "Its very plurality makes it impossible for anyone to establish her- or himself in a field and proceed to produce its laws in a sort of universal language" (1985, p. 98). Instead, the postmodern scholar would be adept at departing from received games and creating new ones. He or she would be experimental rather than innovative; the latter is "but a way of repeating, without great difference, something that already has been done and that has worked" (pp. 14, 61). In a Lyotardian university, the disciplines and the languages that they protect would be subject to constant revision, and even removal, if they kept playing the same old game.

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault (1965, 1970, 1975, 1979) shows how the pursuit of knowledge is historically enmeshed in other human practices. Foucault (1980) alleges that knowledge is discourse created by humans in the effort to attain power. "We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth. This is the case in every society, but I believe that in ours . . . we are forced to produce the truth of power that our society demands, of which it has need, in order to function" (p. 93). He claims (1983) that the most significant manifestation of power in Western society since the late 18th century is a form of power that created the modern idea of an individual human being (pp. 208-226). Foucault argues that the pursuit of knowledge is especially implicated in this form of power.

Foucault develops historical-philosophical arguments that challenge the modernist link between the advancement of the human individual and the progress of society as a whole. In particular, he argues (1983) that the human sciences are linked to "modes of objectification" through which the idea of an individual human being became objectified as the "human subject" of scientific inquiry (p. 208). By "human science" Foucault (1970) means, at least roughly, what American intellectuals refer to as the social sciences and the humanities. Under this heading, Foucault explicitly includes [End Page 122] psychology, sociology, the study of literature, cultural anthropology and ethnology, psychiatry, and, to some degree, history (chap. 10).

Foucault (1980) argues that, in the 19th century, the idea of knowledge was profoundly altered in response to the social need for a scientific discourse that could legitimize and direct masses of human beings toward becoming a highly organized society of disciplined, productive individual "subjects" (pp. 194-195). The emergence of the modern scientific study of the human being was related to "the great nineteenth-century effort in discipline and normalisation" that created organized, rational-bureaucratic European society (1980, p. 61). The human sciences provided this effort with "effective instruments for the formation and accumulation of knowledge--methods of observation, techniques of registration, procedures for investigation and research, apparatuses of control" (p. 61). A prominent example is the formation and growth of psychology: "It was the emergence . . . of a new type of the supervision--both knowledge and power--over individuals who resisted disciplinary normalization . . . the supervision of normality was firmly encased in a medicine or a psychiatry that provided it with a sort of 'scientificity'" (1979, p. 296).

Foucault details a number of other examples where so-called "disciplinary technologies" were implemented and legitimized by the human sciences, including factories, schools, hospitals, and the military. For example, he claims (1965, 1975) that the description of people as mentally ill or physically ill and their "internment" in asylums or hospitals are means by which the modern human subject seeks to cleanse itself of "the other" within itself. Although Foucault does not develop a similar critique of the natural sciences, he does claim (1979) that the initial emergence of the empirical sciences at the end of the Middle Ages was also implicated in power, in this case the economic and political conquest of the natural world on the model of the Inquisition (p. 226).

For Foucault it is important for scholars to recognize that the pursuit of knowledge is political because of the close association of knowledge with power (1980, pp. 126-133). "The essential political problem for the intellectual is not changing people's consciousnesses--or what's in their heads--but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth" (p. 133). He is particularly concerned with the manipulation of individual human beings by intellectuals in the production of knowledge for the sake of the social system. According to Foucault (1977), the modern era essentially means that knowledge and power are necessarily linked. To think that they are opposed is part of the ruse by which intellectuals are manipulated into perpetuating the systematic control of human beings. To counter this effect, scholars should "struggle against the forms of power that transform [them] into its object and instrument in the sphere of 'knowledge,' 'truth,' 'consciousness,' and 'discourse'" (pp. 207-208). [End Page 123]

It is not the idea of the individual per se but the modern subjection of the individual to a coercive notion of individuality that Foucault seeks to overturn. Since the modern scholar has been identified with the idea of an autonomous, free, self-determining individual since the Enlightenment, this overturning would identify and critique those aspects of higher education that are conventionally recognized as the embodiment of intellectual freedom. Further, since for Foucault (1980) an analysis of power begins with "the starting points of local conditions and particular needs" (p. 159), the application of Foucault's critique to the organized pursuit of knowledge would seek to uncover the ways in which the organized pursuit of knowledge controls the course of individuals' thought.

The disciplines exert this control by providing parameters for the starting points of individual inquiries. Scholars thereby become "productive subjects" of the social system. Further, the status of research areas that are not modern disciplines, such as feminist theory, critical theory, and cultural studies, is diminished on the basis that scholars in these areas engage in something other than the free pursuit of knowledge. A response to these limitations on what constitutes legitimate scholarly inquiry would develop this critique to create a philosophical justification for inquiries that depart from the disciplines and counter the modern "regime of the production of truth."

Jacques Derrida

Derrida claims that a paradoxical idea of the absolute permeates Western intellectual history and by implication, Western culture (1973, 1976, 1978, 1982). The paradox is that any claim to know something objectively necessarily fails because, in referring to something that is alleged to exist independent of the claim, the claimant introduces human artifice, namely, human expression in the form of a language. Further, this artifice cannot be effectively accounted for and filtered out of an explanation because any filter is itself an artifice. Therefore, the idea that one can know something that exists independent of the knower is an illusion.

Derrida uncovers this alleged paradox in "deconstructive" readings of important philosophical and literary texts. The paradox is manifested in a particular way. Knowledge of reality has always been a cognitive act in which a thinker claims to reveal by theoretical explanation the independent existence of some aspect of reality. Derrida (1976) calls this Western predilection the "metaphysics of presence." He argues that this idea reached a new zenith with modern philosophers, who conceived knowledge as "self-presence," or the absolute presence of some aspect of reality that is revealed in the form of a theoretical explanation to an attentive and clear-minded knower (pp. 16-17). [End Page 124]

Through his intricate textual analysis, Derrida (1976) claims to show that this idea of knowledge as absolute presence takes a specific form. The arguments of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Austin, and many others make claims about knowledge and reality that depend on the idea that reality is revealed to the intellect through the medium of human speech. Speech is considered to be the "natural" signifier in that it affords a person the capacity to pronounce, within himself or herself and to others, the realization of knowledge nearly coincident with the moment of its realization in the mind. To be a knower is to speak the truth (pp. 10-18).

Further, Derrida (1976) argues that these important thinkers go to great lengths to distinguish human speech from written language. Graphic writing is characterized as "exterior" to and wholly separate from the mind. That which is written is an artifact outside thought, whereas speech is naturally bonded to thought. Thus, writing is tainted by its deviation from human intellect. As a signifier on the page instead of being "interior" to the knower, writing is liable to depart from what is revealed of reality in the cognitive act of gaining knowledge (pp. 29-41).

Most importantly, Derrida (1981) alleges that, far from succeeding in drawing a hierarchical distinction in which speech is superior to writing, these thinkers are unable to avoid using metaphors derived from writing in order for human speech to manifest knowledge of reality. "Deconstruction" is the analytical procedure that Derrida uses to reveal the instability of the speech-writing distinction in the texts. For Derrida, the implications of this instability are profound. The idea signified by the word "writing" implies a human activity that is considerably broader than being simply a graphic substitution for speech (pp. 44-45). Graphic writing is only one case of a broader notion of writing, "writing in general," or the human act of expressing ideas, that encompasses speech: "speech . . . is already in itself a writing" (p. 46).

This expansion of the concept of writing inverts the relationship between the external object of knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge. Derrida elevates the status of the artifact and of the human activity that expresses its ideas through artifacts, relative to the object of knowledge. Most significantly, he implies that, since the conventional idea of knowledge as cognition of some autonomous thing is illusory, the persistence of this idea is an undue constraint on forms of human expression that do not seek to know reality in this way.

Since Derrida emphasizes that the paradox of "the metaphysics of presence" emerges in the very act of making knowledge claims, his critique suggests that the idea of an absolute ground or foundation is implicated not only in modern ideas of knowledge, but also in the organized activity of pursuing and producing knowledge. Since this activity is predominantly organized in the form of disciplines, then one implication of Derrida's critique [End Page 125] is that the problematic of presence also exists in some way in the disciplines. If so, then it is also possible that the status of the disciplines can and should be destabilized by some kind of departure that is akin to Derrida's deconstruction of the speech/writing hierarchy.

Thus far, I have indicated how four postmodern philosophers characterize the modern problematic of an absolute foundation and conceive of alternative concepts of knowledge that depart from this problematic. Rorty departs from the modern epistemological project by abnormal discourse. Lyotard departs from the modern faith in science by a plurality of language games that follow from the breakdown of the idea that the sciences are fundamentally unified. Foucault departs from the modern liberal ideal of individual autonomy by implicating the human sciences in the creation of a system that demands that individuals be productive. Derrida departs from the "metaphysics of presence" by deconstructing the speech/writing hierarchy that he associates with it.

I have also suggested that an application of their positions to higher education implicates the disciplines in various ways. Since modern higher education involves the pursuit of knowledge, it would seem that the problematic idea of an absolute foundation is present in that pursuit. Further, since the modern pursuit of knowledge is largely the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge, the disciplines would seem to be involved in this problematic in an important way. In the next two sections, I describe this absolute foundation, show how it is manifested in the form of the disciplines, and argue why this condition is a problem for scholars.

Higher Education's Absolute Foundation

If an absolute foundation is generally implicated in the structure and practice of pursuit of knowledge, then what is this foundation? The absolute foundation underlying modern higher education is, in effect, the idea that legitimate intellectual activity in the university is the pursuit of knowledge of a reality that exists before and independent of its pursuit. In describing this reality as a preexistent and independent thing, I mean that the modern idea of the pursuit of knowledge is confined to the study of, and attempts to understand, what is already there, where "already there" includes (a) things that are real without human involvement, (b) things and ideas that are real or ideal entirely through human action and thought, and (c) things that are real with some human involvement.

Within this concept, scientific study of things that are real, independent of human involvement, namely the natural and physical sciences and mathematics, are often accorded preeminence in the university relative to the social sciences and the humanities, on the basis that the former produces [End Page 126] objective, "real" knowledge, or at least comes closer to doing so. Indeed, some scholars believe that the value of the social sciences and even the humanities is a function of the extent to which scholars in these fields are able to construct and utilize methods that are modeled on those of the natural and physical sciences and mathematics so as to produce objectively defensible knowledge.

Many would argue that still other basic purposes are equally or more important, such as the transmission of knowledge, the education of enlightened citizens, the application of knowledge to practical problems, and the training of professionals. The position that the value of higher education is primarily instrumental has a long tradition, especially as a common belief held among many people outside the university. This position is reflected, for example, in the emergence of comprehensive universities over the last hundred years, in the widespread attitude in society that a college education, including the liberal arts, is necessary preparation for a professional career, and in the intense competition for public and corporate funds devoted to applied research. However, fulfillment of these other instrumental purposes is dependent on there being knowledge to transmit and apply.

Most within the modern university do not think of their work as primarily instrumental in nature. They at least tacitly believe that the foundation provided by the pursuit of knowledge is an absolute foundation, that is, its fundamental value is intrinsic and thus independent of instrumental purposes. Further, it is generally regarded as underlying all the other, secondary purposes of higher education.

Embedded in this often tacit belief is an assumption concerning the idea of knowledge. This assumption is that the fundamental idea of knowledge involves a certain characterization of a relationship between intellect and reality. Intellect is a thing that seeks to know some aspect of reality, and reality is a thing that exists before and independent of the inquiry. A key element of this foundation is theory. Theory is considered to be the bridge between intellect and reality. For this reason, theoretical knowledge of reality is considered to be the most fundamental knowledge. A good theory is, among other things, a human re-creation of reality in the form of an explanation of the way something is independent of the knower. In this way, a good theory is transparent; it "mirrors" reality.

Similarly, the practice of pursuing theoretical knowledge of reality is given a special status relative to other practices in higher education. Institutions of higher learning in which research is not emphasized nevertheless seek teachers who have been educated in research universities, who have engaged in scholarly research, and who have doctoral degrees reflecting knowledge of research methods and research skills. Theoretical knowledge is the foundation for practical knowledge, and theoretical activity is the foundation of [End Page 127] practical activity. Typically, these distinctions are sharply drawn within modern research and comprehensive universities. Professional, applied, and artistic activities are usually considered separate from those of schools and departments that pursue "basic research." While the first kind of activities may be very strong in particular schools, the second kind is generally regarded as the core of a university and therefore the more significant barometer of its overall strength and reputation. Further, the strongest professional, applied, and art schools are usually considered to be those where the value of theory for practice is stressed. Other intellectual and practical activities are deemed intellectually inferior to the pursuit of theoretical knowledge because they are tarnished by the lack of autonomous objects. They must borrow knowledge from, or gain knowledge from applying, the results obtained in the pursuit of theoretical knowledge. Further, these other intellectual activities borrow the idea of theory from basic science and pursue theoretical knowledge of practice.

Yet theoretical knowledge of practice is considered to be inferior to theoretical knowledge of autonomous reality because it is at a second remove from the essence of theory, namely, theory that explains aspects of autonomous reality. From the standpoint of practice, the scholarly pursuit of theoretical knowledge of reality is considered to be special. It is the practice of gaining access, however partial and imperfect, to things that are independent of the knower and thus independent of the practice that accesses it. It is a participation with things that reveals them in the form of theory, even though this participation and revelation may be limited in various respects.

However, the cognitive, sensory, and physical limitations of theoretical knowledge are mediated by the idea that particular understandings gained in the pursuit of theoretical knowledge are contributions toward a comprehensive, increasingly accurate understanding of reality. Also, the limitations of theory are mediated by a collective ideal, which is manifested in a conception of the university as a coherent, unified whole, or as moving toward such a whole. Theoretical knowledge is seen to accumulate progressively, serving the aim either of "filling in" and/or of gradually reconstructing more effectively a complete or whole picture called reality.

Even if a belief in "complete" or "perfect" knowledge of reality is explicitly rejected, this idea of a progression of theoretical knowledge is implicit in the claim that explanations of reality are improved upon or are succeeded by better explanations. Even though many scientists may disavow absolutes, they retain a belief in the idea that their particular endeavors are part of this larger, inexorable story called modern progress. To deny this notion without offering a well-formed proposal for an alternative conception only shows that, philosophically, the modern idea of higher education as a communal endeavor remains tacitly dependent on it. [End Page 128]

The Problem of the Disciplines

Most scholars today would say that their inquiries seek to discover, improve, and enlarge knowledge within their particular disciplines. In effect, the disciplines are the manifestation of the absoluteness of the pursuit of knowledge for several reasons. First, the disciplines are generally regarded as comprising the foundations of the university in practice. Second, the disciplines, as currently practiced, are primarily concerned with a theoretical knowledge of reality. Third, since theory is expressed in disciplinary terms (whether in one or more disciplines), the disciplines are the prescribed structure for intellectual activity. For these reasons, the disciplines are, in effect, generally regarded as if they were absolute. They are thought to constitute the absolute foundation for what counts as legitimate intellectual activity in the modern university. Thus, "knowledge of reality" is, in practice, a reality that is composed of disciplines.

A modern proponent of the disciplines could argue that the absoluteness of the disciplines is justified because their persistence combined with the fact that they produce knowledge is a strong indication that the disciplines reflect the way things really are. Although the theories found within a category are diverse and often embody alternative accounts, they nevertheless share some fundamental, meaningful inherent characteristics. In this sense, the knowledge within each discipline or category is unified and forms a unique self-encompassing "whole." In a broader sense, this idea of a unified disciplinary "whole" is that, ideally, particular inquiries within a discipline are contributions toward the progressive realization of a coherent body of knowledge. Progress is reflected in the increasing depth and diversity of theoretical explanations, methods, and schools of thought that emerge over time.

This dynamic quality of the disciplines can be conceptualized with a spatial metaphor along vertical and horizontal dimensions. The disciplinary pursuit of knowledge is vertically dynamic in that existing theories are developed, refined, and extended over time. Further, existing theories are replaced by new theories that are deemed to be better explanations. Intellectual activity within the disciplines is also dynamic in a horizontal direction. New modes of inquiry or sub-disciplines, creating new kinds of theoretical knowledge, emerge within the disciplines alongside established modes. Sometimes a new mode of inquiry replaces an established mode, but more often the former are additions to the latter, and the theoretical knowledge they provide takes a place next to the theoretical knowledge that is already in the discipline. Although there are disputes about what constitutes legitimate modes of inquiry, subject matter, and theories with a given discipline, the disputes are usually incorporated into the discipline along with the new ideas. Indeed, the presence of theoretical, methodological, and philosophical disputes is usually interpreted to mean that a discipline is "healthy." [End Page 129]

The increasing depth and diversity of theoretical knowledge within the disciplines means that the disciplines are expanding, in that they encompass ever-increasing quantities of knowledge. The expansion of disciplinary knowledge can be interpreted as a sign that the disciplines are robust structures. However, this expansion can also be interpreted to mean that the disciplines are increasingly incoherent structures. The dynamic production of knowledge within the disciplines renders the disciplines as structures of knowledge increasingly unintelligible. In this regard, expansion in the horizontal direction is particularly significant. The profusion of new, diverse modes of inquiry, especially in the last thirty years, has made it difficult to view disciplines as coherent knowledge realms.

The most significant evidence of this incoherence is the blurring of disciplinary boundaries as a result of intellectual activity that pursues knowledge by combining, or seeking to combine, theories or modes of inquiry from more than one discipline. The horizontal expansion of inquiry is partly an overlapping of disciplinary boundaries. It is often not clear under which discipline a cross-disciplinary mode of inquiry properly belongs. Unity and autonomy would seem to be presupposed by the fact that the disciplines structure the pursuit of knowledge a priori as discrete realms. Yet the increasing diversity of inquiry, especially the blurring of disciplinary boundaries, suggests that the disciplines are fragmented rather than unified, autonomous "wholes." If so, then their absolute status is not justified because they do not deliver what the modernist claims they do, namely, an orderly, progressive, and coherent knowledge of the way things really are.

However, even if the disciplines are "fragmented" structures, this condition can itself be interpreted to mean that the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge is a productive and creative foundation for intellectual activity. It could be claimed that the disciplines have proven to be flexible structures in that they expand to accommodate new approaches and ideas that emerge within them. In addition, new disciplines emerge on occasion when new realms of knowledge of reality are discovered. On this basis, it could be argued that the absolute status of the disciplines is justified a posteriori even if they are "fragmented." Even if fragmentation means that the disciplines are not unified wholes, it could be argued that the grouping of knowledge a priori according to disciplinary structures is justified on the basis that these structures are effective in maximizing the production of knowledge. It might even be argued that having categories of knowledge is justified simply because they provide a convenient way of managing the rapid production and enormous amount of diverse knowledge. For these reasons, the absolute stature of the disciplines could be defended even though they are increasingly fragmented.

How is the absolute status of the disciplines nevertheless an unjustified constraint on theoretical practice? The spatial metaphor that I used to describe [End Page 130] the dynamism of the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge is only two-dimensional. If that metaphor is a reasonable portrayal of the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge, it suggests that knowledge can only be conceptualized, and progress, in a field or plane constituted by "flat," all-encompassing disciplinary structures, just as a round marble cannot leave the floor on which it rolls and still be a marble except in name only. From a position outside this plane, the potential power of human intellect is severely limited by the assumption that a person who is seriously engaged in an intellectual activity for the purpose of enlarging human understanding cannot leave this "flat" disciplinary plane. Further, although the pursuit of knowledge within the disciplines is dynamic, the reality that is already there, in the form of theories, methods, and schools of thought, largely determines what reality can mean and how it can be pursued. The progress of knowledge usually proceeds along paths that have been determined in the past.

Thus, although disciplinary boundaries are blurred, the disciplinary plane remains, just as the paper on which two colors of paint are mixed remains. Even if the disciplines are flexible to a degree, they are not so flexible as their absolute stature would seem to require, assuming that the core value of academic freedom implies in part that the pursuit of knowledge is potentially limitless. The "blurring" of disciplinary boundaries is only a relatively small indication of where inquiry can go, since this blurring is essentially confined to the disciplinary plane and therefore does not significantly challenge the absoluteness of the disciplines and the kind of pursuit of knowledge that they manifest. This critique does not mean that the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge of reality would not be a foundation of postmodern higher education. It does mean, however, that the disciplines and the idea of reality as preexistent, independent things would not have absolute stature in effect.

A Postmodern Foundation for Higher Education

The problem of an alternative, postmodern foundation for higher education is twofold. First, intellectual activity must be reconceived in a way that removes the disciplines' stature as absolute structures, while retaining the vitality of the pursuit of knowledge within them, so that the pursuit of knowledge is expanded, and its possibilities really are potentially limitless. Second, the conception that is produced must be organized in some form in actual practice. I will treat these two questions in the order that I have just presented. A full explication is beyond the scope of this article. Therefore, the remainder of this article is intended to provide a beginning for a fuller elaboration of these questions in the future

I propose that a conception for postmodern higher education can be inferred from the fragmentation of the disciplines itself. The "blurring of [End Page 131] boundaries" suggests that even though the disciplines as structures are absolute in effect, some intellectual activity within the disciplines does not follow this principle but is trying in part to move out of these boundaries. Cross-disciplinary inquiries are efforts to pursue knowledge without being essentially constrained by the structure and content of a single discipline, including subject matter, predominant theories, typical methods, or primary schools of thought. They imply a general desire to conceive knowledge and theoretical practice in new ways.

In particular, cross-disciplinarity implies at least two things that are important for the idea of a postmodern university. First, a postmodern inquiry would be self-organizing in that its particular foundations would emerge in the course of the inquiry rather than be predetermined in the form of discipline-bound theories, methods, and schools of thought. One might think of this process as something like composing a narrative, in that the ground of a particular inquiry is shaped by what emerges in the course of that inquiry itself. Such an idea of a theoretical ground is "local," in that inquiry is explicitly dependent on a context that is essentially defined by a knower or group of knowers engaged in a particular inquiry, rather than the context's being "already there" in a discipline.

Applying this idea to a postmodern conception of the university would mean that disciplines would not function primarily as "top-down" structures but would be generated and changed "bottom-up," amid the diversity of particular inquiries. Postmodern "disciplines" would be determined by forms of thought that emerge in the course of particular inquiries that have points of compatibility and can thus serve as links across particular inquiries. (For the sake of clarity, I shall continue to use disciplines in this subsection, with the proviso that this word means something different in a postmodern setting than it does in its modern meaning). Postmodern disciplines would be networks of particular inquiries that would always be subject to change, dissolution, and replacement as different particular inquiries and linkages come into being and end.

The second theme underlying cross-disciplinarity that can be inferred and used as a basis for a postmodern university is a general desire to not be constrained by the "disciplinary plane" and by the idea that the pursuit of knowledge is about a preexistent and independent reality. Cross-disciplinary inquiries manifest not only the desire to traverse the boundaries of specific disciplines; they also display a general desire to traverse the "absolute" boundary, the pursuit of knowledge of reality, and the disciplines as this boundary's collective manifestation. Thus, cross-disciplinarity suggests that postmodern forms of inquiry could move beyond the disciplines entirely toward other forms of knowledge. These other forms would not be constrained by the modern assumption that any legitimate pursuit of knowledge is essentially concerned with theories that explain some aspect of reality [End Page 132] that is allegedly present, independent of its pursuit. Reality outside the disciplines would become something that is produced in the course of inquiry rather than an object which is essentially separate from the inquiry and which inquiry seeks to discover, accurately represent, and explain.

Research Programs Outside the Disciplines

How would intellectual activity that embodied these two themes inferred from cross-disciplinarity, namely, the self-determining particularity of inquiry and the pursuit of a-disciplinary forms of knowledge, be organized in a postmodern university? I propose that the basic institutional form of intellectual activity outside the disciplines would be organized in what I will call postmodern research programs. (I borrow the term "research program," but not the meaning, from philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, 1978). A postmodern research program would be pursued by a group of thinkers who come together with the aim of pursuing an intellectually compelling idea or ideas. By "intellectually compelling idea," I mean an idea that deviates from what is normal in the disciplines yet which strikes a scholar as potentially important and thus worth pursuing nonetheless. Such an idea would be what Rorty calls "abnormal," relative to disciplinary knowledge.

Before developing the concept of research programs, I will propose an organizational vehicle for their formation, which I will call "intellectual forums." Intellectual forums would be open campus events in which scholars present compelling ideas. The aim of a presentation would be to share one's idea with the hope that other scholars will find the ideas compelling enough to discuss forming a research program. A scholar would seek to cross paths with others who did not know the idea before the presentation and who find the idea compelling. Forums seek to set intellectual "sparks flying" as Rorty would say. They could occur both on campus and by electronic conference. Following Foucault, the aim of such forums would be to release controversial inquiries from their "marginalized" status in the disciplines. Taking these "marginal" ideas out of the disciplines would allow them to be pursued without being constrained by disciplinary assumptions, including the disciplines' most basic assumption--that knowledge of reality is knowledge of something that precedes and is independent of its pursuit.

A research program would be composed of interested individuals from a diverse group of disciplines. Members of the program would share the ways that their respective disciplines would typically conceptualize the compelling idea with the group. In doing so, however, the aim would not be to make diverse disciplinary conceptions commensurable or to synthesize them. Rather, the aim would be to use these disciplinary differences, in the development of the compelling idea, as points of departure from disciplinary characterizations of knowledge and reality. Researchers would seek to create or [End Page 133] discover a dynamic between disciplinary discourses that yields a new concept, not a stable resolution or merger. Specifically, researchers would express the idea as conceptualized by its home discipline A in the languages of disciplines B, C, and D to stimulate the production of a new conception E. E would be different from the others, yet its difference would be a product of the relativization of A in terms of the other disciplines. The focus and organizing principle of research would be the expression of the idea in this new language. Development of the idea in this way would take precedence over any particular disciplinary approach. In essence, postmodern research would be directed toward answering the question: If this promising idea is marginal in its home discipline and if its elaboration does not conform to typical conceptions from other disciplines, then what is this idea?

Consistent with Derrida's notion of "general writing," the concept of postmodern research programs would affirm the potential of intellect to shape reality rather than limit intellect to the study of things that are already there. Just as no disciplinary approach can claim to be an absolute foundation for others, this contextual activity would be absolved from having to be grounded in anything besides its own articulation in the course of intellectual practice. The order, content, direction, purpose, clarity, and understanding of the idea would not exist before and independent of the research but would emerge from and be shaped by the course of the inquiry. In this sense, the foundation of the inquiry would be a consequence of the inquiry itself. It would be a context-dependent, local foundation rather than an absolute one. In this process, scholars would use particular forms of disciplinary knowledge of reality to move beyond the disciplines. For any given research program, the local context would be the particular disciplinary theories and methods that are used as points of departure. Modern disciplines would function as points of departure for new paths of thought rather than as top-down a priori structures that largely determine the nature and course of particular inquiries. These departures would foster the pursuit of Rorty's "edifying" thought. The diverse composition of a research program membership would facilitate the formation of these new paths because scholars from outside the home discipline would not have the same preconceptions about the idea as those who are situated within the home discipline. Similarly, moving these scholars outside of their own disciplines would encourage them to be freer to experiment with and depart from the conventions of their disciplines.

Not all potentially compelling ideas would be fruitful, but neither are all knowledge claims about reality in the disciplines fruitful. Further, if the notion that outcome is a function of process seems unusual, I point out that no one really knows for certain where the various disciplinary pursuits of knowledge may lead. Also, the points of departure for postmodern research programs are not simply arbitrary. Rather, they are based upon the [End Page 134] languages of established disciplinary (and/or interdisciplinary) theories and methods. However, the concept of a multiplicity of particularistic postmodern research programs reflects that a new conception of intellectual practice that is consistent with postmodern philosophy cannot be based on a single, all-encompassing research program or a general unification of programs. In effect, the disciplines would be the raw material for the pursuit of forms of reasoning that would use disciplinary knowledge of reality in order create new forms of knowledge and reality. The development of these forms, goals, and ends would be the creation of knowledge and, by implication, the meaning of postmodern reality. Like philosopher Martha Nussbaum's description of Socratic inquiry (1985, p. 13), postmodern research programs would reveal, delineate, and refine goals and ends in the course of the inquiry.

Over time, two or more research programs might affiliate. Affiliation would be motivated by a recognition of the compelling potential of working together by the members of respective programs based on the diversity of their ideas. These groupings would be highly permeable so that at any point in time a research program that might be formally located in one grouping could interact with programs in other groupings. The fluidity of forums and research programs would discourage the entrenchment of ideas and encourage an intellectual environment that expresses Lyotard's notion of ever-changing, particularistic "language games" in the form of a dynamic multiplicity of local research pursuits. These groupings would be the networks that I described in the last section. From an administrative perspective, the groupings would be structures that manage the flux of particular pursuits of knowledge so that particulars can inform each other for the purpose of creating new lines of inquiry and new linkages rather than establishing themselves as general explanations. Amid this fluidity, the persistence of a particular program or grouping would reflect its richness as a basis for the generation of other compelling ideas.

In the form of postmodern research programs, the concept of interdisciplinarity would be very much a part of the postmodern university. However, postmodern interdisciplinarity would be very different from typical modern formulations of the concept in at least one important respect. Although modern forms of interdisciplinarity are often presented in the context of a critique of the disciplines, they do not significantly mediate the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge of reality (Clark & Wawrytko, 1990; Klein, 1990; Kockelmans, 1979). Interdisciplinarity emerges in response to problems defined in terms of the disciplines and is usually advanced as a way of enhancing the disciplinary pursuit of knowledge of reality or the comprehensive application of disciplinary knowledge to practical problems.

Further, the emphasis of modern interdisciplinarity is at a meta-level, whether that is the unification of knowledge or the resolution of large-scale [End Page 135] problems. In either case, it does not replace the disciplines but fills in alleged gaps between them by creating "cross-disciplines" that are essentially combinations of disciplines. Most importantly, going "between" the disciplines or working with more than one discipline to solve a large problem retains the absoluteness of the disciplines. In fact, it extends their absoluteness. Sharp disciplinary distinctions are smoothed over with the ultimate aim of fundamental coherence. In effect, modern interdisciplinarity tries to repair the modern fragmentation of knowledge by bringing disciplines together. It implies an ultimate ideal, namely, the unification of disciplinary knowledge as a totality. For these reasons, modern interdisciplinarity is largely an uncritical extension of the disciplines rather than a critical alternative. It is implicitly an idea of the absolute.

In contrast, the postmodern idea of the disciplines advocated here does not view the fragmentation of knowledge as an abnormality that needs to be repaired so that the normality of unity can be restored or realized. Postmodern research programs and groupings would have the goal of creating intellectually compelling pursuits of knowledge that are different from those is given in the disciplines. Their dynamic would be consonant with the late French postmodernist Roland Barthes's (1986) brief remark: "In order to do interdisciplinary work, it is not enough to take a 'subject' (a theme) and to arrange two or three sciences around it. Interdisciplinary study consists in creating a new object" (p. 72).

In this postmodern framework, the idea of interdisciplinarity is different from the ways that it is typically conceived. It is not a basis for overcoming the fragmentation of knowledge and the gaps between the disciplines by a unifying the divergent pursuits of knowledge of reality. Ideas are not pursued to permanently establish them or to render knowledge whole. Nor would they be essentially about a preexistent reality. Postmodern cross-disciplinary encounters and collaborations do not synthesize divergent ideas but use them to produce compelling ideas that are not limited by the disciplines. The aim of this postmodern framework would not be to normalize inquiry but to create new compelling discourse, to change what is normal. The breakdown of Enlightenment faith in the belief that universal progress will inevitably or likely follow the "free" pursuit of knowledge of reality requires a new conception of knowledge, one that departs from the "absolute foundation" of the disciplines.

However, liberating intellect from the absolute foundation of the disciplines does not mean that the disciplines would vanish. Their longevity suggests that they are compelling ideas themselves. Nevertheless, it is possible that postmodern research programs could develop conceptions of knowledge and reality that would eventually take the idea of the university well beyond modern disciplinary ideas of knowledge and reality. In effect, this is what the four postmodern philosophers that I summarized do with [End Page 136] the conventions of particular disciplines. Foucault does it with history, Lyotard with science, Rorty with philosophy, and Derrida with the entire Western intellectual tradition of knowledge, particularly in regard to its "presence" in philosophy and literature. As each of these thinkers has done, successful research programs would greatly expand the possibilities for what counts as a scholarly activity. The point of departing from the disciplines is not simply to depart from them, but to pursue what emerges in the departures. It is conceivable that the vitality of postmodern intellectual activity could become so pervasive and its ideas so compelling that it would eventually render obsolete the disciplines themselves. In their place would be a fundamentally altered understanding of intellect, reality, and the pursuit of knowledge.

Roger P. Mourad, Jr., has a Ph.D. in the study of higher education from the University of Michigan, where he has taught educational foundations for two years. He also holds a J.D. in law, an M.A. in educational foundations, and a B.A. in philosophy, also from the University of Michigan. His first book, Postmodern Philosophical Critiques and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Higher Education, will be published by Greenwood Publishing Group in its Bergin and Garvey Series, Critical Studies in Education and Culture.

*In this section, The Review of Higher Education publishes solicited or volunteered discussions of significant emerging topics in higher education. The purpose is to inform readers of pressing issues, controversies, or emerging policy concerns, innovative uses of research methodologies, and promising new ways of studying higher education problems. The choice of manuscripts is made by Editorial Board members.

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