1 the essence and characteristics of postmodern thoughts
Postmodernism is a pan-cultural trend of thought that has prevailed in the western world since 1960s, especially since 1980s. It is also a philosophical thinking mode and attitude that criticizes and deconstructs modern cultural philosophy and spiritual value orientation. Although this anti-modernity trend of thought was conceived in the maternal embryo of modernism in 1930s, it is mainly the product of post-modern society (also known as post-industrial society, information society and late capitalism) adapting to the development of scientific and technological revolution, and it is also the reflection of American social crisis and spiritual alienation.
Four development stages of postmodernism
(1)1934 ~1964 is the stage when postmodern terms begin to be applied and ambiguous;
(2) In the middle and late 1960s, the elite consciousness of postmodernism and modernism broke completely, showing a period of anti-culture and anti-knowledge;
(3) 1972 ~ 1976 is the post-modernism ideological trend stage of existentialism;
(4) The late 1970s to the mid-1980s was the stage when the concept of postmodernism became more comprehensive and inclusive [1].
Postmodernism has gone far beyond the field of literature and art, and penetrated into many fields such as philosophy, philosophy of science, psychology, religion, law and education [2.3].
1.2 main features of postmodern philosophy
(1) Anti-subjectivity postmodern philosophy put forward the slogans of "the subject is dead" and "man is dead" after Nietzsche put forward the slogan of "God is dead". They mean that the concepts of subject and person in the subject-object dichotomy are unrealistic, and the "anthropocentrism" of western traditional philosophy, especially modern philosophy, has been shattered.
(2) Anti-universality and anti-identity postmodern philosophy holds that differences are everywhere, even in repetition, the world without differences is a pale and boring world. Traditional philosophy regards universality and identity as the highest essence of human beings, which can only make people become abstract people without personality, blood, meat and emotion.
(3) Post-modern philosophy of uncertainty holds that there is no independent and comfortable world, and the world is made up of language. In other words, the world itself has the structure of language, and language is not a tool for people to express their meaning, it has its own system. Everything that is known is mediated by language, and the so-called facts and truth are only linguistic. In their view, "I don't speak language, but language is talking about me". In this way, people have retreated from the human-centered position in western traditional philosophy to the position mastered by language. However, language is always uncertain and vacillates with the speaker's unstable mood. Therefore, everything is uncertain, vague, pluralistic and deconstructed [4].
(4) Internality If uncertainty mainly represents the result of the disappearance of center and noumenon, then internality represents the tendency of human mind to adapt to all reality itself. This shows that postmodern philosophy is no longer transcendental, and it is no longer interested in transcendental values such as spirit, value or ultimate concern, truth, goodness and beauty. On the contrary, it is an internal adaptation to the environment, reality and creation.
Postmodernism philosophy is a new cognitive paradigm that questions, reflects and criticizes modernism. Its spearhead points to dogmatism, formalism and empiricism in traditional philosophy, which is completely anti-tradition and anti-authority. It has experienced the transformation from logocentrism to centrism pluralism, from depth mode to plane mode, from people-centered to anti-traditional humanism. It can promote us to broaden our horizons, renew our concepts, change the rigid and closed way of thinking in the past, realize the integration of disciplines, and be close to popularization and real life.
2 the consistency between humanistic psychology and post-modern thoughts
Post-modernist philosophy flourished later than humanistic psychology, with the ideological tendency of extreme subjectivism, irrationalism, relativism and nihilism different from humanistic psychology, and even with the characteristics of anti-humanistic psychology such as anti-subjectivity, denial of self-identity and opposition to anthropocentrism. Therefore, postmodern philosophy not only does not directly affect the emergence of humanistic psychology, on the contrary, it has a great impact on humanistic psychology, because it violently attacks the values and motivation patterns of "normal" behavior.
However, the social and cultural backgrounds produced by postmodernism and humanistic psychology are similar to some extent [6], and both of them are related to the social crisis and spiritual alienation in the United States. Some of them have participated in the anti-war movement, or are members of the new left and counterculture [7], and they are all influenced by phenomenology, existentialism and Freudianism [8]. Therefore, humanistic psychology and post-modernist philosophy have some overlap [8].
2. 1 attack scientism
On the one hand, western society relies on and develops modern science and technology, making the whole country rich and people's lives rich. On the other hand, with the unprecedented expansion of human knowledge, the extensive use of computers and databases, the great progress of science and technology has led to a "legitimacy crisis" and the proliferation of scientism that studies people as machines or animals, thus making many people in modern western society feel the loss of life meaning and spiritual value. Facing this reality, postmodernism has gradually become a kind of "cultural imperialism" by criticizing science tit for tat. Computer hegemony makes people ignore the inner cultivation of mind and intelligence and pursue the cold "externalization" symbol operation in the commodity world [10]. American sociologist Bell (19 19 ~) pointed out that people in post-modern society have two ways to experience the world: the rapid change of the external world leads to their sense of time and space confusion; However, the demise of religious belief, the loss of hope for super life, and the new consciousness that life is limited and everything is empty after death have created a crisis of self-awareness. In this way, people came to a "edge of a blank wasteland" that lacked the meaning of life. Postmodernism has repeatedly emphasized the importance of spiritual value, paid attention to solving the problem of the meaning of life, and rebuilt spiritual belief, thus becoming the spiritual pillar of maintaining social unity. Habermas, a famous philosopher of the second generation of Frankfurt School, sublated the one-sidedness of humanism and scientism, showing the trend of integration of western humanism and scientism.
Similarly, humanistic psychology also explicitly criticized the scientism tendency in psychology. They oppose the mechanical reductionism of behaviorism and the biological reductionism of psychoanalysis, pointing out that the naturalism and experimentalism in psychology make psychology imitate the model of physical science, and the experimental method is unique and absolute, which will inevitably lead to the dehumanization of psychology and fall into the situation of mechanism and reductionism [1 1]. Therefore, humanistic psychologists began to put forward the integration of scientism and humanism, positivism and phenomenology in psychology, emphasizing the study of human value and significance, human nature and potential, human freedom and choice. Although these thoughts are not exactly the same as post-modernism, they coincide in attacking the harm of scientism, attaching importance to the meaning and value of life, and being compatible with scientism and humanism [7].
2.2 Reconstruction of interpersonal communication
In Bell's view, post-industrial society (America) is a new type of society different from pre-industrial society (Asia, Africa and Latin America) and industrial society (Western Europe, Russia and Japan). Among them, the "intention" of pre-industrial society is "competition with nature", and its resources come from mining industry, which is restricted by the law of diminishing returns and has low productivity; The "intention" of industrial society is to "compete with processed nature", centering on the relationship between man and machine, and using energy to turn the natural environment into a technical environment; The "intention" of post-industrial society is "competition among people", in which "intelligent technology" based on information keeps pace with mechanical technology. With the disintegration of the opposition between subject and object and the deconstruction of nihilism belief, on the one hand, it seems to affirm the possibility of people's * * * knowledge and communication, but on the other hand, it is believed that the narratives of various factions cannot establish * * * knowledge and dialogue and communication. Therefore, criticizing the distortion of communication in the information society, exploring the possible basis of human communication and rebuilding interpersonal communication and relationships have become the core topics of post-modern culture [12].
According to postmodernists, the basis of communication is that people are always in the context of interpersonal relationships. If people don't want to fall into nihilistic self-contradiction, they must turn from the thinking mode of subject-object opposition to the mode of "I-you relationship" and realize all-round communication with interpersonal relationship as the core [13]. German philosopher Gadamer believes that from communication to understanding, it is not the simple grasp of the object by the subject, but the fusion of horizons. From the perspective of hermeneutics, the interpreter has his own historical tradition, and the object of understanding also has his own historical tradition. Understanding is not that the interpreter abandons his own tradition to accept the object of understanding, nor imposes his own tradition on the object of understanding, but that the interpreter transcends his own tradition and the tradition of understanding the object, and reaches a new realm through the blending of two kinds of visual traditions (the original viewpoint and meaning system of understanding things).
Similarly, humanistic psychology also insists on learning from hermeneutics and Martin? Buber's "I-you relationship" model is used to build interpersonal communication and relationships. In Buber's view, only when people meet each other, that is, when everyone meets something (people or things) he faces in the whole place, can people realize their existence. Therefore, a person is an interaction, a relationship and a dialogue with the people he meets. Buber's thinking mode was not only fully affirmed by Maslow, but also thoroughly implemented in Rogers' practice of visitor center therapy, friendship group and existential analysis therapy. Humanistic psychologists regard coordinating interpersonal communication, rebuilding interpersonal communication and gaining mutual understanding as the key to the success of psychotherapy and counseling [7].
2.3 the realization of human personality
Derrida, a French post-structuralist philosopher, opposes Hegel's view that identity is higher than difference, that identity is the "truth" of difference, and that difference is higher than identity and universality is the basis of identity. Postmodernism opposes turning people into indiscriminate abstract beings, and strongly advocates and displays people's multiple personalities. According to them, in the process of communication, people send out some information through words and actions to express the feelings, emotional tendencies, personality state, will and motivation of the communicators, which are collectively called human personality.
Similarly, humanistic psychology also attaches great importance to the study of human personality and uniqueness. As early as the founding of the American Humanistic Psychology Association, they defined "experienced individuals" as the main object of psychological research. Allport, a pioneer of humanistic psychology, believes that recognizing everyone's personality and uniqueness.