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METAMODERNISM THROUGH THE LENSES OF EPISTEMOLOGY 

Ovwata Success Onojieruo 

Department of Philosophy,  

University of Ibadan, 

Ibadan, Nigeria 

sovwataonojieruo@gmail.com 

  

ABSTRACT 

This paper interrogates the idea of metamodernism against the background of a claim for the 

demise of postmodernism, evaluating the extent to which postmodernist perspectives cause an 

implosion for its ideology, while at the same time setting the background for an elaboration of 

the metamodernist schema. In placing modernism, postmodernism and metamodernism on a 

holistic ideological scale, the paper argues for a re-conception of these terms on an ideological 

as opposed to a historical notation, which aids the perception of all three conceptions as being 

historically overlapping and existing in the same era. Thus metamodernism is treated as an 

offshoot of a postmodernist adoption of modernism.  Furthermore, the arguments developed 

attempt to synergize both postmodern and metamodern ideological schemas as fundamentally 

grounded in an approach which sees philosophical engagements as being an integral aspect of 

the human culture; while at the same time pushing for a redefinition of knowledge within the 

subset of a virtual environment (Virtual Epistemology). 

Keywords: Modernism, Postmodernism, Post-postmodernism, Metamodernism, Virtual 

Epistemology. 

INTRODUCTION 

The nature and manner of epistemic concerns are such that while the question of truth, belief 

and justification remain its fundamental layer for analysis, the construction of knowledge 

consistently evolves by refining itself into areas and limits that seem even less plausible, 

challenging the very conditions against which theories and presuppositions on truth and 

justification can be laid. One such area is the redefinition of social knowledge within the circles 

of what has now been termed as ‘the modernisms’; modernism, postmodernism and 

metamodernism. This paper intends to focus on the metamodern by examining the idea of 

metamodernism through an interrogation of the stylistic distinctions between the modern, 

postmodern and metamodern, treating them as ideological systems rather than historical 

periods. The paper focuses on the ideology of postmodernism in its first section, interrogating 

how the postmodernist idea implodes based on the objectivist relativist argument upon which 

a large chunk of its ideological energy has been spent. In the second section, the paper 

interrogates the idea of metamodernism as a post postmodernist concept, rather than a historical 

period, from what lenses the last two sections treat metamodernism in its own right, through a 

presentation of its epistemic tensions and an exposition of Virtual Epistemology as the central 

point of focus for a metamodern epistemology.  

As this paper argues, metamodernism creates its scheme of operations, wherein in cyberculture; 

it collapses the analogue model of modernism, and the digital model of postmodernism, into a 

virtual model. In Knowledge construction; it combines modern objectivism with postmodern 

relativism and pluralism, seeing both as relevant narratives and ideological systems without 

committing or expressing fidelity to any. Similarly, In the Social sphere; metamodernism basks 

mailto:sovwataonojieruo@gmail.com


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in what Vermeulen and Akker (2010) have conceptualized as a both-neither dynamic, which 

embraces stark opposites and basks in the euphoria of rejection and acceptance, hostility and 

consolidation, etcetera. The endpoint of its interrogation is on the lack of any definite end point, 

its continuous flow of epistemic interrogations, its recreation of the social into the ‘new social’ 

vis-à-vis; the virtual, and its ability to grapple with conflicting ideologies in a much different 

way from postmodernism. Thus, the first point of interrogation for this paper is the idea of 

postmodernism, and the underlying grounds for a declaration of its demise, in the face of 

metamodern ideological flourish.  

THE DEMISE OF POST-MODERNISM 

Whether or not Postmodernism had real boundaries would remain a basic ‘problematic’, but 

its very intrinsic nature of being a confluence of so many alternatives cum alternate realities, 

factored-in ideologies, and divergent methodologies may not be unrelated to the nitty-gritty of 

practical chaos. An obvious juxtaposition remains its ironical non-exaltation of the human 

agency, and its ability to navigate a conceptualization even of a post-human world from the 

lenses of anti-humanism (see Braidotti, 2013). Rorty argued that a charge of relativism –a 

charge to which postmodernism has had its fair share of such categorization– gains traction 

against the background existence of objectivity. This draws the permutation that eliminating 

objective standards would engender the disappearance of any charge to relativism (Misak, 

2011). This in a way, may be styled as a fundamental aspect of Lyotard’s conception of 

postmodernism as being against grand narratives, to which “we can resort neither to the 

dialectic of Spirit nor even to the emancipation of humanity as a validation for postmodern 

scientific discourse, but… the little narrative [petit recit] remains the quintessential form of 

imaginative invention” (Lyotard, 1979, p. 60).  

But, to what extent can such a conception be said to exist within the subset of a world which 

grapples after the objective? In all sectors of the mind processes, something tangible seems an 

obvious reality, and reality itself becomes something tangible. On reasonable ground, one 

might call G. E. Moore's truisms an assertion of this reality. For example; in his conception, 

certain aspects of the human entity and experiences were true as they were, undeniable in the 

very word of it, for which any attempt at a definition could lead to a naturalistic fallacy (Moore, 

1903). Moore argued that certain basic elements were undeniably objective in nature, “for 

example that he has body, (meaning that a material body exists at least), that he lives on the 

surface of the earth (meaning that the earth exists), that he was born a certain number of years 

ago (meaning that time exists and is real), that the earth itself existed for several years before 

he was born, and so on” (Omoregbe, 1991, p. 112). Moore’s simple style of making these 

common-sensical arguments though seen in some quarters as naïve, yet paved the way for a 

clear realization that philosophy could and should appeal to common sense. This meant that 

philosophy had to deal with the world as it were, rather than appeal to some abstract and 

metaphysical phenomenon which had no bearing on human reality. Although his argument was 

pushed against the extreme metaphysical presuppositions of the British idealists (Datta, 1961) 

the basic juxtaposition of his truisms draws on the very nature of reality, wherein certain 

commonsensical ideas could serve as an obvious refutation to other forms of extremities 

existing within the human thought process. However, Russell's perspective of shedding doubts 

even on reality within the subset of his logical atomistic position, most especially embedded in 

his notion of viewing reality as a product of logical fiction, wherein he argues that “in all cases 

where you seem to have a continuous entity persisting through changes, what you have to do 

is to ask yourself what makes you consider the successive appearances as belonging to one 

thing. When you have found out what makes you take the view that they belong to the same 



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thing, you will then see that that which has made you say so, is all that is certainly there in the 

way of unity.” (Russell, 1918, p. 115) This unity as he argues can be more categorized as being 

logical fictions ; “those things which are supposed to be part of the ultimate constituents of the 

world, but not to be the kind of thing that is ever empirically given.” (Russell, 1918, p. 113, 

see also p. 115). Still, Russell’s obvious downplay of his position serves to presume it is a 

product of some far-pushed metaphysical presuppositions. While on the one hand, Moore’s 

position affirms reality to which Russell’s idea of logical fiction serves to tune down the 

strength of commonsensical arguments, a basic line of synergy between both juxtapositions 

draws on the methodology (in accepting the existence of something objective; commonsensical 

for Moore, and Fictional for Russell) which could be of an advantage in accurately capturing 

reality, than the obvious inconsistencies within the later-postmodernist narrative wherein all 

attempts at comprehending reality becomes factored into the dynamic of ‘relative realities’. 

This poses a basic question as to how exactly the benchmark for truth could be measured if 

every permutation about reality is factored in as being true.  

To some extent, Rorty’s epistemological behaviourism can be seen as playing a vital role in 

providing some clarifying arguments. Rorty argued that knowledge could be conceived as 

being a product of social agreements; thus the essence of epistemological behaviourism serves 

to look at the construction of knowledge from the perspective of what society lets us say rather 

than what there is, as he opines; “Explaining rationality and epistemic authority by reference 

to what society lets us say, rather than the latter by the former, is the essence of what I shall 

call ‘epistemological behaviorism’" (Rorty, 1979, p. 174).  

While an obvious reality of Rorty’s position is its obvious reality; that is, Rorty’s assertion 

served to describe what plays out in the real world, thus bringing to bear a wholesome 

explanation for the differences in understanding divergent perspectives on reality and 

conceptions on the nature of things. Rorty’s position of social construction for knowledge does 

not negate the existence of certain aspects within even differing constructions, which overlap 

each other. This becomes the fulcrum of arguments on the very existence of concepts in 

philosophy, culture and religion, which can be deemed to transcend cultural boundaries, vis-a-

vis; concepts seen as universal in nature (Fayemi, 2010; see also Wiredu, 1996) on what 

grounds it becomes quite difficult to fault the epistemic idea of universally existing concepts, 

or even the Kantian notion of categorical imperative (although this is not always the case), yet 

the existence of certain universal truisms (if we may borrow Moore’s terminology); such as 

similarity in the biological constructions of all humanity, the ability of each human entity to 

rationalize and come to reasonable conclusions on issues or situations et al, tends to portend 

the reality of a common universal concept of ‘humanity’ shared by all. On this premise, we 

may bluntly say to a denier of objectivity; that at least something which is non-relative is 

brazenly known. 

However, if we balance this above assertion with Donald Davidson's conceptual scheme, we 

may rather see conceptual relativity as existing on some levels of societal linings than on all 

levels. This infers that while conceptual schemes "are ways of organizing experience… 

systems of categories that give form to the data of sensation… points of view from which 

individuals, cultures, or periods survey the passing scene” (Davidson, 1973, p. 5), conceptual 

relativity should instead be viewed, not from the concept of reality as being relative to each 

conceptual scheme, but the ‘conception of such reality’ as being relative to each conceptual 

scheme. This follows Dworkin's (1986) argument that while concept would refer to the most 

general or abstract propositions people could agree about a particular phenomenon, the 

conceptions of that concept would deal with the competing positions on what the concept is. 



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In this regard "the contrast between concept and conception here is a contrast (of) levels of 

abstraction” (Dworkin, 1986, p. 71). Thus, the very idea of certain elements of society which 

are cross-cultural, subject to the particularistic structure of the human mind, evident in almost 

every individualistic cultural presumption, and can more categorically be described as cross-

conceptual schemes, rather enunciates the reality that an obvious push towards extreme 

relativism, emplaced, and heralded (if one may be permitted to speak of this conceptualization 

as though in the past tense) what may be presumed as the demise of postmodernism.  

For instance, a peek into the psychological elements of the human person, as well as the 

sociological subset of societal underpinning portends similarity even in ‘wonderings’ over the 

categorization of what could be termed ‘the necessity of a divine entity.’ Campbell (1949/2004) 

draws quite an intriguing argument on the similarities amongst several existing myths and 

mythological personages, the cross-cultural narration on their quest, struggles, achievements, 

and the boons they bestow on humanity. In the same vein Carlyle's argument in his Lectures 

"On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History," (Carlyle, 1841/2013) further perfects 

the conceptualization of what has been deemed or conceived as 'heroic points,' which amplifies 

the very notion of existing cross-cultural wonders or schemes, cross-cultural fears, cross-

cultural realities; to which each culture attempts to capture. This again brings to being the 

essence of Russell’s ‘Logical atomism’. Russell's position can serve as a perfect outline for the 

kind of argument we intend to build; which is such that sees the existence of the objective, as 

being captured by different cultures in divergent ways, but whose very substance remains the 

same. Hence we may more properly relate it to the medieval era substance/accident discourse, 

where substances serve for ‘that which exist;’ a point to which Russell attempted to outline 

within the notion of ‘Particulars’ as being a replacement for medieval ‘substance’; even though 

there are clear differences between both conceptions (Russell, 1918, p.32). Thus culture, 

language, religion, and every other lining of the human social sphere aim to capture or draw 

towards capturing such objectivity. An attempt at which may result in either comprehending 

only an aspect of such reality or miscomprehending such aspect; from whence the contextual 

objective scheme could be drawn. This further amplifies Russell’s argument on the existence 

of two propositions as being correspondent to a fact; one which is true, and another which is 

false. 

However, our central argument remains that the categorization of Postmodernism on the 

baseline of a ‘rejection of objectivity,’ rather than its interrogation sets the obvious mark for 

an ideological suicide. This further draws on the permutation that the postmodern walls 

collapse against itself; thus it implodes, and not just explodes; and the subject of such implosion 

remains an obvious attempt at trying to emplace what we may term ‘universal holistic 

relativism,’ even on iota’s of human culture which had more properly been seen as ‘universal’ 

in its lining. Although the postmodernist assault on an approach to reality as being dependent 

on a singularized methodology remains vital for interrogating and pulling down what may be 

categorized as unwanted objective structures, or unnecessary popular absolutist schemes such 

as the universal absolutism and methodology, fast flowing within the ambits of human society 

in the guise of professionalism and scientism.  

On this note, an obvious remedy to the quagmire of postmodernism ought to be hinged on the 

interrogation of objective aspects of human society, and the bringing to the forefront the 

relative; where ‘the relative’ becomes a new name for differing viewpoints needing further 

interrogation and amplification. Thus it neither emplaces objectivity nor pushes relativism, but 

factors both into ‘being,’ and brings to bear the agency of the human in passing a verdict. This 



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in essence tends towards a line of thought that we may more properly classify as the 

‘Metamodern.’ 

METAMODERNISM AS A POST-POSTMODERNIST CONCEPT 

While the very idea of metamodernism takes its roots in culture theory, as well as draws on 

what seem to be noticeable trends in the arts and architecture, entertainment, and cyber-culture, 

its basic underlining permutation is hinged on the notion that the world has moved on from a 

postmodernist perspective, and currently trends a part which does not fit into the box of 

postmodernist discourses and as such requires a new conception, that of metamodernism. This 

conception whose most recent usage became popularized by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin 

van den Akker, in their 2010 paper ‘Notes on Metamodernism’, attempts to herald a victorious 

course for the successful naming of an era whose patterns and mannerisms had remained 

hitherto unnamed, or whose naming had only resulted in several forms of declined popular 

usage; from Alan Kirby’s conception of the era as digimodernism (see Kirby, 2009), or Pseudo 

modernism, to Robert Samuel’s automodernism (see Samuels, 2009), to Post-postmodernism, 

the very idea has being that; the world has outlived the postmodernist boundaries and as such 

deserves to move on. But isn't this very acclaimed desire a product of that which the post-

modernist ideology attempted to grapple with? That is; the very idea of modernity depicts “a 

cultural epoch and ‘episteme’ founded in a humanistic belief that the world is one. This belief, 

codified in centuries of realist art, representational politics and empirical science, is tantamount 

to the assertion that a common denominator can be found for all systems of belief and value: 

that the world is a unified field, explicable by a single explanatory system” (Ermarth, 1998, 

p.6742), of which such explanatory system gave rise to universal conceptions of reality an 

opening for which science filled and upon which scientism had its rooting. However, can such 

a desire for objectivity be said to have been abandoned in the acclaimed postmodernist era?  

The basic problem with nomenclatural denotations has remained its ability to conceptualize or 

attempt to conceptualize the ‘should-be’ rather than the ‘is.’ This argument is hinged on the 

permutation that without adequately conceptualizing the ‘is’, scholarship seems more eagerly 

desirous of announcing an end of the ‘is’ and a beginning of the ‘should-be’, much in the same 

way Rorty attempted to presume an end of philosophy as practised (see Rorty, 1979), but what 

followed was not an end of philosophy in itself but rather an attempt to create such end by 

pointing out inconsistencies and hoping such inconsistencies could bring to bear such ‘end.’ 

Hence in a much similar vein, it can be argued that Lyotards ‘the postmodern condition,’ which 

although seen as the heralding point of postmodernism, was in itself prescriptive rather than 

being realistically descriptive. However making an argument for the non-existence of a post-

modern culture may seem too difficult to elucidate, but in adopting a seemingly simple 

approach to such reality, one may ask its defendant to point out a single realistic artefact of the 

postmodern relic, and all that may be seen could be some good books, numerous scholastic 

articles, and if the pointer attempts to drive home his point with a more convincing form of 

practicality, he may illustrate that by pointing to some movies, or music, or artworks, or 

architectural masterpieces, etcetera, but in the real world, what changed or has changed or is in 

the process of changing? This may bring to bear an obvious similarity with Rorty’s pathos. 

Where in his conceptualization; 

Intellectuals cannot live without pathos. Theists find pathos in the distance 

between the human and the divine. Realists find it in the abyss separating human 

thought and language from reality as it is in itself. Pragmatists find it in the gap 

between contemporary humanity and a utopian human future. In which the very 



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idea of responsibility to anything except our fellow humans has become 

unintelligible, resulting in the first truly humanistic culture. If you do not like 

the term "pathos" the word "romance" would do well. Or one might use Thomas 

Nagel's term "the ambition of transcendence." The important point is that both 

sides of contemporary Philosophy are trying to gratify one of the urges 

previously satisfied by religion. (Rorty, 2002, p.31) 

It can be inferred that in attempting to keep itself relevant to the discursive field, we may more 

properly replace contemporary philosophy for social critics. Hence the basic question remains, 

was there ever a postmodern world or a postmodern idea? This is hinged on a permutation that 

certain writers have attempted to chronologize both the previous and present centuries by 

alluding to some form of constructive flow of society from one epoch – say modernism – to 

another; postmodernism, and then to an emerging new order, which is that of the metamodern, 

thus creating an actual historical connotation rather than an ideological sequence. My argument 

is hinged on the notion that; no historic categorizations of these periods can be made, as they 

weren't in any way actual historical epochs but just presumed ideological shifts. To which a 

counter-question could follow; how then do we categorize what is now being known as the 

Age of Enlightenment? Our best reply would be; just as a nomenclatural denotation of a 

presumed age, even though it were real. This is to say nomenclatural denotations of what may 

seem actual categories do not in themselves quantify those categories, but serve only to 

designate them. However, our argument on postmodernism attempts to designate it as an idea, 

rather than a real period of human history, ; that the postmodern debate could be best seen as 

an ideological concoction rather than a historical designation as the acclaimed ‘age of 

enlightenment’ may denote. On this premise, postmodernism thus becomes an approach to 

evaluating the conversations of mankind, a style or perspective of viewing human culture, 

rather than an actual system of existing culture. This means that neither the culture, its 

structures nor its physically existing constituent parts ever changed, but the perception towards, 

as well as approach to it, slightly or hugely became in some way altered. In this way, one can 

more properly understand the reality of ‘overlapping,’ as being overlapping not of times, but 

of ideas. This infers that neither the time nor prevalent systems or conditions of those times 

change in some ways, but the existing ideas about them could be deemed to have done so. Thus 

we may more properly create designations for each of these ideas, and fit them as entirely 

prevalent ideas dominant in this age of present-day humanity.  

Hence modernism becomes an approach to reality based on the prevalence and belief in 

existing ‘objectivities,’ ‘universally comprehendible realities,’ and the prevalence of what 

Lyotard called ‘grand narratives’ (Lyotard, 1979). On the other hand, Postmodernism would 

more properly be seen as a reaction to the modernist ideology, which is based on the rejection 

of objective schemes, and a constellation and acceptance of even seemingly conflicting ideas, 

and worldviews. This does not necessarily transcend into relativism, as has been the most 

popular assault against the postmodernist position. Preaching tolerance of viewpoints doesn’t 

necessarily transcend into acceptance of such viewpoints. Thus while affirming that there isn’t 

a definite objective schema against which activities could be judged, postmodernism –as 

argued within some circles– does not affirm that every activity is a right one, but rather; every 

activity should most importantly be considered against the background of its own merits. This 

further infers that the existence of different methods of judging or coming to terms with reality 

does not mean that a method may not be superior to another, but rather that all methods should 

be treated as being valuable against the standards of its own defined boundaries and 

methodological paradigms. In a similar vein Le Cunff (2021) has associated modernism with 



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the age of the radio, postmodernism with the age of the television, and metamodernism with 

the age of the internet, which although may not be necessarily true, is not entirely false. This 

may be seen in terms of how these different viewpoints and ideologies arose, and how they 

influenced or were influenced by the prevalent technologies of their time, but to define such 

phenomenon in terms of its existing technologies alone may portend a notion of stiffening up 

the holistic nature of a wide-ranging ideology for a categorical explanation of its appearance, 

thus becoming another form of a categorical mistake.  

Linguistically, Vermeulen and Akker’s conceptualization of metamodernism hinged on two 

basic levels; the ontological and epistemological. While in its most basic explication, they 

conceived of metamodernism as a form of “oscillation between a typically modern 

commitment and a markedly postmodern detachment,” (Vermeulen & Akker, 2010, p.2) the 

usage of the word ‘meta’ in their juxtaposition attempts to affix within; similar linguistic 

conceptions such as ‘with’ ‘between’ and ‘beyond’, however the situational lining of the 

concept places it ontologically 'between', epistemologically 'with' and historically 'beyond' 

postmodernism (Vermeulen & Akker, 2010). Here, our concern with a presumed historical 

placement again comes to bear; this as premised above is hinged on the notion that the 

placement of metamodernism as historically beyond postmodernism overlooks the permutation 

that its very conceptualization preceded a popularization of the postmodern dictum. As Baciu, 

Bocos, and Baciu-Urzica (2015) opines; while the term "postmodernism" first entered the 

philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of "The Postmodern Condition" by Jean-

François Lyotard, Metamodernism was introduced in 1975 by Zavarzadeh who considered it 

as an emergence from the aesthetics field. This brings to bear the complexity of situating 

metamodernism within a historical rather than an ideological bracket.  

Our argument for a conception of metamodernism as being a form of post post-modernism 

should not be seen as a subscription to the syntactically correct but semantically questionable 

phrase “post-postmodernism,” but rather as a designation which attempts to fit in 

metamodernism as an ideological concept spiralling from a discontent with the postmodernist 

worldview. Thus the entirety of our argument is an emphasis on these concepts as being 

prescriptively descriptive rather than a historically descriptive juxtaposition of the human 

condition. However, the baseline conception of metamodernism remains as a reaction to 

postmodernism. While Baciu, Bocos, and Baciu-Urzica, see metamodernism as a trend “which 

attempts to unify, to harmonize and to settle the conflict between modern and postmodern by 

supporting the involvement in seeking solutions to problems and the desirable positioning 

towards existing theories, not only combating or questioning them” (2015, p. 35), Vermeulen 

and Akker’s definition has remained a pretty fundamental one to any discourse on this subject. 

In their coinage; 

Ontologically metamodernism oscillates between the modern and the 

postmodern. It oscillates between modern enthusiasm and postmodern irony, 

between hope and melancholy, between naı¨vete´ and knowingness, empathy 

and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and 

ambiguity. Indeed, by oscillating to and fro or back and forth, the metamodern 

negotiates between the modern and the postmodern. (2010, p.6) 

This presumed midway position is seen in the light of being a form of “pendulum swinging 

between 2, 3, 5, 10, innumerable poles. Each time the metamodern enthusiasm swings toward 

fanaticism, gravity pulls it back toward irony; the moment its irony sways toward apathy, 

gravity pulls it back toward enthusiasm” (Vermeulen & Akker, 2010, p.6).  



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On the other hand, epistemologically, metamodernism holds an "as if" position, that is; a view 

of reality that it never expects to come to terms with, but keeps revelling in its everlasting 

chase. It is like the Sisyphean task of continuously pushing a boulder which would come 

rushing back to the ground the moment one gets to the top; only that in this position there is no 

top, neither is there any goal but an "as if" presupposition. Here the individual acts as if there 

were a goal, lives as if there were some reality, becomes as if there were a becoming, acts moral 

as if there were morality, believes as if there were some truth, and attains heights as if those 

heights existed. It seems like a form of Nihilistic disillusionment engendered by an absurdist 

carefreeness. Thus as Vermeulen and Akker postulate, on its epistemological basis; 

Metamodernism moves for the sake of moving, attempts in spite of its inevitable 

failure; it seeks forever for a truth that it never expects to find. If you will forgive 

us for the banality of the metaphor for a moment, the metamodern thus willfully 

adopts a kind of donkey-and-carrot double-bind. Like a donkey, it chases a 

carrot that it never manages to eat because the carrot is always just beyond its 

reach. But precisely because it never manages to eat the carrot, it never ends its 

chase, setting foot in moral realms the modern donkey (having eaten its carrot 

elsewhere) will never encounter, entering political domains the postmodern 

donkey (having abandoned the chase) will never come across. (Vermeulen and 

Akker, 2010, p.5) 

In a more simplistic term, Le Cunff (2021) writes; "we went from modernism – "make it new!" 

Let's shape history! To postmodernism… nothing matters! To – metamodernism: maybe things 

are not this black and white? Maybe there’s a middle ground.” Hence metamodernism pushes 

for a future it never is sure of coming to terms with, but keeps hoping even in the very obvious 

non-existence of such reality. As Turner (2015) juxtaposes; 

Ours is also an age in which increasingly speculative modes of thought are 

thriving, with philosophies such as Speculative Realism and Object Oriented 

Ontology, as well as movements like Occupy, Black Lives Matter, and the rise 

of extremist political factions (for better or worse, as in the case of the so-called 

‘alt-Right’), empowered by network culture… metamodernism does not, then, 

propose any kind of utopian vision, although it does describe the climate in 

which a yearning for utopias, despite their futile nature has come to the fore. 

SITUATING METAMODERNISM 

We may situate metamodernism in the existing historic times but not as a distinct period of 

human history. It may be also situated as a leading ideology and a guiding philosophy, but not 

as a style of doing philosophy. In this vein, metamodernism is conceived of; as a consolidation 

as well as the abandonment of methods at the same time. It is an enactment of processes but 

still a rejection of those processes, an appeal to objectivity and a denunciation of the objectivity 

it appeals to. Thus it portends an admixture of different categories, a conglomeration of 

divergent contents, a rejection and an acceptance, an affirmation and a denial, a form of 

modernist postmodernism. By a metamodern philosophy, we espouse an existent position in 

the human thought-process, a midpoint amidst seeming alternatives, a merger between 

perceived extremities, which factors both sides of the divide, taking from both without 

necessarily pledging loyalty to any. It is an enactment of a yes mixed with the loud affirmation 

of a no, a meeting point between existing opposites, a rejection of both relativism and pluralism 

without an acceptance of absolutism. Yet it neither espouses a denial of commitment nor a 



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confirmation thereto, it takes no responsibility but neither does it reject any form of 

responsibility, it emphasizes on the futuristic and at the same time treats with levity any attempt 

at taking the future as being relevant. Hence it can be further categorized as an unserious 

seriousness, an ironic truism, conformity and a rejection of conformity, a reliance on methods 

without any acceptance of the methods relied upon, it is a dispassionate outlook on the nature 

of things, and as Vermeulen and Akker (2010) affirms; it is a both-neither dynamic.  

This draws the line of disparity between the three unrelated terms; modernism, postmodernism 

and metamodernism. However, if modernism exalts objectivity, and postmodernism; plurality, 

metamodernism tends to exalt socially-based individuality, on the basis that the person 

becomes both the subject and narrator of his own story, within the space of a socially 

constructed communal framework. It is no more a case of “all aspects of social processes goes,” 

nor is it a lone categorization of knowledge as being a product of social agreements as reflected 

in Rorty’s epistemological behaviourism, the term social has now taken a new name, becoming 

itself a vague and ambiguous term. While in both a modernist and postmodernist usage it could 

refer to society as it were; holistic and comprising the human agency as a product of social 

connections and location-bounded proximity, in a metamodernist sense, the social (vis-à-vis; 

society) becomes non-location bounded, and has gone virtual. It exists in a space where neither 

rules nor morality applies, and where an individual can take up any form. The virtual individual 

in this fast-emerging reality becomes a sum-total of the roles played, and not a person 'being.' 

This virtual construction spirals into a presumed system of globalization, whose only point of 

direction is in its being directionless. Championed by a new form of interconnectivity as 

heralded by the digital space, the metamodern idea creates a mirror, shadow and imagery of a 

self-defined reality, immersed in a confluence of disparate identities or semblances of an 

identity, pushed beyond the limits of personality boundaries. As Le Cunff (2021) argues; 

Metamodernism is about genuine connection, empathy, and community. While 

modernism is about creating something completely new (which you could argue 

is an illusion); postmodernism is about deconstructing the past and rejecting the 

future; pseudo-modernism is about mindless online consumerism – 

metamodernism is about creating something new with what was created before, 

while acknowledging the inherent ephemerality of the human condition.    

On the individual stage, metamodernism becomes a new form of becoming which isn't tied to 

either existing social norms, or standardized societal practices, nor a glorified scientific 

procedure, rather it portends a subjective interpretation of reality projected onto a phase which 

neither accepts nor rejects objectivity. Thus one’s subjectivity could metamorphose into a 

subjective definition of an objective reality.  

Taking society off its nominal hinges, metamodernism deconstructs and at the same time 

reconstructs the world as we knew it, creating a stratum where society becomes a community 

of persons within a virtual space sharing common or similar ideologies. This brings to bear the 

very notion that in this new socialized context, society becomes creatable and discardable by 

the individual. It is subject to the person and has no filial connection or communal 

underpinning, nor does it necessarily have any form of location-bounded proximity. Thus the 

individual becomes the creator and discarder of his society, choosing that which aligns best 

with one’s notions and permutations, and creating a pedestal where neither transcendent reality, 

nor location-bounded barriers serve as a hindrance to personhood. Virtual life becomes as real 

as real life, human connections digitalized, much that individuals could rise to heights in this 

newfound clime, without being subjected to any form of social structures nor boundaries 



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society had earlier put in place to determine the process of ‘any’ such rise. Thus the term social 

determinism would more properly be replaced by an even stronger boundless form ; virtual 

determinism, bringing to being the question if metamodernism bears within a stronger form of 

determinism, who determines? However a more pertinent question should be; if there is the 

potentiality of determinism in a metamodern ideology, to what extent can such determinism 

impede human progress; in more nuanced terms if virtual determinism can be said to exist, then 

how exactly can knowledge be constructed within the subset of a metamodern ideology? 

METAMODERNISM AS VIRTUAL EPISTEMOLOGY 

It may not be quite easy to rule out the necessity of pushing an epistemic inquiry beyond the 

boundaries of the social into the virtual. Social epistemology has been conceived as “the 

conceptual and normative study of the relevance to knowledge of social relations, interests and 

institution… (This) revolves around the question of whether knowledge is to be understood 

individualistically or socially” (Schmitt, 1998, p.8063), with Goldman pushing the bar even 

higher by distinguishing the revisionist, preservationist and expansionist social epistemology, 

as cited by Kusch (2011) who in criticizing Goldman's differential attitude towards classical 

epistemology, argued for a diagnostic program in social epistemology which tries to analyze, 

explain and criticize the foundations of classical epistemology. The very notion of a world 

beyond the limitations of social ascriptions and physical descriptions; a virtual world 

occupying boundless space, draws within the necessity of pushing epistemology further, 

beyond the social into the new-social, or virtual; which thus brings to terms the need for 

conceptualization of a new epistemic approach; Virtual Epistemology.  

In taking deep cues from Kusch's diagnostic program for social epistemology, virtual 

epistemology would attempt to look beyond the contours of what qualifies as knowledge in the 

virtual space, how such knowledge is formed, and the extent and means through which it can 

be justified. A basic justification paradigm may be a redefining of contextualism into the space 

of the virtual, thus giving rise to the notion of virtual contextualism, or better-put cyber-

contextualism. This is premised on the notion that adopting the diagnostic approach puts the 

inquirer into a position of analyzing rather than constructing, and explaining rather than 

deconstructing; although the very fundamental position of philosophic criticism remains an 

integral subset of this permutation. As a young system of inquiry, virtual epistemology may be 

content to perform the above using such limited tools, but the very notion of a virtual 

epistemology raises fundamental questions as to the necessity of such undertaking and the 

essentiality of its being an approach to epistemology. Isn’t its construal an unnecessary 

extension of the epistemic instrument or an irrelevant deployment of epistemic concerns?  

An obvious answer to the above would be hinged on the fact that whether or not scholarship 

denies its reality, the existence of the virtual space has come with its medium for constructing 

reality, a medium which if left un-interrogated may spiral into obvious distortions of the human 

agency, a point to which the present trend of the metamodern tends to amplify. We see this 

every day, in the challenge of information and disinformation, the horrors of mal-information, 

and the sudden rise of several movements from online trends into open defiance and street 

protests, knowledge no longer becomes the prerogative of the philosopher neither does it fall 

under the evaluative lenses of the scientist, it has become not social but virtually constructed. 

What soon spreads as information becomes subject to counter-information, and soon gives way 

to obvious disinformation leading to arbitrary construction of beliefs; which in turn is subject 

to the metamodern ideology of individuality and subjectivity; the epistemic agent weighs his 

existing information against the background of other such existing belief-systems, bringing to 



               Ovwata Success                                                          Metamodernism Through The Lenses.. 
 

20 
 

bear the cyber-contextualist approach to justification, which thus creates a grounding for the 

attainment and proclamation of a certain knowledge claim.  

The less engagement scholars make into the contours of knowledge formation in the virtual 

world; virtual epistemology, the more the field becomes open to infiltration and unhealthy 

anarchism, which in turn plagues the social sphere forcing scholastic engagement devoid of an 

analysis of its rooting. It is not an absurd adventure to engage with the virtual, the very idea of 

a post-analytic philosophy draws as important the necessity of philosophy's engagement with 

culture, thus creating grounding for philosophy as being a voice in the conversation of 

humanity. Here the virtual sphere indicates an aspect of human culture which though taking 

over the very contours of social existence in the very word of it, remains less interrogated from 

the agency of philosophic engagements.  

While we may not judge metamodernism for heralding a new way of knowing—which by the 

way—is not a distinct expert culture, or an approach to cultural reality as postmodernism 

portrayed, its very intricacies having being argued in this paper portends a new way of 

knowing, a new approach for coming to terms with reality, a new presupposition and 

constructive paradigm for determining what is 'the known.' Whether in the form of artificial 

intelligence, or virtual realities; the metamodern ideology draws its rooting deep into these 

salient yet less engaged areas of human reality. To what extent then can the non-engagement 

of philosophy into these terrains be construed as being a fundamental part of the problem in 

itself? 

CONCLUSION 

In this paper, we have attempted to interrogate the implosion of postmodernism against the 

background nature of its internal inconsistencies. Whilst laying this upon the juxtaposition of 

metamodernism, the paper argues for a conception of metamodernism within the boundaries 

of an ideological rather than a historical approach and evaluates the same against the 

background of both modernism and postmodernism. We have argued that the very contours of 

metamodernism require philosophic engagement, this is laid on the background that while the 

metamodern can more properly be linked to the virtual space, there exists a paramount 

necessity for inquiring into the patterns through which knowledge is constructed in such virtual 

sphere; which brings to being the conceptualization of a virtual epistemology, and an obvious 

necessity for extending intricacies of philosophic engagement into this sphere. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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               Ovwata Success                                                          Metamodernism Through The Lenses.. 
 

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