Radical Anti-Essentialism

Jean Baudrillard is one of the most important and the most controversial thinkers in today's French and world's theoretical field. He is considered as one of the leaders of the postmodernism, which has been the reason for some people who worship him and for the others who criticize him. Baudrillard's writing covers many realms and issues of our lives such as politics, economics, literature, arts, media, cyberspace, genebiology and modern wars. His penetrating and incisive diagnoses of present symptoms are always accompanied by his astonishing means of analysis and deduction. Because of the controversial voices from critics and the labyrinth erected by his words, Baudrillard's later thought is alerted to be a deviation from the former by them who treat his radicalization as a radicalization towards nihilism and as the manifestation of the political cynicism which is marked to be a common characteristic of postmodernists.However, such criticisms ignored the consistence and unity of Baudrillard's thought. They also ignored the consistence and unity of his methods and perspective of the analysis. This dissertation tries to emphasize on Baudrillard's studies of the system of object as a consistent perspective of his theoretical criticism, to explore his criticism to the myths of essence and to show the transmutation of his thinking in the process of continuous questioning about them.The main of the dissertation consists of two parts: the first part which explores Baudrillard's studies of the system of modern things, and his step-by-step revealing the essential basis of the myth of things and his transition from the studies of the system of things to the deeper philosophical studies of the relationship between subject and object; the second one which explores Baudrillard's challenge to some theoreticians such as Michel Focaut and his own critical theories and practical strategies.