A Study Of Postmodern Philosophical Core Terms Of David Couzens Hoy

David Couzens Hoy,a contemporary American postmodern philosopher as well as an outstanding representative of “Critical Theory”, has successively published “Critical Trilogy”, which caused worldwide concern in academic circle. Hoy has challenged and criticized “Foundationalism” and “Universalism”. Meanwhile, he has advocated postmodern critical theory characteristic of pluralism. Based on systematic research of Foucault’s Genealogy and Gadamer’s Hermeneutics, Hoy combined them together and established “Genealogical Hermeneutics”, which was used as weapon to attack universal necessity.Research of Hoy’s philosophical core terms is of great theoretical value to the study of postmodernism. This paper mainly studies postmodern philosophical core terms of Hoy. In the process of study and paper-writing, a large number of first-hand foreign literatures about Hoy’s idea have been collected and classified. With both diachronic and synchronic method, the paper aims to trace the root and development history of Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms and compare different readings of Hoy’s core terms by other contemporary philosophers, thus comprehensively and profoundly mastering the essence of Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms.This paper has explored and explained Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms from four aspects, including: background, content, theoretical features and brief comments on Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms. The paper has first made a literary review of similar research projects in China and abroad. It has then combed typical features of Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms. Chapter One of the paper has briefly introduced Hoy’s life story as well as his publications and summarized social and theoretical background of Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms. Chapter Two has selected eleven core terms which can best represent Hoy’s idea, generally describing their contents and exploring the origin, development and influence of these core terms. Chapter Three has highly generalized theoretical features of Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms. Based on study of Hoy’s postmodern idea, the paper has concluded that his postmodern philosophical core terms have features of criticism, anti-essentialism and anti-foundationalism. Chapter Four is about brief comments on Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms, which explain constructiveness, limitations and inspirations of Hoy’s postmodern philosophical core terms.