Postmodernism is a general and wide-ranging term applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction and cultural and literary criticism. It is the reaction of its practitioners to the rational, scientific and historical aspects of the modern age.

Postmodernism comes after the modern period and it is said to have begun in the post-world War II era.

The main difference between Modernism and Postmodernism is an opposite point of view about  Reality. The philosophic aim for modernist thinkers is the search for the truth while the current belief is that a correct description of Reality is impossible because our language is too imprecise, our senses too limited and deceptive to describe Reality.

Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles and it is "post" because it denies the existence of any ultimate principles.

This leading figures in this period are Kurt Vonnegut and Alain Robbe-Grillet, the writer Ishmael Reed and the singer Madonna who broke down the limits of sexuality and femininity. But Jacques Derrida is the most important thinker for the development of postmodernist thought.

Jacques Derrida is the founder of deconstruction, a method of textual analysis applicable to all writing , which by means of a series of highly controversial strategies seeks to reveal the inherent instability and indeterminacy of meaning.
Deconstruction is best approach as a form of radical scepticism and antifoundationalism.
According to Derrida meaning is marked by the continual play of difference indeed all communication is characterized by uncertainty because there is no definitive link between the signifier and the signified.

The essences of postmodernism are the mixing, the disintegration and the instability of identies.

Postmodernism sees human experience as unstable, contradictory, fragmented and unfinished with no one specific reality possible. This situation leaves us without absolute foundations for determining absolute truths about how we should think and live wisely on earth.

Every culture, religion and diverse group on the planet can claim that their truths are just as valid as
anyone else's. This has led to the concept of "tolerance".

                                                                                                                          De Meo Alberto - Zanolla Andrea