[...] Postmodern philosophy is most generally associated with two fundamental principles, namely anti-foundationalism and anti-essentialism. These may be characterized, respectively, as the repudiation of metaphysics, that is, of any ultimate system of meaning in nature or the universe; and as the struggle against any normative idea of human nature. [...] It is generally identified by its adversaries—most of them modernists, even where they have spiritualist leanings—as relativism.