Postmodernism [Archive]

volatile

14th August 2007, 02:41 PM

volatile

14th August 2007, 02:43 PM

It certainly seems to be alive and well on Internet forums, where every woo-ster with a little education and less common sense enjoys pulling it out to impress their friends.

You think postmodern bunk applied to science is weird? I knew a guy online who was convinced that he could use "feminist theories" to support his woo beliefs. Apparently science is too 'phallic" to accept the plain reality of the supernatural, or some such.

Does woo misuse of quantum physics make the whole of that discipline pointless, too?

JoeEllison

14th August 2007, 02:52 PM

Does woo misuse of quantum physics make the whole of that discipline pointless, too?
Nope. But, then again, quantum physics is evidence-based. Postmodernism is philosophy-based, which makes it 49.9% woo on its face. :D

volatile

14th August 2007, 02:55 PM

Nope. But, then again, quantum physics is evidence-based. Postmodernism is philosophy-based, which makes it 49.9% woo on its face. :D

Oh really? So Karl Popper was woo? Bertrand Russell? David Hume? Spinoza? Methinks you doth protest too much.

If it wasn't for philosophers, you wouldn't even have the vocabulary to discern woo from reality, Joe. Why do you think Randi and Hitchens quote Russell's Teapot so often?

Who do you think developed the very methodology by which rigid experiments are controlled? Who came up with concepts such as "observer bias", so crucial to science? Philosophy did, and recently.

JoeEllison

14th August 2007, 02:58 PM

Oh really? So Karl Popper was woo? Bertrand Russell? David Hume? Spinoza? Methinks you doth protest too much.

If it wasn't for philosophers, you wouldn't even have the vocabulary to discern woo from reality, Joe. Why do you think Randi and Hitchens quote Russell's Teapot so often?

Who do you think developed the very methodology by which rigid experiments are controlled? Who came up with concepts such as "observer bias", so crucial to science? Philosophy did, and recently.
You missed the humor... calm down, it will all be ok.:p

quixotecoyote

14th August 2007, 02:59 PM

Does woo misuse of quantum physics make the whole of that discipline pointless, too?

Difference being is that quantum physics is an anchored concept. There are actual measurable 'things' that it refers to. Misuse of the theory can be constrained by pointing out the discrepancy between the claim and the measurements of the 'things' in question.

In contrast, postmodernism is philosophy. It is an unanchored concept. It is defined by its use. As more and more people use it away from reasonable uses, the meaning of postmodernism changes to something unreasonable.

volatile

14th August 2007, 03:06 PM

Difference being is that quantum physics is an anchored concept. There are actual measurable 'things' that it refers to. Misuse of the theory can be constrained by pointing out the discrepancy between the claim and the measurements of the 'things' in question.

In contrast, postmodernism is philosophy. It is an unanchored concept. It is defined by its use. As more and more people use it away from reasonable uses, the meaning of postmodernism changes to something unreasonable.

A fair point, I suppose. But many people who dump on post-modernism don't seem to have actually read any, and thus make false conclusions. That some woos misuse, and misunderstand, philosophy I have no doubt. I'd just ask that you extend the same courtesy in checking woo claims about philosophy that you do in checking woo claims about quantum physics.

Just a quick example - the belief that women should be paid equally to men for doing the same job is a position borne out of social constructionist post-modern philosophy. It's social constructionism which presents the position that we should be sceptical that x is better than y just because it's always been that way. You all work through problems and opinions like that regularly (indeed, I'd hold that this type of relativism is important for sceptical thinking), but yet are often all too quick to disregard the contribution postmodern thought has made to the changing social climate.

mad

14th August 2007, 03:09 PM

volatile

14th August 2007, 03:15 PM

From reading about Postmodernism, it looks like it is hard to narrow down what it is. Still, there dose seem to be some things in common in things generally considered Postmodern. One of the basic tenets of hard Postmodernism is "equally valid ways of knowing." My reality may equally valid when compared to your reality, but "reality" is what ever it is regardless of what we think.

Not quite true. You're conflating ways of cultural knowing (say in understanding a written text, a painting, a political structure etc.) and ways of scientifically knowing. Postmodernism does not claim that scientific empiricism is wrong. It doesn't stake claims on "reality" as you seem to be understanding it.

I'll mention women earning as much as men again, for the sake of illustration. That men should earn more than women, or vice versa, is not an empirically testable claim. For questions such as these, we need to use philosophy of sorts - and it was the postmoderninsts who went to great lengths to point out that the social construction of woman as lower earner was just that, a construction not based in reality. That's just one example, there are thousands more.

And Lit Critics misusing quantum physics should not be a reason to suspect quantum physics, unless you are only learning it from Lit Critics.Exactly. And Internet posters misunderstanding postmodernism should not be a reason to suspect postmodernism.

May I heartily request you take a look at some postmodern philosophers - Derrida, for example, or Deleuze? They're enormously enriching and not at all the peddlers of pseudoscience you might have been led to believe they are.

Matt the Poet

14th August 2007, 03:45 PM

Just before we go any further, could the OP please cite some examples of where postmodernists 'den the existence of an external reality'?

Postmodernism (which, technically, is a theory of architectural aesthetics from the early 1990s) has nothing to say about the nature of reality. Its various literary and sociological spin-offs have a lot to say about the nature of how we [I]talk about reality.

Which I would argue is both a really interesting thing to investigate, and not something that can easily be grasped using the scientific method. In fact, I'd go further than that and say that it's vital that we investigate this stuff. Not so long ago it was "reality" that black people weren't as clever as white people, and not so long before that it was pretty much "reality" that colonialism was a jolly good idea. You stop these things from ever, ever being "reality" again by making sure there's a section of your society that is continually questioning what we all consider to be real.

volatile

14th August 2007, 04:03 PM

Just before we go any further, could the OP please cite some examples of where postmodernists 'den[ied] the existence of an external reality'?

Baudrillard and his followers implied something of the sort, inasmuch as this may have been misconstrued by Mad and others. It would be easy to misread Simulacra and Simulacrum along these lines, and many have.

Other than that, you couldn't be more correct.

athon

14th August 2007, 04:23 PM

Post modernism remains alive and well in pedagogical studies and approaches to education, unfortunately.

My distaste for its influence is the focus it maintained in the past to equal weighting to student views and opinions. Educational philosophies based on postmodern approaches placed constructivism at the forefront - which IMO isn't necessarily a bad thing. The problem was that all knowledge constructed through one's own experience and social values has equal validity. The idea that a student could be objectively wrong was discouraged. Many teachers found this approach difficult to do justice to and the result was a generation of students who believed that all facts and opinions were equally right, rather than all opinions had equal right to be heard and discussed.

I know this is not postmodernism in its own right, however the educational philosophies that arose from it did more damage in science education than good.

Athon

Pipirr

14th August 2007, 04:56 PM

quixotecoyote

14th August 2007, 05:00 PM

A fair point, I suppose. But many people who dump on post-modernism don't seem to have actually read any, and thus make false conclusions. That some woos misuse, and misunderstand, philosophy I have no doubt. I'd just ask that you extend the same courtesy in checking woo claims about philosophy that you do in checking woo claims about quantum physics.

Just a quick example - the belief that women should be paid equally to men for doing the same job is a position borne out of social constructionist post-modern philosophy. It's social constructionism which presents the position that we should be sceptical that x is better than y just because it's always been that way. You all work through problems and opinions like that regularly (indeed, I'd hold that this type of relativism is important for sceptical thinking), but yet are often all too quick to disregard the contribution postmodern thought has made to the changing social climate.

My position is that it's too far gone to get back. Postmodernism has stopped being the philosophy about social constructionism and has been fully appropriated by woo interests. Outside of a select few academic institutions that still teach it in the correct manner, the original meaning of the word is lost. It's like complaining that hussy actually means housewife and shouldn't be used to describe promiscuous women.

Miss Whiplash

14th August 2007, 05:04 PM

Interesting topic, but shouldn't this be in the philosophy section?

godless dave

14th August 2007, 05:15 PM

Postmodernism is useful for studying art and literature, but has no relation to the real world.

pchams

14th August 2007, 06:45 PM

Postmodernism is useful for studying art and literature, but has no relation to the real world.

Please explain why you make this claim.

Mangafranga

14th August 2007, 10:59 PM

My position is that it's too far gone to get back. Postmodernism has stopped being the philosophy about social constructionism and has been fully appropriated by woo interests. Outside of a select few academic institutions that still teach it in the correct manner, the original meaning of the word is lost. It's like complaining that hussy actually means housewife and shouldn't be used to describe promiscuous women.The OP referred to dead French guys. Surely this at least intends to refer to "postmodernism" as academic philosophers use the term (even if few of us in the thread (myself included) understand how they use the term).

Darat

14th August 2007, 11:40 PM

...snip...

Just a quick example - the belief that women should be paid equally to men for doing the same job is a position borne out of social constructionist post-modern philosophy.

...snip...

Some people were making arguments that women should be equal (including being paid equal for the same work) for quite literally centuries.

(ETA: Suppose I shouldn't make such a claim without at least some support - here's a rather famous example - The Declaration of Sentiments (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0875901.html) from 1848.)

Mangafranga

14th August 2007, 11:44 PM

Some people were making arguments that women should be equal (including being paid equal for the same work) for quite literally centuries.They must have had long beards then (I presume even women grow beards when they reach age 200).

jimtron

14th August 2007, 11:52 PM

Volatile, would you mind giving a definition of post modernism? In a nutshell, as it were?

I understand that you have some expertise in the matter. I've always found post modernism hard to pin down, so would appreciate it if you could offer an explanation or definition.

Yes, after reading the posts so far, I'm not sure if everyone involved would agree on a definition of the term postmodern.

eta: From the Wikipedia entry on postmodernism:The term was coined in 1949 to describe a dissatisfaction with modern architecture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture), leading to the postmodern architecture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_architecture) movement.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern#_note-4).
(snip) If used in other contexts, it is a concept without a universally accepted, short and simple definition; in a variety of contexts it is used to describe social conditions, movements in the arts, and scholarship (incl. criticism) in reaction to modernism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism).

Mangafranga

14th August 2007, 11:59 PM

Yes, after reading the posts so far, I'm not sure if everyone involved would agree on a definition of the term postmodern. From the Stanford entry on Postmodernism (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/) "That postmodernism is indefinable is a truism."

Darat

15th August 2007, 12:05 AM

They must have had long beards then (I presume even women grow beards when they reach age 200).

:p

quixotecoyote

15th August 2007, 12:37 AM

Yes, after reading the posts so far, I'm not sure if everyone involved would agree on a definition of the term postmodern.

eta: From the Wikipedia entry on postmodernism:

As far as postmodernism is a reaction to modernism, it is more an extension than a rebuttal.

volatile

15th August 2007, 01:49 AM

Well, many philosophers far more advanced than I have devoted whole books to this subject, but I'll try for you, Pipirr.

It's true, that defining post-modernism is contentious and difficult. Indeed, most of the philosophers most strongly identified with post-modern thought, such as Michael Foucault, did not self-identify as post-modern. However, let me try and explain my use of the term, which might help refute this misconception that postmodernism somehow implies "everything is equally true", which is certainly not the case.

Personally, I equate the term "post-modernism" most strongly with "post-structuralism", and it seems to be a misreading of post-structural thought which has lead to the image of post-modern thought such as the OP.

The Wiki entry on Post-Structuralism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism) quotes Derrida, stating that "it rejects definitions that claim to have discovered absolute 'truths' or facts about the world". Whilst this might, at first glance, seem to imply that anything goes, or that post-structuralist thought inherently rejects scientific empiricism. However, the post-structuralist arguments are far more nuanced than this, and essentially seek to refute the central claim of Structuralism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism) that rejects "the concept of human freedom and choice and focused instead on the way that human behavior is determined by various structures".

The truth that postmodernism criticises, then, is what might be shown to be constructed truth - that is, the truth of the meaning of a painting, or the truth of the rigid gendering of certain biological tropes. Post-structuralists argue that what makes a boy "a boy" is not inherent but constructed by culture and society, and they argue that meanings of art works are personal to the reader, not imposed by the artist.

It makes no claim on empiricism, per se, and tends to refer to things beyond the empirical reach of science, as Matt the Poet pointed out earlier on.

volatile

15th August 2007, 01:52 AM

As far as postmodernism is a reaction to modernism, it is more an extension than a rebuttal.

In some respects and areas, this is true. But if you think of the term in application to architecture or design the post-modern is an implicit rejection of the rigidity "modern" tended to imply in those disciplines.

volatile

15th August 2007, 01:57 AM

Postmodernism is useful for studying art and literature, but has no relation to the real world.

You realise that art and literature exist in, are part of, are about and indeed reflect the "real world", right? How do you separate "art and literature" from "the real world"?

volatile

15th August 2007, 03:10 AM

I just found a rather nice summary in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995, p. 708)

Post-modernism - In its broad usage, this is a 'family resemblance' term deployed in a variety if contexts (architecture, painting, music, poetry, fiction, etc.) for things which seem to be related - it at all - by a laid-back pluralism of styles and a vague desire to have done with the pretensions of high-modernist culture. In philosophical terms post-modernism shares something with the critique of Enlightenment values and truth-claims mounted by thinkers of a liberal-communitarian persuasion; also with neo-pragmatists like Richard Rorty who welcome the end of philosophy's presumptive role as a privileged, truth-telling discourse. There is another point of contact with post-modern fiction and art in the current preoccupation, among some philosophers, with themes of 'self-reflexivity', or the puzzles induced by allowing language to become the object of its own scrutiny in a kind of dizzying rhetorical regress. To this extent post-modernism might be seen as a ludic development of the so-called 'linguistic turn' that has characterised much philosophical thinking of late.

brodski

15th August 2007, 03:22 AM

It makes no claim on empiricism, per se, and tends to refer to things beyond the empirical reach of science, as Matt the Poet pointed out earlier on.

You realise that art and literature exist in, are part of, are about and indeed reflect the "real world", right? How do you separate "art and literature" from "the real world"?

I think you pretty much answered your own question in eth quote above. It is when PoMo type philosophers (PMTPs) try to reject empiricism when it conflicts with the “reality” which the PMTP wishes to construct , that it becomes an issue for skeptics.

Feminist critique of science and engineering is a classic example (e=mc^2 being a "sexed" equation for example, or the guff about fluid dynamics not being modelled because it's too feminine and therefore intimidates male scientists and engineers)

The other issue that becomes an area fro sceptics is when PMTPs, in the same way as “scientismists” conflate “fact” with “opinion”, it was never a “fact” that women should be paid less than men. When discussing how thing sshould be ordered one is not discussing facts.

I also find it humours that you criticise people for misreading postmodernists , but the that’s just my own twisted sense of humour ;)

Mojo

15th August 2007, 03:24 AM

You realise that art and literature exist in, are part of, are about and indeed reflect the "real world", right? How do you separate "art and literature" from "the real world"?

That would explain why I've recently seen a homoeopath describing Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy as a historical source.

volatile

15th August 2007, 03:45 AM

I think you pretty much answered your own question in eth quote above. It is when PoMo type philosophers (PMTPs) try to reject empiricism when it conflicts with the “reality” which the PMTP wishes to construct , that it becomes an issue for skeptics.

Indeed. But as I said, I see postmodernism as a tool of scepticism, not its enemy. Postmodernism critiques rigid orthodoxy in things like design, or sexual behaviour - things which as sceptics we should do too.

Feminist critique of science and engineering is a classic example (e=mc^2 being a "sexed" equation for example, or the guff about fluid dynamics not being modelled because it's too feminine and therefore intimidates male scientists and engineers)

Could you source a paper or work which claims that E=MCsq is a "sexed equation"? I'd be interested to see where that comes from...

There are legitimate feminist or postmodern critiques of the institutions of science, but I can't say I've ever personally seen the types of arguments of the scientific method such as you describe.

The other issue that becomes an area fro sceptics is when PMTPs, in the same way as “scientismists” conflate “fact” with “opinion”, it was never a “fact” that women should be paid less than men. When discussing how thing sshould be ordered one is not discussing facts.

Indeed. But modernism and its concurrent ideologies (see, as mentioned previously, structuralism) did treat such things as facts. Postmodernism suggests that we should think about exactly what is fact and what's opinion; it certainly doesn't seek to enforce a new orthodoxy, but to problematise existing ones.

I also find it humours that you criticise people for misreading postmodernists , but the that’s just my own twisted sense of humour ;)

*smirk* Touché.

Darat

15th August 2007, 03:56 AM

...snip...

Could you source a paper or work which claims that E=MCsq is a "sexed equation"? I'd be interested to see where that comes from...

...snip...

http://www.endeavourforum.org.au/article09-03-05.htm

...snip...

Feminist Luce Irigaray has argued that the relativity equation, E=mc2, is a "sexed equation" that "privileges the speed of light over other speeds which are vitally necessary to us, and which therefore belong to the `masculine physics' that `privileges' rigid over fluid entities . . ."

...snip...

Looks like it comes from an article titled "Le sujet de la science est-il sexue?"

ETA: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/quoteprint.php?author=Luce%20Irigaray&type=s

Is e=mc2 a sexed equation?...Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possible sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest...
Luce Irigaray
--Le sujet de la science est-il sexue?

simonmaal

15th August 2007, 04:11 AM

One part of post-modernism is capable of keeping our feet on the ground, so to speak. But in the process, it also brings certain dangerous by-products to the party. I'll get to the negative after I deal with the positive.

It would seem that the whole premise of this thread is that the realism-relativism relationship is a dichotomy. This is not what is argued by the majority of post-modernists. People such as Kenneth Gergen talk of the reality-relativism dialectic. This means that each can only be understood in the light of the other.

There is a material world out there that exists to be studied objectively and science is perfectly able to uncover many of these realities. But scientific data needs to be interpreted, thus enabling the subjective to impact on the objective. This is where cultural factors and politics enter into the equation. For example, some studies on race and gender have found differences between these categories (although wide differences are found within each group). So we need to somehow explain these differences. Was the study rigged? Were the results due to a Eurocentric methodology? Genetic differences? Cultural differences? What about the studies that do not find any differences? Each of these questions is heavily loaded with factors that are far from objective. I am sure that any person arguing for genetic racial differences would be vilified rather quickly.

I am with the post-modernists this far into the argument. But Gergen speaks of a democracy of ideas, meaning that different epistemologies should each have their own voice. This is, to me, a rather dangerous assertion. Gergen is saying (or implying) that experiential data (such as meditations, dreams and emotions) and hermenetic epistemology (within which psychoanalysis and social constructionism can be placed) have just as much claim to the truth as scientific findings. This "democracy of ideas" could allow fortune tellers, spiritual healers and the religious to use experiential arguments (I felt God, I knew my dead grandfather was there, I can't prove it but I nevertheless know it to be true) to displace scientific findings. In other words, circular thinking can ride roughshod over objective evidence. In this way, it does not take much to set us on the slippery slope of magical thinking.

So although post-modernism is capable of reminding us of the realism-relativism dialectic, it is also capable of unleashing chaos.

volatile

15th August 2007, 04:12 AM

http://www.endeavourforum.org.au/article09-03-05.htm

Looks like it comes from an article titled "Le sujet de la science est-il sexue?"

ETA: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/quoteprint.php?author=Luce%20Irigaray&type=s

Thanks Darat. Now you mention it I remember Sokal bringing that up in "Intellectual Impostures". I've not read the whole article (I'm guessing you haven't either), so forgive me if I don't make a full critique just yet.

I'm no fan of Irigaray generally (far too Lacanian for my tastes), but I'm going to go out on a limb and defend her in this case. I'll hold off full judgement until I've read the whole article, but I'm tempted to suggest that she's not criticising Einstein's science in an empirical sense - that is to say, I'm sure she's not arguing that E doesn't equal MC squared.

volatile

15th August 2007, 04:17 AM

It would seem that the whole premise of this thread is that the realism-relativism relationship is a dichotomy. This is not what is argued by the majority of post-modernists. People such as Kenneth Gergen talk of the reality-relativism dialectic. This means that each can only be understood in the light of the other.

There is a material world out there that exists to be studied objectively and science is perfectly able to uncover many of these realities. But scientific data needs to be interpreted, thus enabling the subjective to impact on the objective. This is where cultural factors and politics enter into the equation. For example, some studies on race and gender have found differences between these categories (although wide differences are found within each group). So we need to somehow explain these differences. Was the study rigged? Were the results due to a Eurocentric methodology? Genetic differences? Cultural differences? Each of these questions is heavily loaded with factors that are far from objective. I am sure that any person arguing for genetic racial differences would be vilified rather quickly.

I am with the post-modernists this far into the argument. But Gergen speaks of a democracy of ideas, meaning that different epistemologies should each have their own voice. This is, to me, a rather dangerous assertion. Gergen is saying (or implying) that experiential data (such as meditations, dreams and emotions) and hermenetic epistemology (within which psychoanalysis and social constructionism can be placed) have just as much claim to the truth as scientific findings. This "democracy of ideas" could allow fortune tellers, spiritual healers and the religious to use experiential arguments (I felt God, I knew my dead grandfather was there, I can't prove it but I nevertheless know it to be true) to displace scientific findings. In other words, circular thinking can ride roughshod over objective evidence. In this way, it does not take much to set us on the slippery slope of magical thinking.

So although post-modernism is capable of reminding us that of the realism-relativism dialectic, it is also capable of unleashing chaos.

I wholeheartedly agree, Simon, and thanks for this post.

What I'd like to point out is that science itself currently embraces a democracy of ideas - that is to say science works on the very premise that nothing can be proven absolutely. Of course, many woos will take this to mean "anything can be true", but in fact it's a post-modern understanding of things like falsifiability, which rejects the unshakable premise of perfectly quantifiable truth, which has actually helped us understand more about the world, not less.

I don't disagree that these concepts might be abused, but that is not the same as saying they are rotten from the ground up as the OP seems to suggest.

simonmaal

15th August 2007, 04:39 AM

I wholeheartedly agree, Simon, and thanks for this post.

What I'd like to point out is that science itself currently embraces a democracy of ideas - that is to say science works on the very premise that nothing can be proven absolutely. Of course, many woos will take this to mean "anything can be true", but in fact it's a post-modern understanding of things like falsifiability, which rejects the unshakable premise of perfectly quantifiable truth, which has actually helped us understand more about the world, not less.

I don't disagree that these concepts might be abused, but that is not the same as saying they are rotten from the ground up as the OP seems to suggest.

[/quote]

I like the quote (can't remember who said it and I'm paraphrasing here) that scientific theories are not judged on whether they are right or wrong but on whether or not they are useful in relation to the available evidence. In other words, to claim that any piece of research has found a fundamental, unchangeable, indisputable truth is to lapse into dogmatic thinking. Indeed, many creationists cherry-pick in precisely this way. So even scientific findings can be misinterpreted and used to subvert the very science from which they were borrowed.

On the other hand, there are certain things that I am quite confident about, such as the world being round and in orbit around the sun and the effect of a baseball bat being swung at my head! Nevertheless, new data could warrant the causes of these phenomena to be open to debate and I, for one, would consider alternative causal explanations should there be enough evidence to warrant them. As a scientific thinker, I am capable of rejecting beliefs that I have henceforth believed to be true.

Post-modernism can take all of this into account and is therefore not an inherently dangerous ideology but I still maintain that it has its risks, a point on which I think we are both agreed.

Mashuna

15th August 2007, 04:57 AM

Darat

15th August 2007, 05:06 AM

Thanks Darat. Now you mention it I remember Sokal bringing that up in "Intellectual Impostures". I've not read the whole article (I'm guessing you haven't either), so forgive me if I don't make a full critique just yet.

...snip...[/B]

Good god no I haven't read it - and thankfully the human rights declaration means I can't even be forced to read it no matter how heinously I behave!

blobru

15th August 2007, 05:27 AM

Just stumbling onto this thread so I won't say too much, that hasn't been already maybe.

I've poked around Post-modernism a bit, and in philosophy at least it strikes me as a reaction to the dry analytical approach that dominated most of the twentieth century. Also -- a retreat from the existentialist obsession with God, freedom and ethics. Post-modern philosophy is based in artistic 'logic', where apt associations between far-flung ideas from different disciplines is encouraged.

Modernism borrowed the freedom that technology promised us to shape the external world and applied it to the internal -- so artists experimented with new ways to communicate ideas (abstract art, modern dance, free verse, atonal music, etc). These experimental works were very hard to interpret, often even by their creators (Dadaists for example tried to create accidental art whose meaning was unknown to the artist). Post-modernism then is the extension of modernism to non-modern media. That is, everything is up for interpretation. But that doesn't mean, or shouldn't at least, that anything can mean whatever you want; it only implies that no one meaning is absolute forever in all possible contexts. That seems a slippery slope I know but I think it's just an encouragement to play with the wealth of ideas, from every time and tradition and culture, now at our disposal. It's not a serious epistemology; rather a rejection of serious-ness. I agree: E=mc2 as a masculine concept seems damned stupid to me, but I hope Luce meant it only in the context of feminism (maybe: universal constants --> gender oppression? gah, still asinine...) If not, then in the context of mental health, I interpret Ms. Irigaray as not very. :p

Anyway! technology (reshape external) --> modernism (reshape internal) --> postmodernism (reinterpret everything), or something like that. I'm not sure how useful postmodernism is to skepticism per se, but we should know what it is, as, as others have pointed out, postmodern interpretation taken on as objective fact can and has led to some very noxious woo.

Matt the Poet

15th August 2007, 05:59 AM

Hi again – apologies for intermittent postings but I’m a commuter and hence away from an internet link for long periods of time.

Two things:

First off, any and all concepts including (perhaps even especially) scientific ones are open to abuse. Crude scientism can be used to justify all sorts of things (sociobiologsts, again, are particularly guilty here – frankly if your theory justifies rape then your theory is wrong in all the important ways that it is possible to be wrong).

Secondly, whatever Irigary meant isn’t the issue (although I agree with Volatile that she’s unlikely to be denying the reality of the mathematical relationship). The point is that E=MC2 isn’t merely an equation. It’s also a social text. It has cultural weight. There is an important way in which it signifies ‘science’ to the general public (how do you let someone know that a cartoon character is a physicist? Put them next to a blackboard with E=MC2 on it).

Which means that, whether you like it or not, it’s fair game for cultural theorists. Asking how it might contribute as a signifier to perceptions of race, gender, sexuality etc. in the culture that generated it is a valid thing to do.

brodski

15th August 2007, 06:09 AM

Thanks Darat. Now you mention it I remember Sokal bringing that up in "Intellectual Impostures". I've not read the whole article (I'm guessing you haven't either), so forgive me if I don't make a full critique just yet.

I'm no fan of Irigaray generally (far too Lacanian for my tastes), but I'm going to go out on a limb and defend her in this case. I'll hold off full judgement until I've read the whole article, but I'm tempted to suggest that she's not criticising Einstein's science in an empirical sense - that is to say, I'm sure she's not arguing that E doesn't equal MC squared.

That is true, her criticism is that Einstein had the affront to use C in his equations at all, because somehow pointing out that C is a universal constant (a fact she misses), and deriving information from that fact is somehow patriarchal and therefore invalidates his endeavour.
She seems to think that the only reason that C is used is because it is “the fastest”, not because it is the universal constant.

volatile

15th August 2007, 06:28 AM

Jumping in at the end here, when you state that science works on the premise that nothing can be proven absolutely, are you arguing that this is a position that science has taken as a result of postmodernism, or that the approach science takes was derived through the scientific method, and postmodernism is compatable with it?

Did that make any sense?

Off the top of my head, I'd say B is more likely, although that the ideas rose concurrently is interesting, I'd say. I just wanted to point out that saying post-modernism was absurd for championing a retreat from "Truth" is unjustified given that the "better" alternative being posited here, that being the scientific method, is itself based on the impossibility of absolute truth as well.

As a footnote: the "approach science takes" was resolutely not derived in and of itself through "the scientific method". It is philosophers of science, often scientists themselves but not always, who have developed the current experimental methodologies.

Pipirr

15th August 2007, 06:43 AM

volatile, I appreciate the definition. Also, I'll add that it's refreshing to read a defence of post modernism, especially in these fora.

volatile

15th August 2007, 06:48 AM

volatile, I appreciate the definition. Also, I'll add that it's refreshing to read a defence of post modernism, especially in these fora.

My pleasure, really. I just see a post-modern approach as so liberating, enriching and enlightening that it's frustrating to see it dismissed so easily by people who really haven't encountered any post-modern thought first-hand.

Matt the Poet

15th August 2007, 07:48 AM

My pleasure, really. I just see a post-modern approach as so liberating, enriching and enlightening that it's frustrating to see it dismissed so easily by people who really haven't encountered any post-modern thought first-hand.

Seconded.

Although this shouldn’t detract from the fact that Lacan did spend a lot of time talking cobblers about the square root of minus one.

simonmaal

15th August 2007, 08:02 AM

The consideration of gender issues here is important and has got me thinking about another influence. Science is often discredited as being "orthodox" and "reductionist", as if these labels signify an intrinsically bad ideology or dogma. Much worse, in our current education system (in the UK), there seems to be a growing prejudice towards science as "male, patriarchal and white", as if it were part of some kind of international male conspiracy to maintain power inequalities. I would expect the situation is similar in the US and other Western nations. Of course, the irony of this vis a vis the creationist doctrine of original sin, dooming as it did all women to agonising childbirth and putting "man" as the head of the family above the woman (and the general suppression of the female by many major religions) appears to be lost on the intellectual trendies. And I am sure the women labelled as witches in the middle ages felt the full "liberating" effect of a feeling, non-evidence based system as they breathed their last breath on the ducking stool. Oh how terrible science is...

The point is that science is under attack from completely unverifiable sources, many of which (such as the Bible and Koran) led to disgraceful suffering by women. Yet the same sloppy thinking methods that led to the nonsense of our species' infancy are being taught once again in faith schools and mainstream curricula.

Our children are being educated in a system where private feeling is given the same importance as empirical study, where reason is relegated to "just one explanation amongst many". Of course, the use of traditional "female" attributes such as intuition and private feelings as a weapon against so-called intellectual sexism is as sexist as the imagined sexism it attempts to dislodge! The irony of this inverted sexism (reinforcing, as it does, traditional gender roles and differences between men and women) seems yet again to pass over the heads of our heavily politicised educational system. The danger is that post-modernism could lead us back into the dark ages.

This is, as Dawkins puts it, a betrayal of the enlightenment.

Matt the Poet

15th August 2007, 08:52 AM

Much worse, in our current education system (in the UK), there seems to be a growing prejudice towards science as "male, patriarchal and white", as if it were part of some kind of international male conspiracy to maintain power inequalities.

I’ve seen a lot of talk about this, but not a lot of evidence. Is there anything in the formal curriculum documents that actually articulates it?

Yet the same sloppy thinking methods that led to the nonsense of our species' infancy are being taught once again in faith schools and mainstream curricula.

I would submit that they have always been taught in faith schools, and I doubt that any mainstream curriculum at the level you’re discussing includes postmodern thought on the philosophy of science. I certainly don’t recall hearing Donna Haraway’s name at GSCE – indeed, I had to go and find her for myself.

Our children are being educated in a system where private feeling is given the same importance as empirical study,

What ‘importance’ axis are you placing these two things on? I don’t think it’s ever correct to tell a child (or indeed anyone) that what they feel is ‘unimportant’. It’s correct to say that if the results of empirical studies make them feel bad, then there is nothing to be done about it and they had best learn to cope. However, this is not the same as telling them that those feelings are invalid.

Of course, the use of traditional "female" attributes such as intuition and private feelings as a weapon against so-called intellectual sexism is as sexist as the imagined sexism it attempts to dislodge!

Bang on with this. No matter how much you dress it up in mystical guff about earth and salt and wombs it still boils down to ‘thinking isn’t ladylike’.

The danger is that post-modernism could lead us back into the dark ages.

But this is not postmodernism. A rigorous postmodernist would make the same accusation as you do, of ‘essentialism’ – the attribution of absolute qualities to a particular gender/sexuality/ethnicity.

You’re mixing up two things here, I think, and thus creating a straw man. The observation that a lot of science has been done by white men, and that this might just have some sort of effect on its progress is absolutely reasonable. (remember all those exciting new discoveries about clitoral anatomy a while back? Care to take a punt at why nobody had bothered to look into it before?). The contention that it is therefore worthless is not.

dudalb

15th August 2007, 04:27 PM

Postmodernism is useful for studying art and literature, but has no relation to the real world.

And a lot of people would dispute that.
My own problem with it is that it's roots in Marxism..and Marxism is anathema to me.

volatile

15th August 2007, 05:11 PM

And a lot of people would dispute that.
My own problem with it is that it's roots in Marxism..and Marxism is anathema to me.

Not really. Post-modernism in general and post-structuralism specifically reject Marxism and Marxist approaches...

simonmaal

16th August 2007, 01:30 AM

I’ve seen a lot of talk about this, but not a lot of evidence. Is there anything in the formal curriculum documents that actually articulates it?

Both my sisters are teachers, so they are in a good position to comment on the subject and to dig out the relevant parts; when they have done this, I'll get back to you. This could take a day or two, but they have both raised concerns about the ways they are forced to teach. It would seem that instead of teaching our children how to think and how to take responsibility for themselves, we are telling them what to think. And by the way, pointless repressive nonsense such as the banning of the word "blackboard" is true in at least in one of my sisters' schools (I'll have to ask the other one if it is the same in her school). Ideally, I would get them to come on here and comment, but I don't think that will happen; they don't enjoy online debate as much as i do :).

I would submit that they have always been taught in faith schools, and I doubt that any mainstream curriculum at the level you’re discussing includes postmodern thought on the philosophy of science. I certainly don’t recall hearing Donna Haraway’s name at GSCE – indeed, I had to go and find her for myself.

What ‘importance’ axis are you placing these two things on? I don’t think it’s ever correct to tell a child (or indeed anyone) that what they feel is ‘unimportant’. It’s correct to say that if the results of empirical studies make them feel bad, then there is nothing to be done about it and they had best learn to cope. However, this is not the same as telling them that those feelings are invalid.

Bang on with this. No matter how much you dress it up in mystical guff about earth and salt and wombs it still boils down to ‘thinking isn’t ladylike’.

But this is not postmodernism. A rigorous postmodernist would make the same accusation as you do, of ‘essentialism’ – the attribution of absolute qualities to a particular gender/sexuality/ethnicity.

You’re mixing up two things here, I think, and thus creating a straw man.Not at all; I entered this conversation with a consideration of Gergen's "democracy of ideas", a concept that potentially places experiential "evidence" (therefore anecdote) on a par with rigorous experimental data. My first post creates the context for the second.

The observation that a lot of science has been done by white men, and that this might just have some sort of effect on its progress is absolutely reasonable. (remember all those exciting new discoveries about clitoral anatomy a while back? Care to take a punt at why nobody had bothered to look into it before?). The contention that it is therefore worthless is not.Once again, I request that you take a look at my earlier post where I spoke up in favour of post-modernism (albeit cautiously) when everybody else was slating it. The post you are quoting needs to be read in the context of my first one. This would answer your questions and also neutralise the objection you just raised (see especially my comments on political influences).

When read in context, I am fairly sure we pretty much are in agreement on this issue, I think we are stumbling over interpretations. But we shall see...

simonmaal

16th August 2007, 01:42 AM

Not really. Post-modernism in general and post-structuralism specifically reject Marxism and Marxist approaches...

I agree: I would not say that Marxism and post-modernism go hand-in-hand. Let me explain my reasons for this:

If we are to argue that postmodernism focuses on the constructive nature of knowledge, then by default, we need to concede that is itself a construct and thus subject to context. Therefore, post-modernism could be placed in a kind of superordinate "democracy of ideas" and be placed on a par with other worldviews (or next to heavily modified versions of itself). So even if there were a left wing (or anarchistic) feel to post-modernism, the ideology is more than capable of absorbing ideas from other parts of the political spectrum.

mad

16th August 2007, 03:28 AM

brodski

16th August 2007, 03:52 AM

roger

16th August 2007, 04:40 AM

Instead of trying to define what it is, an attempt that I've never successfully witnessed , how about just sharing 5 or 10 of the top findings in the field. That would go a long way.

simonmaal

16th August 2007, 05:06 AM

Instead of trying to define what it is, an attempt that I've never successfully witnessed , how about just sharing 5 or 10 of the top findings in the field. That would go a long way.

I know where you are coming from, but that request is a bit like asking to see the 5 or 10 top findings in the field of skepticism. Post-modernism is a way of thinking, not a research tool.

simonmaal

16th August 2007, 05:24 AM

So, the answer to my original question is:

Yes, Postmodernism is a subject for Skeptics, but I am too late and it is no longer relevant. And I don’t know what I am talking about, but its OK, because there are other equally valid ways of knowing things.

No, you are missing the point.

My definition of postmodernism is this: no matter how objective any piece of research is, there are no theory-free observations. But this was an integral part of scientific thinking long before post-modernism appeared as a discrete concept. Postmodernism is merely an extension of critical thinking.

So I don't think we need to get too concerned about postmodermism diluting science, unless it is abused in the ways I highlighted earlier in this thread. If we were to over-relativise all knowledge, we would end up with the "epistemic fallacy"; in other words, we would fail to distinguish between objective reality and our interpretation or experience of it. We would be doing the latter whilst ignoring the former, which would make absoultely no logical sense at all. In order to determine how to study something (epistemology), we need to state what we believe exists to be studied (ontology). Epistemology and ontology can only be understood in the light of each other - so we have another dialectic to go alongside realism-relativism. From that point of view, post-modernism enhances the skeptical mind rather than detracts from it (but take that comment with my earlier caveat borne in mind).

roger

16th August 2007, 05:29 AM

I know where you are coming from, but that request is a bit like asking to see the 5 or 10 top findings in the field of skepticism. Post-modernism is a way of thinking, not a research tool.5 or 10 top findings in scepticism? Easy peasy.

Homeopathy doesn't work.
Dowsing doesn't work.
GSIC chip? Doesn't work.
Acupuncture - except for low level pain management, doesn't work.
Penicillen works.
Occam's razor is a reliable, but not foolproof way to choose between competing theories.
Giving everyone the same horoscope (w/o their knowledge) leads them to all access the reading as scarily accurate, casting doubt on the value of horoscopes.

I could continue, but you get the idea. We'd have major arguments about whether the above are truly "top", or how exactly these fall under the rubric of sceptism rather than medicine, etc., but that is not the point. It's pretty easy to list findings based on the sceptical way of thinking.

So, what have we discovered with this new way of thinking?

ETA: Perhaps this post will be considered disengenous, so let me expand. I can not list any major finding from poetry, say. That does not mean poetry is pointless. I love poetry. It's pleasurable. It does, however, pretty much exclude poetry as a method of research. However, if read this thread, we see claims like "Post-modern approaches to gender, race and sexuality have informed liberalism for most of the second half of this century." The examples proffered so far have fallen flat to my judgement. For example, the idea that women should earn the same as men was attributed to PoMo; Darat successfully showed that was not the case.

It's trivial to take a tenet of scepticism, and apply it to a subject. So how about a pomo exibition? Take a subject, and apply pomo to it, avoiding the jargon so we can all read it.

I've read a lot of pomo in support of work I've published (CV on request), and I can honestly say that I've never felt I learned anything new, that the article or book could be summarized in any useful way, that any contribution was made other than "publish or perish". I'm genuinely asking to be proven wrong.

Jekyll

16th August 2007, 05:32 AM

My definition of postmodernism is this: no matter how objective any piece of research is, there are no theory-free observations. But this was an integral part of scientific thinking long before post-modernism appeared as a discrete concept. Postmodernism is merely an extension of critical thinking.

But problems with the orbit of Mercury were observed long before general relativity explained it.

The result of observations should not change from one scientific epoch to the next, provided that they are honestly reported, but the way they are explained away in the context of contemporary theory changes.

simonmaal

16th August 2007, 05:34 AM

(deleted duplication)

simonmaal

16th August 2007, 05:35 AM

5 or 10 top findings in scepticism? Easy peasy.

Homeopathy doesn't work.
Dowsing doesn't work.
GSIC chip? Doesn't work.
Acupuncture - except for low level pain management, doesn't work.
Penicillen works.
Occam's razor is a reliable, but not foolproof way to choose between competing theories.
Giving everyone the same horoscope (w/o their knowledge) leads them to all access the reading as scarily accurate, casting doubt on the value of horoscopes.

Skepticism did not find these things. The experimental technique discovered these things, led by a skeptical mindset. Skepticism is not a methodology, it is a way of thinking that embraces the scientific technique as its methodology.

I could continue, but you get the idea. We'd have major arguments about whether the above are truly "top", or how exactly these fall under the rubric of sceptism rather than medicine, etc., but that is not the point. It's pretty easy to list findings based on the sceptical way of thinking.

So, what have we discovered with this new way of thinking?Your last two sentences answer your earlier question: skepticism is a way of thinking, post-modernism is a way of thinking. Expirements are a tool of investigation, discourse analysis is a tool of investigation. Post-modernism is a super-ordinate idea; it is a way of consolidating findings from different methodologies.

simonmaal

16th August 2007, 05:47 AM

But problems with the orbit of Mercury were observed long before general relativity explained it.

I'm not an expert on astronomy so I'll take this finding at face value (do excuse me if I sound stuffy here - skeptic's etiquette :D, also excuse my attempt at using this example to illustrate the point if I seem to go awry with the theoretical side of it).

OK, disclaimers dealt with. The ontology in the mercury example could be roughly defined as planets and gravity. The epistemology would be positivist: using the natural sciences to discover how planets and gravity behave. In contrast, the rudimentary attempts by the Babylonians to explain the movement of the heavens (what they believed to be the object of study affected the way in which they investigated it) would produce very different research methods. As an aside, the Babylonians were very accurate in their predictions even though their explanations have since proved to be wrong. So we need to look at how the close relationship between ontology and epistemology contributed towards understanding. We cannot have one without the other.

In fact, what you go on to say next makes this point very nicely:

The result of observations should not change from one scientific epoch to the next, provided that they are honestly reported, but the way they are explained away in the context of contemporary theory changes.

Yes, that's it exactly!!!

roger

16th August 2007, 06:27 AM

Skepticism did not find these things. The experimental technique discovered these things, led by a skeptical mindset. Skepticism is not a methodology, it is a way of thinking that embraces the scientific technique as its methodology.Right. So give me something discoved using the pomo mindset. Or just something that could be discovered using the pomo mindset. Walk us through it. Show us pomo in action, don't just talk about what it is like.

This is not a difficult question to my mind.

volatile

16th August 2007, 06:49 AM

Right. So give me something discoved using the pomo mindset. Or just something that could be discovered using the pomo mindset. Walk us through it. Show us pomo in action, don't just talk about what it is like.

This is not a difficult question to my mind.

One rather obvious example is the decoupling of sex and gender which has allowed us to understand transexuality more sympathetically. Without post-modern works on this question, such as Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, there would not have been the social climate from which the Gender Recognition Bill (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldbills/004/2004004.htm) could have emerged. This Bill will be enacted into law in the next parliamentary session.

Buckaroo

16th August 2007, 07:15 AM

Not wanting to appear rude, but do any of you actually know what post-modernism IS? Have you ever read any?

The problem is what many of us HAVE read. For example, this, from Felix Guattari*:
We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their expansion: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously.

or this, from Gilles Deleuze*:
In the first place, singularities-events correspond to heterogeneous series which are organized into a system which is neither stable nor unstable, but rather ‘metastable,’ endowed with a potential energy wherein the differences between series are distributed . . . In the second place, singularities possess a process of auto-unification, always mobile and displaced to the extent that a paradoxical element traverses the series and makes them resonate, enveloping the corresponding singular points in a single aleatory point and all the emissions, all dice throws, in a single cast.

I defy anyone to explain, even in context, what these passages mean. Faced with deliberately obfuscatory, convoluted, neologism-peppered, unparsable nonsense designed to impress graduate students enough to get into their pants (many of these guys are French, after all ;) ), is it any wonder most of us don't make further attempts at many of these "intellectuals?" (That said, I have enjoyed and appreciated some Foucault, particularly Discipline and Punish.)

Parenthetically, PoMo is still going strong in quite a few departments. My Lit professor girlfriend and I broke up after a fight about Lacan only a few years ago -- I revealed that I thought his writings were bunk, and she complained that I didn't "respect her profession." So it goes... :)

* Quotes and Dawkins' discussion of Sokal's Intellectual Imposters are here: http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Reviews/1998-07-09postmodernism_disrobed.shtml

roger

16th August 2007, 07:42 AM

One rather obvious example is the decoupling of sex and gender which has allowed us to understand transexuality more sympathetically. Without post-modern works on this question, such as Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, there would not have been the social climate from which the Gender Recognition Bill (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldbills/004/2004004.htm) could have emerged. This Bill will be enacted into law in the next parliamentary session.Thank you. I am not an expert in the field, but I would not trace the social climate to Butler's work, but more to things like the 60s. As a nonexpert, I certainly am prepared to stand to be corrected. Nontheless, I'm certainly ready to accept it as an example of what pomo can do, so let's stick with it. It certainly seems to have potential.

I don't have time right now to address this further; I hope other posters do. I will say I can't get any real traction with her ideas. To the extent I can, I am dubious, in that she seems to remove all aspects of biology from behavior. When we try to get to specifics, the arguments are as hard to catch as a greased pig. I offer this site (http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/genderandsex/modules/butlergendersex.html), which I believe to believe a reputable academic source, as an example.

"In opposition to theatrical or phenomenological models which take the gendered self to be prior to its acts, I will understand constituting acts not only as constituting the identity of the actor, but as constituting that identity as a compelling illusion, an object of belief"

"Because there is neither an 'essence' that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender creates the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis"

That clears it right up for me :D

Somewhat more seriously, substitute happiness for gender in the above. The sentences still say the same thing, and we can agree or not. But there is a biological basis for happiness, it's not just an act.

And that's my problem with pomo. I've never seen any that tries to ground itself in facts, instead it gets lost in supposition. There is no 'thing' called happiness, nor can we exactly define it; that does not render it a fiction or a construction.

I have no idea if gender (in the feminist/Butler sense) is biologically based, and if so, to what extent. But reading about Butler (which is different from reading Butler, I admit), doesn't make me want to turn to her as a source for thinking about it. Surely an unfair characterization given such a cursory overview, but I've read a lot of other pomo stuff (not gender related), and I honestly feel weary at the thought of reading more. Biased, yes, but there it is.

ETA: we shouldn't fault a discipline for using arcane language. I don't expect to understand medical journals. I do expect a doctor to explain the upshot to me. Hopefully this thread will provide some upshots.

Matt the Poet

16th August 2007, 07:47 AM

volatile

16th August 2007, 08:05 AM

And that's my problem with pomo. I've never seen any that tries to ground itself in facts, instead it gets lost in supposition. There is no 'thing' called happiness, nor can we exactly define it; that does not render it a fiction or a construction.

That's precisely it. In the absence of empirically measurable substance, or a methodology through which to empirically test certain things, we need a philosophically reasonable way to approach these kinds of questions. Post-modernism is one such approach. Here you seem to be castigating postmodernism for failing to provide something it never set out to provide in the first place. Butler makes no claims as to the empirically-testable nature of gender, but such as this is currently untestable she provides a cogent, coherent and well-argued account which helps all of us come to an understanding of the problematising of gender identity that transsexuals demonstrate, as well as a rational case for how society might change to cope with this.

Matt the Poet pointed something similar out earlier on - too heavy a reliance on something like biology could be interpreted to sanction things like rape, and we need a non-empirical way of thinking through why this might not be the best way of living as human beings.

Postmodernism is just a perspective, a way of looking, a set of metaphors and methods of illustrating how relationships function. It doesn't make testable truth claims, but nor should it be criticised for it.

I have no idea if gender (in the feminist/Butler sense) is biologically based, and if so, to what extent. But reading about Butler (which is different from reading Butler, I admit), doesn't make me want to turn to her as a source for thinking about it. Surely an unfair characterization given such a cursory overview, but I've read a lot of other pomo stuff (not gender related), and I honestly feel weary at the thought of reading more. Biased, yes, but there it is.

So you'll happily judge it without making an attempt to understand it, and then when someone suggest something which might help you in this task, you reject it out of hand? You'd accuse a woo of hypocrisy and closed-mindedness if they did the same regarding a scientific subject. It's shame.

I personally have problems with Butler's conception of transseuality, and wrote as much in my MA thesis. But it's undeniable that things which have entered the common vernacular, such as the oft-repeated contention that transsexuals were "born in the wrong body", come directly out of the postmodern thinking of the 60s and 70s.

ETA: we shouldn't fault a discipline for using arcane language. I don't expect to understand medical journals. I do expect a doctor to explain the upshot to me. Hopefully this thread will provide some upshots.

Indeed. I wholeheartedly agree.

roger

16th August 2007, 08:14 AM

So you'll happily judge it without making an attempt to understand it, and then when someone suggest something which might help you in this task, you reject it out of hand? You'd accuse a woo of hypocrisy and closed-mindedness if they did the same regarding a scientific subject. It's shame.Huh? I said I don't have time to pursue this in depth at this exact moment, and I shared with you the results of my earlier attempts. And I specifically said it would be unfair of me to characterize it as being X or Y based on such a cursory overview.

I'll address the rest of your post later, I'm not ignoring it.

ETA: to be clear, I don't have time to go buy, read the book, reread this thread, and respond constructively and thoughtfully. I hope that doesn't preclude my chatting in a discussion that interests me, and that was at one point of my life the bane of my existance.

jon

16th August 2007, 08:22 AM

roger

16th August 2007, 08:25 AM

What is a "gesture of conceptual mastery"?

drkitten

16th August 2007, 08:39 AM

Skepticism did not find these things. The experimental technique discovered these things, led by a skeptical mindset. Skepticism is not a methodology, it is a way of thinking that embraces the scientific technique as its methodology.

Yes, precisely. And we can point out some fairly direct, useful, and "obvious" results of applying that mindset -- the list was provided in the post to which you respond.

Can you compile a similar list for postmodernism? "The experimental technique, led by a skeptical mindset, discoverd these things: [INSERT LIST HERE]."

Now, try this. "The [INSERT ADJECTIVE HERE] technique, led by a postmodern mindset, discovered these things : [INSERT LIST HERE]."

In my experience with postmodernism, neither the adjective nor the list can actually be inserted. You suggested that "equal work for equal pay" and "no scientific truth can be proven absolutely" were two elements of that list, but a deeper investigation into the historical record show that they weren't.

Similarly, some of the more hysterical wing-nuts in postmodernism have suggested that special "ways of knowing" should produce new insights unavailable except through "feminist science" (or some such gibberish). I've never seen a convincing list of such insights; I've rarely seen a list at all (convincing or not).

Matt the Poet

16th August 2007, 08:41 AM

What is a "gesture of conceptual mastery"?

Stab in the dark here but could it possibly be a gesture that demonstrates mastery over concepts?

Oh, and Simonmaal - I'm not ignoring you. I'm sniffing around Gergen (KJ, I presume, rather than David...) so that I can provide an informed response.

jon

16th August 2007, 08:45 AM

What is a "gesture of conceptual mastery"?

What I'd read Butler as writing about is the idea that - by talking about 'postmodernism', and lumping a whole load of theorists under that term - one could give the impression of understanding a whole range of diverse ideas and concepts, without engaging with the nitty gritty of these different ideas, approaches, etc. One could thus claim to have mastered and dealt with a concept of 'postmodernism' (or to have found that 'postmodernism' is unreadable nonsense) without engaging with the positions of the different theorists you'd place under that term.

Butler's writing could be clearer, but this from the preceding paragraph might (or might not) help put the idea of a 'gesture of conceptual mastery' into context:

the ’whole’, the field of postmodernism in its supposed breath, is effectively ‘produced’ by the example which is made to stand as a symptom and exemplar of the whole; in effect, if in the example of Lyotard we think we have a representation of postmodernism, we have then forced a substitution of the example for the entire field, effecting a violent reduction of the field to the one piece of text the critic is willing to read, a piece which, conveniently, uses the term ‘postmodern’.”

Did I mention that Butler's writing could be clearer :D

roger

16th August 2007, 08:47 AM

Stab in the dark here but could it possibly be a gesture that demonstrates mastery over concepts? I wasn't being disingenuous.

Matt the Poet

16th August 2007, 08:48 AM

Now, try this. "The [INSERT ADJECTIVE HERE] technique, led by a postmodern mindset, discovered these things : [INSERT LIST HERE]."

Or this: The [INSERT ADJECTIVE HERE] technique, led by a feministmindset, discovered these things : [INSERT LIST HERE].

Trying to complete this sentence is equally meaningless - are you seriously suggesting that this makes feminism worthless?

drkitten

16th August 2007, 08:56 AM

Or this: The [INSERT ADJECTIVE HERE] technique, led by a feministmindset, discovered these things : [INSERT LIST HERE].

Trying to complete this sentence is equally meaningless - are you seriously suggesting that this makes feminism worthless?

Quite the contrary; I specifically claim that completing that sentence is meaningful (with one minor emendation).

For example, the political process, led by a feminist mindset, discovered that granting women the right to vote, the right to own and control property, and the right to control their own fertility did not produce substantial negative impact on society.

In other words, feminism is specifically not worthless because of the positive results of the feminist mindset to which I can point.

No corresponding list exists for "postmodernism." Ergo, no corresponding proof exists that postmodernism is not useless.

roger

16th August 2007, 09:05 AM

What I'd read Butler as writing about is the idea that - by talking about 'postmodernism', and lumping a whole load of theorists under that term - one could give the impression of understanding a whole range of diverse ideas and concepts, without engaging with the nitty gritty of these different ideas, approaches, etc. One could thus claim to have mastered and dealt with a concept of 'postmodernism' (or to have found that 'postmodernism' is unreadable nonsense) without engaging with the positions of the different theorists you'd place under that term.Thanks, that's along the lines I was guessing.

Her phrase seems absolutely laden with assumptions, assumptions I don't buy. When I speak of a "poet", I mean just that. "Ah, just what" replies the eager pomo. I'm not so unsophisticated to get what the pomoist means, of course. We've had arguments about what is art, what is a poem, etc., on here, and they are enjoyable and worthwhile questions. Nontheless, if I take something that Wallace Stevens wrote and showed it to 1000 basically literate people, I predict confidently that they would correctly label it as "poem" or "article", depending on which it is, with a matching success rate of at least 99%. I also acknowledge that we could find "poets" whose writings couldn't be so easily categorized.

But I am not "gesturing", I am not assuming "mastery", nor am I blinded to the implications of what the limitations of the word "poem" can convey. I'm just using a word very usefully. Wallace Stevens wrote poems. It's merely a statement identifying one of the things Stevens did. If someone hasn't heard of him, well, know they have a slightly better understanding of what he did. Likewise, acknowledging that a group of writers took on various concepts that we can broadly trace to people like Lacan, Derrida, et al is not a particularly difficult idea to grasp. Nothing in that statement assumes that they all think the same thing, attacked the same problems, etc.

In short, I absolutely don't buy her position. We aren't grouping writers together as a "gesture of conceptual mastery", we are just trying to talk about something in a useful way. Volatile and others feel we have something to learn from some of these people. So, giving Volatile the benefit of the doubt, we talk about them. We aren't being "violent", or anything else.

I'm sure I'll be told that "violent" is being taken out of context. All I can say to that is pomo texts are riddled with such language. violence, gestures, mastery, subjects, endless power metaphors, metaphors that I argue the pomo dragged in, not metaphors that they discovered in the text.

Jekyll

16th August 2007, 09:13 AM

I'm not an expert on astronomy so I'll take this finding at face value (do excuse me if I sound stuffy here - skeptic's etiquette :D, also excuse my attempt at using this example to illustrate the point if I seem to go awry with the theoretical side of it).

OK, disclaimers dealt with. The ontology in the mercury example could be roughly defined as planets and gravity. The epistemology would be positivist: using the natural sciences to discover how planets and gravity behave. In contrast, the rudimentary attempts by the Babylonians to explain the movement of the heavens (what they believed to be the object of study affected the way in which they investigated it) would produce very different research methods. As an aside, the Babylonians were very accurate in their predictions even though their explanations have since proved to be wrong. So we need to look at how the close relationship between ontology and epistemology contributed towards understanding. We cannot have one without the other.
A bit wordy, but I think I agree with you :P.

In fact, what you go on to say next makes this point very nicely:

The result of observations should not change from one scientific epoch to the next, provided that they are honestly reported, but the way they are explained away in the context of contemporary theory changes.

Yes, that's it exactly!!!
But aren't we disagreeing here?

no matter how objective any piece of research is, there are no theory-free observations.
In comparison, I'm asserting that there are theory free observations, or at least theory invariant observations. This idea is very important in science as it allows us to quantitatively evaluate different theories.

For example, we can make the objective assertion that: General Relativity is more accurate than Newtonian mechanics, which is at least as accurate and has greater predictive power* than those of the Babylonians.

*I don't know how good the Babylonians were but as they only worked out what was going on by counting, Newtonian mechanics almost certainly gives greater accuracy, and allows you to predict the movement of previously unobserved bodies.

Matt the Poet

16th August 2007, 09:29 AM

Nontheless, if I take something that Wallace Stevens wrote and showed it to 1000 basically literate people, I predict confidently that they would correctly label it as "poem" or "article", depending on which it is, with a matching success rate of at least 99%. I also acknowledge that we could find "poets" whose writings couldn't be so easily categorized.

But I am not "gesturing", I am not assuming "mastery", nor am I blinded to the implications of what the limitations of the word "poem" can convey.

Ah - but what you are doing, interestingly, is agreeing that a poem can only, ultimately, be defined as 'something we all tend to agree is a poem' - which is quite a postmodern position in itself.

Likewise, acknowledging that a group of writers took on various concepts that we can broadly trace to people like Lacan, Derrida, et al is not a particularly difficult idea to grasp. Nothing in that statement assumes that they all think the same thing, attacked the same problems, etc.

Lacan was a psychoanalyst. Derrida was...well, that's a whole other argument in itself but personally I'd call him a philosopher. I'm sure people have tried to tie them together but I bet it's a pretty tortuous ride, and not a very fertile one - indeed, the resulting abomination would show exactly the problem of trying to engage with 'that postmodern stuff' rather than differentiating between different writers.

Buckaroo

16th August 2007, 09:39 AM

Buckaroo - I could do the same thing by selecting a random paragraph from a cosmology text. Like any other specialised discipline, cultural theory has it's own terminology.

From my (admittedly amateur) understanding of the field, the first passage seems restating the fairly common point that attempts to divide any social or cultural milieu into two (male/female, gay/straight etc.) always generate awkward 'in between' states (transgender, bi) that demolish said division. I'm presuming that the 'machinic catalysis' that does this is described earlier in the passage.

The second sounds like its from one of Deleuze's texts on cinema - he's trying to describe the difficult business of how we synthesise different shots into a narrative - how we 'read', for example, the Odessa steps sequence, which is essentially a series of 'singularities', into some coherent whole and decide what its trying to tell us. But again, without context I could be wrong - just as I could be wrong in trying to reconstruct an entire Nature paper from the methods paragraph.

You may be right, and it is entirely possible that I have let my perceptions be colored by rubbish like Irigaray's prater about feminist fluid dynamics, to the point where I reflexively throw out the wheat with the chaff. But I'm not sure. For one thing, the jargon-riddled writing that characterizes a scientific paper has a definite, concrete meaning, unlike much of the writing I've seen from PoMo sources, which seems to depend on equivication of meaning and shifting goalposts to produce any kind of argument at all.

I will add, though, that my impressions have been formed mostly through those writings where there is clear intellectual abuse going on. I remember one particularly infurating case (and the case that first lent me a jaundiced eye where capital "T" Theory was involved) from a course on Holocaust literature, where we were studying an essay that applied a Theoretical analysis to a factual account of a concentration camp survivor escaping the camp through a sewer network, with much literary importance being placed on aspects the event that were arbitrarily and simply how it actually happened. It's probable that I've been biased against this kind of stuff ever since.

And here I'm just going to reveal my ignorance, because it has never been clear to me just what cultural theory IS. Of course the conventional meaning of "theory" in the sciences is an explanatory conceptual framework, the accuracy of which can (in principle, anyway) be judged by comparison with the real world, and that can be used to make predictions. But what does in mean in THIS context? As near as I can tell, cultural theory doesn't "explain" anything, is far from being a unified framework ("feminist," "queer," "post-colonialist" etc. readings of a text all being equally valid), can't be judged for accuracy against any standard, and can make no predictions. So it must mean something else entirely, and must have completely different aims. But what are they? Could someone explain?

roger

16th August 2007, 09:41 AM

Ah - but what you are doing, interestingly, is agreeing that a poem can only, ultimately, be defined as 'something we all tend to agree is a poem' - which is quite a postmodern position in itself.Seems I remember this being addressed in Don Quixote and by the greeks. :D IOW, we don't disagree with some specific ideas that ideas are, well, ideas, and fit inexactly when draped over physical reality. What we resist, is, well, let's look at your next paragraph...

Lacan was a psychoanalyst. Derrida was...well, that's a whole other argument in itself but personally I'd call him a philosopher. I'm sure people have tried to tie them together but I bet it's a pretty tortuous ride, and not a very fertile one - indeed, the resulting abomination would show exactly the problem of trying to engage with 'that postmodern stuff' rather than differentiating between different writers.There's no point in a dictionary battle. So let's stipulate your point. Rename the thread, "Lacan et al". I hereby retract my violent gestures, I mean, typing "postmodern".

This is what Lacan had to say about an erect penis: ". . is equivalent to the sqrt(-1) of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (-1)."

Nonsense. This is gibberish, in context.

Specific things that Butler (I'm not calling her a pomo, note) said, such as the things above: Nonsense. Either gibberish, or trivial to show wrong.

Now, if you want to play the label game, you can, but some of us won't play.

IOW, I have read a lot of authors who would be "masterfully gestured" as PoMos. It was my job to write an annotated bibliography of this stuff at one point. I feel pretty confident I've read more of it than anyone else here, unless we have a PhD from a relevant department. And I'm saying it almost all sounds like a) nonsense b) trivially true statements, and c) statements trivially shown to be false. i got out of that racket around 1990 or so, so the author Volatile offered up is unread by me, so my assumptions about her work are very provisional, and admittedly colored by past experience. I sincerely hope Volatile or somebody can prove me wrong.

So let's not argue about what 'pomo' really means, and whether we can really call someone a pomo or not, and just realize we are talking about people and their writings. Surely we can do that?

volatile

16th August 2007, 10:05 AM

Seems I remember this being addressed in Don Quixote and by the greeks. :D IOW, we don't disagree with some specific ideas that ideas are, well, ideas, and fit inexactly when draped over physical reality.

Indeed. And a certain set of ideas "which seem to be related by a laid-back pluralism of styles" may be termed "post-modern" - going back to the Oxford Companion of Philosophy definition I cited earlier. Post-modernism, as we're discussing it here (for all the inability to pin down what it might refer to eactly) is a thought-process, an approach (or set of approaches) and a way of thinking about the world.

This is what Lacan had to say about an erect penis: ". . is equivalent to the sqrt(-1) of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (-1)."

Nonsense. This is gibberish, in context. I haven't read as much Lacan as I'd like, and whilst this is clearly odd for anyone who works with numbers, I'd like to know what "the signification produced above" is before I pass judgement. I have huge problems with Lacanian modes of thinking, and am happy to critique his ideas. That his thinking is both ontologically and empirically incorrect in a lot of ways I do not doubt, but this does not undermine postmodernism. Just as pointing out that a scientist is wrong doesn't undermine science, pointing out a post-modern theorist is wrong doesn't undermine post-modernism, such that it is.

Post-modernism is one approach in the dialogue that is philosophy. This dialogue has been carried on since the ancient world, and involves authors talking to each other and suggesting ways of looking at the world. Philosophy's a centuries-old conversation or a debate, every sentence of which must necessarily start with "I think that...", and post-modernism is one particular mindset within it.

Lacan says "desire is produced by lack", and this is because a, b and c". Deleuze says "No, I think desire is in itself a productive force, and this metaphor or model is a better way of looking at the world because of x, y and z". It's like a bawdy conversation in the pub that is humanity.

If science can provide a usefully empricial definition of desire, I'd love to hear it. All post-modernism does is drape one particular hue of idea over reality, as you put it, to allow people to get a grasp on it in ways hard science can't, and doesn't pretend to do.

IOW, I have read a lot of authors who would be "masterfully gestured" as PoMos. It was my job to write an annotated bibliography of this stuff at one point. I feel pretty confident I've read more of it than anyone else here, unless we have a PhD from a relevant department.I'm halfway through a PhD which uses some theorists and approaches that may be termed "post-modern". Does that count?

And I'm saying it almost all sounds like a) nonsense b) trivially true statements, and c) statements trivially shown to be false.Saying that gender and biological sex are separable is not a trivially true statement, nor is it nonsense or trivially shown to be false. This cannot be empirically tested.

Saying that a painting might not always "mean" what the author intended is not trvially true, nonsense nor trivially shown to be false. This cannot be empirically tested.

Questions of identity, or culture, or politics, or art or music cannot be easily determined empirically. Post-modernism is one particular subset of ways of examining issues in all these spheres. It posts ways of looking and ways of thinking that are interesting and enlightening. What's so wrong with that? I still don't quite see where all the ire comes from.

volatile

16th August 2007, 10:23 AM

An aside:

I tend to think of these particular philosophers as tools to help crack problems. They provide frameworks and models which might help produce a more nuanced understanding of a particular question.

In my case, I'm trying to investigate, or describe, how people's sense of embodiment changes when they transformatively engage with their bodies, and I find some of Deleuze and Guattari's ideas useful in trying to do this. This is something that, at the moment, cannot be defined scientifically.

How people relate to their bodies, and how people relate to other people's bodies, is something that neuroscience, sociology and psychology can look at and perhaps quantify, but only philosophy can try and describe in such a way that it is useful. The criticisms levelled at post-modernism in this thread thus far are probably equally applicable to all of philosophy - especially that it makes claims that cannot be "proven" - but that does not mean we should ignore the wonderful insights that people like Russell or Spinoza or, yes, Butler and Kristeva, might provide.

volatile

16th August 2007, 10:35 AM

No corresponding list exists for "postmodernism." Ergo, no corresponding proof exists that postmodernism is not useless.

I just posted one.

The post-structuralist technique, led by a postmodern mindset, discovered these things : that people with penises don't always identify with the label "boy", leading to the Gender Recognition Bill and a broad cultural acceptance of transexuality.

If we hadn't had cultural theorists pointing this out, you wouldn't be able to get gender reassignment surgery on the NHS, and a large number of people would currently be desperately unhappy, or dead.

Buckaroo

16th August 2007, 10:39 AM

roger

16th August 2007, 10:51 AM

I'm halfway through a PhD which uses some theorists and approaches that may be termed "post-modern". Does that count?Probably. Not a dick swinging contest, just making the point I'm not coming at this from a point of "never read it, and not gonna".

Okay, so you find value in PoMo. Some of the concepts we have discussed interest me, so you'll hear no quibble about that. But it still gets to the traction I've been unable to achieve. You stated Questions of identity, or culture, or politics, or art or music cannot be easily determined empirically. Post-modernism is one particular subset of ways of examining issues in all these spheres. It posts ways of looking and ways of thinking that are interesting and enlightening. What's so wrong with that? I still don't quite see where all the ire comes from.

The ire comes from the seemingly purposeful attempt to write without clarity, to use muddled ideas. Note I do not in any way extend this to you; I think you are writing mostly very clearly.

So... the results. You said In my case, I'm trying to investigate, or describe, how people's sense of embodiment changes when they transformatively engage with their bodies, and I find some of Deleuze and Guattari's ideas useful in trying to do this. This is something that, at the moment, cannot be defined scientifically.

Would you share what you have found so far? I'll state in advance that I have no idea what "people's sense of embodiment changes" or how one would "transformatively engage with their bodies" - I hope you'll take that not as an attack but a genuine statement of my confusion.

We (the public, not me and you) have had many public discussions on transgendered people and issues in the news. These conversations seem substative and important to me. There seems to be no need whatsoever for the convoluted writing style used in pomo. But, there is a difference between jibberish and jargon. I have no idea what thromboembolic meningoencephalitis means, but I have no doubt rolfe or somebody could clue me in. They could also go on and tell me why they use that term, a common term for it if it exists, why that common term might be confusing or limiting, how the condition is treated, ad nauseum. I currently have zero chance of understanding a sentence in which it is used, but that deficiency can be quickly changed.

So far, we are saying, every time a thread has come up on this topic, it just sort of goes round and round. "it's a useful lens through which to view the world". But actual examples just seem to go missing.

For example. I'm sure you are familiar with New Criticism. I shall demonstrate what a description of NC that I would love to read about PoMo: NC tried to read the text by ignoring everything external to the text - no biographies, no knowledge of history, culture, etc. This style of criticism was prominant in the early 20th century. It had its strengths and weaknesses. For example, if we examine the early imagist poetry of Stevens, circa 1920's, we are drawn to his imaginative use of language to evoke sounds, paintings, and other sensations based perceptions. NC allows us to consider these things in depth without getting confused about issues like how Stevens' mother treated him, surely an incidental issue to his use of tone and color in language. Consider, for example, "Anecdote of the Jar". This poem in itself practically states the NC viewpoint and it's antithesis - we can consider the object as itself, not in relation to it's surroundings. The poem also draws our attention to the limits of NC. The jar doesn't just sit on the hill - we are effected by it, by by being affected by it we reinterpret the landscape. NC avoids considering that, and thus misses much that is part of the poem.

Okay, you may hate that write up, but I did it off the top of my head after not thinking much about NC for 15 years, but I hope you feel it was reasonably lucid and tried to make a point. If I worked just a bit harder, I could give a more specific NC reading of the poem, and contrast it with a non-NC version, say, by reading Stevens' letters and relaying what he said about the poem, or what he was doing at the time of composition, etc. We could draw a conclusion that this reading or that was more illuminating to us, or that they were both illuminating, but just in different ways. Personally, I like NC readings, but not to the exclusion of biographical or historical approaches. I feel pretty clear that not only you, but anyone can understand what I am saying about NC even if they had never heard about it before.

But we are all still confused about PoMo.

Matt the Poet

16th August 2007, 01:20 PM

unlike much of the writing I've seen from PoMo sources, which seems to depend on equivication of meaning and shifting goalposts to produce any kind of argument at all.

That’s because if you’re a serious critical thinker, and you’re trying to get across the idea that the whole process of using language is compromised by underlying social and cultural assumptions (which is a pretty standard ‘postmodern’ viewpoint), then the fact that you have to use language to do this places you in something of a bind.

So what you do is continually hedge your bets, undermine your own assumptions, keep making it clear that you’re never really quite saying what you’re saying. You end up walking a tightrope – make things too clear and you’ll end up importing meanings you didn’t want, but make them too murky and nobody understands you.

Granted, many theorists tend to fall off the tightrope in the latter direction,
but my point is that papers in postmodern journals are not like scientific papers. They aren’t designed to impart a small and exquisitely well-delineated bolus of knowledge in such a way that it can be assimilated by a peer group with a shared vocabulary.

Think of them more like ‘performances’ – you don’t judge a play as really good because you know more about the world than when you went in, but because you’re looking at the world you do know in a different way. Similarly, a good postmodernist text will take some hitherto unexamined assumption in your brain and blow it wide open. It will make you think about the machinery that lies underneath what you are reading, writing and saying.

with much literary importance being placed on aspects the event that were arbitrarily and simply how it actually happened.

No they weren’t. They were a description of ‘how it actually happened’ put into language. Possibly even translated from one language into another. And to say that how language is used to describe an event can bias the reader’s perception of said event is pretty much a truism. Imagine if that passage had been translated into another language by a holocaust denier – its sense would doubtless be very different from the one you encountered.

As near as I can tell, cultural theory doesn't "explain" anything, is far from being a unified framework ("feminist," "queer," "post-colonialist" etc. readings of a text all being equally valid), can't be judged for accuracy against any standard, and can make no predictions. So it must mean something else entirely, and must have completely different aims. But what are they? Could someone explain?

The different readings of the text as you describe them above are all done according to the same basic argument which, by my understanding, goes something like this:

‘Any text (by which is meant any cultural product at all – TV ads, multi-storey car parks and fast food menus count, as do factual accounts of holocaust survival) are produced by people who live in a particular culture. These people will have a particular relationship – unconscious or conscious, agreeable or adversarial – with the raft of assumptions and ideas that comprise said culture. That relationship will be reflected, to a greater or lesser extent, in the texts they produce – and investigating the ways in which that reflection happens tells us interesting stuff about how individuals respond to their culture and vice versa.’

Hence, doing a ‘queer theory’ reading of Jane Austen doesn’t (as many outraged anti-pomos insist) mean suggesting that either Jane Austen or Lizzie Bennett were secretly gay. It means looking at how her novels treat same-sex relationships, asking whether they confirm or subvert the prejudices of her time and ours. Do a ‘Marxist’ reading and you look at economic relations, a ‘feminist’ reading will mine out power relationships between genders etc. etc.

Hope that's vaguely helpful...

Achán hiNidráne

16th August 2007, 01:28 PM

You think postmodern bunk applied to science is weird? I knew a guy online who was convinced that he could use "feminist theories" to support his woo beliefs. Apparently science is too 'phallic" to accept the plain reality of the supernatural, or some such.

If you think that's bad, look up the term "logocentric" sometime.

Matt the Poet

16th August 2007, 01:32 PM

Or, indeed, 'phallogocentric'

Achán hiNidráne

16th August 2007, 01:44 PM

Or, indeed, 'phallogocentric'

Don't forget Europhallologocentric.

blobru

16th August 2007, 02:47 PM

...
Think of them more like ‘performances’ – you don’t judge a play as really good because you know more about the world than when you went in, but because you’re looking at the world you do know in a different way. Similarly, a good postmodernist text will take some hitherto unexamined assumption in your brain and blow it wide open. It will make you think about the machinery that lies underneath what you are reading, writing and saying
...

I must say, as far as I understood it, I enjoyed the thesis of Deleuze's Difference and Repetition in that way, for its inversion of philosophy: instead of the traditional looking for Identity between phemonena to discern a common Idea -- classification, try looking for the Difference that renders some things sui generis and better defined by Repetition (instantiation) than words.

But why it had to be written in such dense obscure language (at least as it was translated)... didn't seem to add anything but bulk and falderal to the novel and valid inquiry he was making into the assumptions underlying classic metaphysics. I prefer recent stuff like say Slavoj Zizek for its conversational prose, even though he's not that original, mostly just reinterpreting Lacan. But at least he's trying to be clear, as opposed to the older postmods, who seemed to embrace a sort of stream-of-conscious logorrhea as the key to subversive epiphany and understanding.

Matt the Poet

16th August 2007, 03:14 PM

But at least he's trying to be clear, as opposed to the older postmods, who seemed to embrace a sort of stream-of-conscious logorrhea as the key to subversive epiphany and understanding.

Well, sometimes it is. I love 'Finnegan's Wake' for precisely that reason - I never understand it in the way I would understand a news article or even the instructions on self-assembly furniture, but I always come out the other side of it feeling as though my language centres have been thoroughly purged. I get the same sort of feeling from 'Anti-Oedipus', which I'm afraid is the only Deleuze and Guattari I've attempted.

blobru

16th August 2007, 03:32 PM

... but I always come out the other side of it feeling as though my language centres have been thoroughly purged. I get the same sort of feeling from 'Anti-Oedipus', which I'm afraid is the only Deleuze and Guattari I've attempted.

Well maybe; but purging my language centres gives me such a headache!!! ;)

Matt the Poet

17th August 2007, 02:17 AM

Absolutely. Takes forever to get the stains out, as well…

Simonmaal – a brief brush with Gergen seems to indicate that he’s applying his ideas as a psychotherapist. I reckon that’s appropriate. If you’re analysing a traumatised patient, and that patient firmly believes that cranio-sacral therapy has brought them into closer contact with their guardian angel (or similar), then now is probably not the time to give them a short sharp lecture on critical thinking skills. His argument seems to be that postmodernist thinking, with its multiple ‘readings’ of the world, is a good framework within which a therapist can respect (without actually accepting) that sort of thing.

It’s like the point I made earlier about education – the fact that you’re plainly wrong has nothing to do with the validity of your feelings. My primary ethical duty is to avoid hurting people – if that means leaving them to their woo beliefs rather than kicking away one of the pillars that’s holding up their fragile psyche then so be it.

simonmaal

17th August 2007, 07:41 AM

Right. So give me something discoved using the pomo mindset.

Or just something that could be discovered using the pomo mindset. Walk us through it. Show us pomo in action, don't just talk about what it is like.

This is not a difficult question to my mind.

You're doing it again: pomo does not discover things per se, it contextualises them. It is perfectly able to embrace the scientific technique, as I showed earlier (I already provided several examples so I won't repeat myself - go back and take a look).

simonmaal

17th August 2007, 07:49 AM

<snip>

To the extent I can, I am dubious, in that she seems to remove all aspects of biology from behavior. When we try to get to specifics, the arguments are as hard to catch as a greased pig. I offer this site (http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/genderandsex/modules/butlergendersex.html), which I believe to believe a reputable academic source, as an example.

"In opposition to theatrical or phenomenological models which take the gendered self to be prior to its acts, I will understand constituting acts not only as constituting the identity of the actor, but as constituting that identity as a compelling illusion, an object of belief"

"Because there is neither an 'essence' that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender creates the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis"

That clears it right up for me :D

Somewhat more seriously, substitute happiness for gender in the above. The sentences still say the same thing, and we can agree or not. But there is a biological basis for happiness, it's not just an act.

And that's my problem with pomo. I've never seen any that tries to ground itself in facts, instead it gets lost in supposition. There is no 'thing' called happiness, nor can we exactly define it; that does not render it a fiction or a construction. <snip>

And this is where the two of us agree. Pomo can be cause for concern: it can lead up a relativised dark alley where biological factors and personal autonomy and responsibility are subordinated to "the social". And they do often use flowery euphemisms to disguise their highly subjective, incohesive (and often circular) arguments; untestable notions such as a dynamic subconscious or institutional racism being annoying examples of this at work.

But once again, this does not mean that the pomo (i do like that abbreviation) is inherently woo, just that it can be misapplied.

simonmaal

17th August 2007, 08:23 AM

<snip>Can you compile a similar list for postmodernism? "The experimental technique, led by a skeptical mindset, discoverd these things: ."

Now, try this. "The [INSERT ADJECTIVE HERE] technique, led by a postmodern mindset, discovered these things : [INSERT LIST HERE].</snip>"

Your question suggests that you have misunderstood my argument, and I consequently feel we are starting to go circular here. But I will humour you ;). Post-modernism is capable of using precisely the same results from that list and placing them in what Gergen described as a "democracy of ideas." I will use homeopathy (the first item in the list) to make the point. So we would need to modify the statement you have asked to say:

The experimental/hermeneutic/social constructionist/existential approaches, when interpreted through a postmodern mindset, can be used to show that homeopathy does not work but that, for its day, it had a moral advantage over such baleful practices as blood-letting and leeching in that, although equally ineffective, it did not directly harm the patient. Homeopathy therefore complies with Hippocrates request: "[I]As to diseases, make a habit of two things -- to help, or at least to do no harm"; the barbaric practices of the orthodox medicine of the day did not. However, in time, technological advances and social change allowed effective medication to replace homeopathy, with the last American homeopathic school closing down in the early 20th century.

However, homeopathic medicine has enjoyed a resurgence in recent times, perhaps due to two factors. Firstly, there is a growing mistrust of science and primary care doctors, who are often seen as the marketing arm of the drug companies. Secondly, we now live in a consumerist society where freedom of choice has replaced the blind following of expert advice. The social changes of the mid twentieth century have led to a world where anything goes. Perhaps future research can examine the role of perceived autonomy on healthcare choices...(etc, etc)

I have taken other factors (social, technological, financial) and placed them alongside the "cold hard facts" of science. Now, the above piece was hastily written but it illustrates how this type of thinking can be useful in some situations. But, as I keep saying (and as people keep ovelooking), the pomo mindset is open to abuse and can allow anything to be relativised.

Similarly, some of the more hysterical wing-nuts in postmodernism have suggested that special "ways of knowing" should produce new insights unavailable except through "feminist science" (or some such gibberish). I've never seen a convincing list of such insights; I've rarely seen a list at all (convincing or not).Well you won't find me arguing against the dangers of unchecked relativism and pseudo science. For example, I do not like being incorrectly labelled a racist simply because I am white and I therefore "have internalised racial power inequalities to the extent that I an unaware of my racism; only a person from an ethnic minority is able to observe the full extent of white supremacy" and other such untestable poppycock.

The Third Reich used this kind of approach...

simonmaal

17th August 2007, 08:40 AM

But aren't we disagreeing here?

In comparison, I'm asserting that there are theory free observations, or at least theory invariant observations. This idea is very important in science as it allows us to quantitatively evaluate different theories.

Ok then, given that you arguing for theory-free observations, I'll concede that we are disagreeing ;) By its very nature, science has a reciprocal relationship with theory. Now, however objective we try to be, there are always different ways to interpret the same piece of research and theory. If there were not, then we would have lapsed into dogma and ceased to be scientists. We always need to accept that our theories can be modified or abrogated. To use our example, the Babylonians were looking at the same sky and stars as we do today (well, our night skies may differ by a tiny amount, but that is a moot point here). The important thing is the way they observed, measured and predicted the movement of the stars was affected by their beliefs, knowledge and technology. But the layout of the sky was still the same. We can replace their theory but the sky does not change; we are interpreting the same piece of evidence in very different ways.

For example, we can make the objective assertion that: General Relativity is more accurate than Newtonian mechanics, which is at least as accurate and has greater predictive power* than those of the Babylonians.

*I don't know how good the Babylonians were but as they only worked out what was going on by counting, Newtonian mechanics almost certainly gives greater accuracy, and allows you to predict the movement of previously unobserved bodies.

Yes indeed, and this is why I brought ontology and epistemology into the discussion.

roger

17th August 2007, 09:01 AM

You're doing it again: pomo does not discover things per se, it contextualises them. It is perfectly able to embrace the scientific technique, as I showed earlier (I already provided several examples so I won't repeat myself - go back and take a look).Then allow me to reword my request, especially in light of your last two posts.

I think I showed through example what New Criticism does in a previous post: you could say it contextualizes a poem in reference to itself. What does it "discover"? Certainly not that 2+2=4, E=mc^2, or anything like that. But it can illuminate such things as use of meter and rhyme to establish a mood. Say I didn't notice that Stevens was using a lot of silibants in a poem to mimic the sound of the wind. A New Criticism analysis points this out, and I go "ahh! I can hear that". I have a new viewpoint on the poem that has value for me. That's all I really mean in terms of a "discovery".

I would assume pomo provides value also (beyond making a way to publish 'original' material for a struggling academic) , otherwise why do it? I'm asking for someone to actually give an example of that. So, you say Pomo contextualizes. That's terribly vague to me. I'm asking for an example.

I think examples of sort have been given; I remain nonplused. We can go back to Tristam Shandy, Don Quixote, the greeks, etc., for similar examples. In short, I don't believe the linguistic gymanstics that the pomos play actually has any value. It's a one trick pony. Show that we can create ambiguity in language. Go from there to showing that this undermines what we are claiming. etc. I get it. It's a neat trick, worthy of a graduate lit paper or two.

Why should I plow through Judith Butler as she deconstructs 'gender' to ultimately conclude that gender is an act? We have very successfully talked about gender without recourse to that labored language, and extraordinarily dubious conclusions. I really haven't seen any insight that she has provided that either 1) presents new ways of looking of something that is actually of value to me and 2) I actually agree with. To be fair, my knowledge of her is only google based, but she was the example presented, so I'm trying to go with her.

Every time we try to press for some actual idea, we get told there isn't any. Fine, I'll stipulate that. Then, why "contextualize" something in this way? Why is this being done? Why are careers being based on it? Why are universities charging a heck of a lot of money to teach it to students? Why are students going into debt to the tune of 100K or so to learn it? I honestly don't get it.

If it has value, show us. If it doesn't, fine, but then don't be surprised when we pronounce pomo research as worthless :)

(Note my complaint is how pomo is written and communicated, not with a few of the basic underlying ideas that yes, language is incomplete. That's a useful idea that we can deal with in much more productive ways than pomo).

drkitten

17th August 2007, 12:02 PM

YSo we would need to modify the statement you have asked to say:

[FONT=Arial] The experimental/hermeneutic/social constructionist/existential approaches, when interpreted through a postmodern mindset, can be used to show that homeopathy does not work but that, for its day, it had a moral advantage over such baleful practices as blood-letting and leeching in that, although equally ineffective, it did not directly harm the patient.

Or, alternatively, we could apply standard (non-social constructionist) historicism and arrive at exactly the same conclusion, but written clearly and using approximately 20% as many words.

In fact, it did. Historians of science were dissing homeopathy since long before postmodernism.

So what you're saying is that postmodernism can do something that conventional scholarship can, but less effectively and with substantially increased likelihood of error.

I agree entirely.

I have taken other factors (social, technological, financial) and placed them alongside the "cold hard facts" of science. Now, the above piece was hastily written but it illustrates how this type of thinking can be useful in some situations.

No, it doesn't. You're doing bad history-of-science unde the guise of postmodernism.

But, as I keep saying (and as people keep ovelooking), the pomo mindset is open to abuse and can allow anything to be relativised.

Again, I agree.

The problem is that the pomo mindset, while open to abuse, is effectively not open to use. It not only can allow anything to be relativised --- in fact, it can't prevent it.

roger

17th August 2007, 12:27 PM

So what you're saying is that postmodernism can do something that conventional scholarship can, but less effectively and with substantially increased likelihood of error.

I agree entirely.
I LOL on this one. :D

Jekyll

17th August 2007, 03:51 PM

Ok then, given that you arguing for theory-free observations, I'll concede that we are disagreeing ;) By its very nature, science has a reciprocal relationship with theory. Now, however objective we try to be, there are always different ways to interpret the same piece of research and theory. If there were not, then we would have lapsed into dogma and ceased to be scientists. We always need to accept that our theories can be modified or abrogated. To use our example, the Babylonians were looking at the same sky and stars as we do today (well, our night skies may differ by a tiny amount, but that is a moot point here). The important thing is the way they observed, measured and predicted the movement of the stars was affected by their beliefs, knowledge and technology. But the layout of the sky was still the same. We can replace their theory but the sky does not change; we are interpreting the same piece of evidence in very different ways.

I agree with everything you've written, our choice of what observation to make and the inference we can draw from it is highly influenced by our choice of theory.
Still I don't think this undermines my claim of theory invarient observation. Einstein , Newton, and even Galilao who predates both Newtonian physics and General Relativity would agree that g is about equal to 10 ms^-2.
We could get proponents of each school to agree on the value of g to arbitary precision simply by locking them in a lab together with good enough equiptment (and sufficently competent lab technicians).

simonmaal

24th August 2007, 04:45 AM

I think we have run out of steam on this one, fun though it was to discuss.

If you browse back through all of my posts, you will find that I have been playing devil's advocate, offering up examples both supporting and criticising the post-modernist mindset. I think this is where there have been several misunderstandings between other posters and myself; there were people reading one of my posts where I was illustrating one side of the argument, and who then latched onto it as if I were taking a side in the debate, which I was not. When placed in context with each other, we can see that I was almost arguing with myself on this one!

However, I think we have now reached a point where we are finding some common ground (although not necessarily agreeing), and I also think there isn't really anything worthwhile that I can add to what has already been said. This therefore seems like a good time to sign off from this extremely entertaining discussion.

So to quickly sum up, the original question was: should post-modernism be a subject for skeptics? I think the answer to that question is a definite yes, but that yes is nevertheless a conditional one.

Thanks for the debate :)

D'rok

24th August 2007, 07:30 AM

Not wanting to appear rude, but do any of you actually know what post-modernism IS? Have you ever read any? Or are you just going by what you've heard?

It's perfectly compatible with scepticism, and indeed can be a tool of a sceptical approach. Post-modern approaches to gender, race and sexuality have informed liberalism for most of the second half of this century. Believe me, you all engage in post-modern thought whether you'd care to admit it or not. The type of thought and communication the internet has facilitated is extremely post-modern, as are the founding principles of things like Open Source Software and Wikipedia.

It's true that post-modernism has had its embarrassments - the Sokal affair being maybe the most well known - but considering a comparable occurrence concerning the Journal of Reproductive Medicine recently, I don't think that's reason enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Postmodernism, despite Dawkin's mischaracterisation, does not posit "everything is true", despite what you've heard.

Sorry, I am committing the forum sin of jumping in before reading the entire thread, but nonetheless...

"Greek science was never exact, precisely because, in keeping with its essence, it could not be exact and did not need to be exact. Hence it makes no sense whatever to suppose that modern science is more exact than that of antiquity. Neither can we say that the Galilean doctrine of freely falling bodies is true and that Aristotle's teaching, that light bodies strive upwards is false."

"It is still more impossible to say that the modern understanding of whatever is, is more correct than that of the Greeks. Therefore, if we want to grasp the essence of modern science, we must first free ourselves from the habit of comparing the new science with the old solely in terms of degree, from the point of view of progress."

Heidegger, The Age of the World Picture

So, according to the father of post-modernism, we can't say that modern scientific knowledge is any more true than ancient Greek speculation. It's all a question of perspective and the "enframing" of understanding in the age in question. Calling the sun a god is just as true and just as false as calling it a nuclear reaction of hydrogen and helium.

There is no progress, only perspective. We are not increasing our ability to make true statements about external reality, we are stuck in a mode of perceiving that "destines" us to impose our categories of understanding on reality. Not only is our understanding conditional, it is conditioned - and no particular conditioned understanding is any more valid or "true" than any other.

What a bunch of horsepuckey. Post-modernism is garbage.

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 07:53 AM

D'rok

24th August 2007, 08:25 AM

Where, exactly, have you heard Martin Heidegger referred to as 'the father of Postmodernism'? I mean, philosophy doesn't really live in those categories but even so, with his belief in an approachable and 'authentic' sense of 'Being' I would put him very definitely in the Modernist category.

Heidegger set the foundation for Derrida, Focault et al. He is in no way a modern. You could argue that he is in fact pre-modern - i.e., pre-Socratic. He is anti-rational, anti-enlightenment and anti-liberal. Martin Heidegger hates the City.

Even so, your paraphrase is way off. He is not saying that 'no science can be accurate because the Greeks weren't accurate'. He appears to be saying that it isn't terribly useful for modern scientists to think of themselves as further along some arbitrary line marked 'progress' than their earlier counterparts.My paraphrase is not way off - and your paraphrase of my paraphrase is inaccurate. Have you read the piece that I am quoting from? He is saying that modern science is no more true than ancient science. He is denying the possibility of progress entirely. He is claiming that all truth is relative to the Age in which it occurs and no such truth can be said to be more "true" than any other. This is fundamental premise of the Age of the World Picture, and it is wrong.

Which they shouldn't. All good scientists should be willing to accept the idea that they are completely wrong about everything as soon as the data points that way. That's not postmodernism, it's just good research practice.Scientists do accept that. Heidegger does not. Heidegger says that no scientific understanding of truth is any better than any other. He privileges an aesthetic, poetic, pre-rational approach to truth that is contextual only.

D'rok

24th August 2007, 08:46 AM

--snip--

Postmodernism is just a perspective, a way of looking, a set of metaphors and methods of illustrating how relationships function. It doesn't make testable truth claims, but nor should it be criticised for it.

--snip--

Yes it should. If it makes no testable truth claims, it has no defensible value (aside from the example described below). It is also thereby disqualified from validly criticizing modes of enquiry that do make testable truth claims - i.e,. empirical science. Can you not see that putting PM above such criticism negates its value as a tool of criticism?

As with all entirely theoretical abstract constructions of philosophy, PM can and should answer one question: Does it contribute to human flourishing, and if so, how? If it can't satisfactorily answer this question, we are justified in tossing PM into the theoretical waste-bin of "making crap up".

D'rok

24th August 2007, 08:55 AM

The problem is that the pomo mindset, while open to abuse, is effectively not open to use. It not only can allow anything to be relativised --- in fact, it can't prevent it.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/13941466e6a1500730.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=6323)

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 09:17 AM

Heidegger set the foundation for Derrida, Focault et al. He is in no way a modern. You could argue that he is in fact pre-modern - i.e., pre-Socratic. He is anti-rational, anti-enlightenment and anti-liberal. Martin Heidegger hates the City.

Please unpack what you mean by 'set the foundation for'. Derrida's metaphysics could be argued to be completely oppositional to Heidegger's. Foucault was a historian and cultural theorist - I've read 'Discipline and Punish' and bits of the History of Sexuality and I'm at a loss to see the influence of Heidegger in either.

I said 'Modernist' not 'modern'. Different ballgame. Modernism was mystical, in that it believed that there was a kind of 'underlying truth of being' that you could approach with sufficient mental effort.

My paraphrase is not way off - and your paraphrase of my paraphrase is inaccurate. Have you read the piece that I am quoting from?

No. Is it online? I'll have a peek and get back to you, but I'll bet a pound to a penny that nothing in it is suggesting anything more controversial than 'different cultures view the world differently, and should not be considered as inferior for doing so.' Which seems a pretty good way to look at things to me.

However, I fail to see what makes your argument so devastating. Heidegger had all sorts of wacky ideas, including the one that it was a jolly good thing to be a Nazi. He was a deist, of a sort, and had this vaguely naturalistic thing going. He came from a long tradition of German philospher-mystic types who felt a desparate need to contemplate the deep mysteries of existence. A lot of what he said, particularly in later life, was rather silly. That doesn't discredit an entire discipline.

As with all entirely theoretical abstract constructions of philosophy, PM can and should answer one question: Does it contribute to human flourishing, and if so, how?

Well, earlier threads have pointed out that there's lots of stuff comes under the heading 'Postmodern'. So to name but a few:

It was postmodern architects who first railed against the dispiriting 'projects' for housing the urban poor - pointing out that responding to the desired experience of the people actually living there, regardless of how 'irrational' it might be, would do more good than imposing 'scientific' solutions from above.

Since Fanon, postcolonial theory has been massively liberating for many third world thinkers.

And biggest of all - I'd argue that it contributes to human flourishing by merely existing, in the same way that any work of artistic and intellectual effort contributes to human flourishing. When I read Derrida I feel excited, bewildered, challenged, unsettled from my comfortable view of language and the world, ready to reconsider my assumptions. Don't know about you, but that sounds like flourishing to me.

D'rok

24th August 2007, 10:08 AM

Please unpack what you mean by 'set the foundation for'. Derrida's metaphysics could be argued to be completely oppositional to Heidegger's. Foucault was a historian and cultural theorist - I've read 'Discipline and Punish' and bits of the History of Sexuality and I'm at a loss to see the influence of Heidegger in either.

Simple: Reality is open to contextual interpretation. This is a tenet of PoMo is it not? The first place I have encountered this notion is in Heidegger.

Also, "In Derrida's view, deconstruction is a tradition inherited via Heidegger." Wikipedia...so take it for what it's worth.

I said 'Modernist' not 'modern'. Different ballgame. Modernism was mystical, in that it believed that there was a kind of 'underlying truth of being' that you could approach with sufficient mental effort.The modern project is to undercover the underlying truth of Being through reason, not mysticism, Hegel not-withstanding. Don't mistake an axiom (that there is such a thing as an objective reality about which we are capable of making true statements) for mysticism.

No. Is it online? I'll have a peek and get back to you, but I'll bet a pound to a penny that nothing in it is suggesting anything more controversial than 'different cultures view the world differently, and should not be considered as inferior for doing so.' Which seems a pretty good way to look at things to me. The merits of cultural relativism aside (of which I think there are few - it is perfectly reasonable to judge other cultures. Taliban anyone?), I'll take that bet. Unfortunately, I don't think his work is public domain, so you may not be able to get a legit copy online.

However, I fail to see what makes your argument so devastating. Heidegger had all sorts of wacky ideas, including the one that it was a jolly good thing to be a Nazi. He was a deist, of a sort, and had this vaguely naturalistic thing going. He came from a long tradition of German philospher-mystic types who felt a desparate need to contemplate the deep mysteries of existence. A lot of what he said, particularly in later life, was rather silly. That doesn't discredit an entire discipline.His silliness (including Nazism) comes from his elevation of Poesis over Reason and the Enlightenment. If Heidegger is the foundation of PoMo, then discrediting Heidegger does indeed undermine the entire discipline. Thus, I assume, your rejection of the assertion that Heidegger is the PoMo Moses.

Well, earlier threads have pointed out that there's lots of stuff comes under the heading 'Postmodern'. So to name but a few:

It was postmodern architects who first railed against the dispiriting 'projects' for housing the urban poor - pointing out that responding to the desired experience of the people actually living there, regardless of how 'irrational' it might be, would do more good than imposing 'scientific' solutions from above.

Since Fanon, postcolonial theory has been massively liberating for many third world thinkers.

And biggest of all - I'd argue that it contributes to human flourishing by merely existing, in the same way that any work of artistic and intellectual effort contributes to human flourishing. When I read Derrida I feel excited, bewildered, challenged, unsettled from my comfortable view of language and the world, ready to reconsider my assumptions. Don't know about you, but that sounds like flourishing to me.It is perfectly reasonable to disagree on the degree to which PoMo contributes to human flourishing. But not everything is an assumption open to deconstruction - particularly the conclusions, conditional though they may be, of empirical science. PoMo is more dangerous in misuse than beneficial in its limited range of legitimate use.

In addition, I would humbly advise you to avoid mis-interpreting your intellectual delight as an indication of validity.

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 10:24 AM

Also, "In Derrida's view, deconstruction is a tradition inherited via Heidegger." Wikipedia...so take it for what it's worth.

I've found an online version of the essay, so will get back to you on that. Meantime, I'm pretty sure Heidegger had an absolute belief in some sort of objective reality. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was the foundation of his philosophy.

The modern project is to undercover the underlying truth of Being through reason, not mysticism, Hegel not-withstanding. Don't mistake an axiom (that there is such a thing as an objective reality about which we are capable of making true statements) for mysticism.

If that's an axiom, then its a metaphysical one. Mysticism was perhaps uncharitable. However, Modernism with a capital 'M' was quite happy to approach Being with a rational or a mystical approach. The modernist poets in particular went this way (Yeats' paganism, Eliot's high-anglican contemplations), but you could argue that Abstract Expressionism had a similar goal - reaching through the veil of representation to get at some kind of 'visual absolute'

The merits of cultural relativism aside (of which I think there are few - it is perfectly reasonable to judge other cultures. Taliban anyone?), I'll take that bet.

You don't judge the Taliban because they think differently. You judge them because they kill people for not having beards. And you don't shut down debate by calling them 'less advanced' - you accept that they are by definition a consequence of contemporary thinking and try to deal with how that happened. Which is a postmodern view that can lead to useful conclusions.

If Heidegger is the foundation of PoMo, then discrediting Heidegger does indeed undermine the entire discipline. Thus, I assume, your rejection of the assertion that Heidegger is the PoMo Moses.

Even if Wikipedia is right, and it's not quoting out of context, he isn't the foundation of Pomo, any more than, say, deBroglie is the 'foundation' of quantum physics. He might have dinged off a few thoughts in a few brains, but there's a hundred other voices out there contributing to the debate. Anyway - there's people out there who would argue that Derrida isn't really a postmodernist either - and certainly 'deconstruction' is only one strand of post-structuralist thought.

In addition, I would humbly advise you to avoid mis-interpreting your intellectual delight as an indication of validity.
Not fair. You didn't ask about validity, you asked about contribution to human flourishing - these are different things. I, like many others, am inspired by the writing of post modernists. The same way that people are inspired by the works of poets, painters, etc. My point was that inspiration like that is a conspiration to the flourishing of humanity.

quixotecoyote

24th August 2007, 10:46 AM

Haven't read the topic, but this is too good not to post.

My graduate level rhetorical theory teacher was redefining post-modernism to make it fall in a continuum with positivist/interpretive/critical theory so her definition of postmodernism was "There is no truth. There is no way to find the truth and wouldn't be even if there was truth. There's no right and wrong involved and there's nothing we can do to figure it out or communicate it"

We asked her which philosophers actually held that position.

STUMP

D'rok

24th August 2007, 10:51 AM

I've found an online version of the essay, so will get back to you on that. Meantime, I'm pretty sure Heidegger had an absolute belief in some sort of objective reality. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was the foundation of his philosophy.

Possibly. But he rejects instrumental reason as the means to discover it. He seems to want to uncover objectivity through subjective means. Absurd.

If that's an axiom, then its a metaphysical one. Mysticism was perhaps uncharitable. However, Modernism with a capital 'M' was quite happy to approach Being with a rational or a mystical approach. The modernist poets in particular went this way (Yeats' paganism, Eliot's high-anglican contemplations), but you could argue that Abstract Expressionism had a similar goal - reaching through the veil of representation to get at some kind of 'visual absolute'Apparently this word "modernism" is some new concept that I have not encountered before and that doesn't seem to have any relation to what is normally thought of as "modernity". It's probably post-modern :D

You don't judge the Taliban because they think differently. You judge them because they kill people for not having beards. And you don't shut down debate by calling them 'less advanced' - you accept that they are by definition a consequence of contemporary thinking and try to deal with how that happened. Which is a postmodern view that can lead to useful conclusions.I do indeed judge the Taliban for thinking differently. Their conception of "The Good" does not deserve any respect whatsoever. They are less advanced in every conceivable way - morally, technologically, socially, politically - than we are. Progress exists. Not all cultures are equal.

Now, don't mistake that statement as allowing no room for difference. There are cultural alternatives that are equally choiceworthy to ours; the Taliban is not one of them. Making that judgment is not unreasonable, and if PoMo can't make that judgment, it is flawed.

(That judgment is also not a call for invasion, violent regime change, or any other sort of ill-conceived adventurism. A bad culture is better than chaos).

Even if Wikipedia is right, and it's not quoting out of context, he isn't the foundation of Pomo, any more than, say, deBroglie is the 'foundation' of quantum physics. He might have dinged off a few thoughts in a few brains, but there's a hundred other voices out there contributing to the debate. Anyway - there's people out there who would argue that Derrida isn't really a postmodernist either - and certainly 'deconstruction' is only one strand of post-structuralist thought.Derrida isn't a post-modernist? Well...this really is a slippery beast we're trying grasp hold of. It's almost as if the concept of post-modernism itself is open to contextual interpretation. How useful. (Yes...that was sarcasm. Sorry.)

Not fair. You didn't ask about validity, you asked about contribution to human flourishing - these are different things. I, like many others, am inspired by the writing of post modernists. The same way that people are inspired by the works of poets, painters, etc. My point was that inspiration like that is a conspiration to the flourishing of humanity.We have a different definition of human flourishing. Acting on post-modernist inspiration, in my opinion, does not advance human flourishing. If you constrained yourself to contemplation in some sort of Epicurean Garden of post-modernism, then I would have no quarrel. Flourish away in the privacy of your own reflections. It's when you go from theory to practice that problems arise.

As you will see by reading that piece by Heidegger, I say these things only because I am irredeemably invested in the contemporary metaphysics of the technological World Picture. I cannot make true statements about anything when I am thus "enframed" in the results-based straitjacket of objectivity. (See "The Question Concerning Technology" for more about "enframing").

D'rok

24th August 2007, 10:58 AM

--snip--

My graduate level rhetorical theory teacher was redefining post-modernism to make it fall in a continuum with positivist/interpretive/critical theory so her definition of postmodernism was "There is no truth. There is no way to find the truth and wouldn't be even if there was truth. There's no right and wrong involved and there's nothing we can do to figure it out or communicate it"
--snip--

Nihilism.

quixotecoyote

24th August 2007, 11:05 AM

Nihilism.

Virtually no philosophers claim to be nihilists. It's used as a pejorative.

drkitten

24th August 2007, 11:06 AM

It was postmodern architects who first railed against the dispiriting 'projects' for housing the urban poor - pointing out that responding to the desired experience of the people actually living there, regardless of how 'irrational' it might be, would do more good than imposing 'scientific' solutions from above.

Again, wrong. Dickens was writing about the dispiriting "workhouses" for housing the urban poor a century before Derrida and Foucault.

Apparently one of the key tenets of postmodernism is "take credit for other people's insights."

Another case in point:

You don't judge the Taliban because they think differently. You judge them because they kill people for not having beards. And you don't shut down debate by calling them 'less advanced' - you accept that they are by definition a consequence of contemporary thinking and try to deal with how that happened. Which is a postmodern view that can lead to useful conclusions.

That's hardly a postmodern view. The idea that people in foreign cultures do things differently has been around as long as there have been writings on culture. The idea that people can be different without being inferior equally so; shall I dig up some examples from More's Utopia?

Postmodernism's contribution to this debate is not to suggest that cultures can differ without being inferior, but to suggest that cultures cannot be inferior -- which is patent nonsense. As Drok pointed out, it's very easy to establish objective standards and to rank cultures along those standards; I'm not sure that I would go so far as to agree that "[the Taliban] are less advanced in every conceivable way - morally, technologically, socially, politically - than we are," since I'm sure there's some nutcase out there who can and will find a single measurable yardstick under which the Taliban can be observed to be superior -- I don't, for example, know what the rate of marijuana use is among the Taliban, but I bet it's lower than the US or the UK.

But nevertheless, "Progress exists. Not all cultures are equal."

drkitten

24th August 2007, 11:10 AM

When I read Derrida I feel excited, bewildered, challenged, unsettled from my comfortable view of language and the world, ready to reconsider my assumptions. Don't know about you, but that sounds like flourishing to me.

Funny, usually when I feel "excited, bewildered, challenged, unsettled from my comfortable view of language and the world, ready to reconsider my assumptions," that's usually a sign that I have had too much to drink and/or need to lay off the cocaine for a while.

If "flourishing" is indistinguishable from "buzzed to the point of incoherence," then I'd definitely agree that PoMo flourishes.

D'rok

24th August 2007, 11:14 AM

Virtually no philosophers claim to be nihilists. It's used as a pejorative.

I know. I'm using it as a pejorative. There is a problem with nihilism in post-modernism, even if your professor's definition isn't a good one.

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 11:38 AM

Again, wrong. Dickens was writing about the dispiriting "workhouses" for housing the urban poor a century before Derrida and Foucault."

Apparently one of the key tenets of postmodernism is "take credit for other people's insights."

Disingenuous, at best. Is there really any way in which you thought I was claiming that postmodern architects were the first people ever to complain about the living conditions of the poor? I'm talking about their specific response to the sort of discourse that led to urban planners believing that they could 'rationalise' living space in th 1940s and 50s

Postmodernism's contribution to this debate is not to suggest that cultures can differ without being inferior, but to suggest that cultures cannot be inferior -- which is patent nonsense.

No, no, no. And no. Postmodernism (or in this sense postcolonial theory)'s contribution to the debate is to suggest that the term 'inferior' is meaningless in this context. And I would argue that it is precisely an ignorance of this absolutely vital argument which is causing so much bloodshed both there and in Iraq at the moment.

Start bandying words like 'inferior' about and suddenly you don't have to think about the conditions that produce horrible, brutal cultural outgrowths like the Taleban or Bin Laden and his cohorts (who, in passing, have a grasp of the effects of mass media that suggest a thoroughgoing understanding of certain aspects of 'modernity'). You just casually assume that they're a little delayed on the shining road of progress that leads to the holy grail of Free Market Democracy. Either give them a push or take them away and the progress of evolution along the Great Chain of Political Being is assured.

In order to see why this viewpoint has gone so terribly and visibly wrong, you need to understand that 'cultures' spread out in multiple technological and ethical dimensions, that the people within them are autonomous agents that have their own responses to those movements (and the movements of other cultures with which they interact). That every other bit of the whole damn mess is utterly contigent on every other bit. That every time you try to stick a label on any of it you'll always be wrong to some extent. That's postmodernism, and if anyone in any position of power had engaged with it just a tiny little bit we'd all be in a bit less of a mess than we clearly are.

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 11:38 AM

doublepostsorry

D'rok

24th August 2007, 11:57 AM

Start bandying words like 'inferior' about and suddenly you don't have to think about the conditions that produce horrible, brutal cultural outgrowths like the Taleban or Bin Laden and his cohorts (who, in passing, have a grasp of the effects of mass media that suggest a thoroughgoing understanding of certain aspects of 'modernity'). You just casually assume that they're a little delayed on the shining road of progress that leads to the holy grail of Free Market Democracy. Either give them a push or take them away and the progress of evolution along the Great Chain of Political Being is assured.

Pathetic strawman. Judgment does not equal an endorsement of determinism or Hegelian historicism. Nor does it grant carte-blanche for nation building, other forms of interference, or intellectual laziness. Progress exists but it is not historically inevitable.

1) The Taliban are inferior. 2) We do not have the moral right to "uplift" them militarily or otherwise. 3) We can analyze the conditions and actions that account for their inferiority. 4) We can be vigilant in ensuring that we do not mimic those conditions or actions in our own culture. 5) We can engage them diplomatically.

Al Qaeda is the wild-card in this little formula, but still...no post-modernism required.

drkitten

24th August 2007, 11:58 AM

No, no, no. And no. Postmodernism (or in this sense postcolonial theory)'s contribution to the debate is to suggest that the term 'inferior' is meaningless in this context.

That is absolutely correct. And Postmodernism is completely and entirely wrong in mthat suggestion.

And I would argue that it is precisely an ignorance of this absolutely vital argument which is causing so much bloodshed both there and in Iraq at the moment.

I'm sure you would. You would also be wrong, too.

Start bandying words like 'inferior' about and suddenly you don't have to think about the conditions that produce horrible, brutal cultural outgrowths like the Taleban or Bin Laden and his cohorts

Nonsense.

There are a number of quite sensible modernists who have approached the question from an entirely different perspective where they recognize that the yardstick exists and question why cultures occupy different points on it. A classic formulation is Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East?

That Bush is an idiot with no grasp of diplomacy doesn't mean that there aren't intelligent modernists out there.

You just casually assume that they're a little delayed on the shining road of progress that leads to the holy grail of Free Market Democracy.

Oh, good grief. You're not really that stupid, are you? When you get done with your straw man, let me know -- in the meantime, you might just shut up and let the grownups talk.

In order to see why this viewpoint has gone so terribly and visibly wrong, you need to understand that 'cultures' spread out in multiple technological and ethical dimensions, that the people within them are autonomous agents that have their own responses to those movements (and the movements of other cultures with which they interact).

More meaningless pomodrivel.

That every other bit of the whole damn mess is utterly contigent on every other bit. That every time you try to stick a label on any of it you'll always be wrong to some extent.

More meaningless pomodrivel.

That's postmodernism,

That's right. It is postmodernism, and the easiest way you can tell is the way that it starts out by making unsupported statements that are demonstrably false, and then proceeds to "infer" meaningless consequences from the fase assumptions.

and if anyone in any position of power had engaged with it just a tiny little bit we'd all be in a bit less of a mess than we clearly are.

Quite possibly. On the other hand, if anyone in power had engaged with genuine modernist scholarship (e.g. Lewis), we'd be better off yet. Inaction born of meanlingless gibberish may be better than wrong action born of ignorance, but it will almost always lose to right action born of reason and understanding.

I repeat what I said eariler : "Postmodernism can do something that conventional scholarship can, but less effectively and with substantially increased likelihood of error.

I agree entirely."

D'rok

24th August 2007, 12:11 PM

As an amusing aside, here is a quote from Jean-Francois Lyotard from his "The Inhuman" that attempts to capture the "Spirit" of post-modernism:

"Cast down the walls. Breach and breathe. Inhalation. BREATH, inside and outside. This concerns the thorax. The muscular walls of the rib-cage, of the defences of the thorax, exposed to the winds. Your breath as been set free, not taken away. An understatement: mouth to mouth contact with distance, as though with an infinity of air. And because the walls are down, there is no swelling."

Tear down those constricting walls of paternal reason, you freebird pomos! Set your breath free into the infinity of possibility! Swell no more! Strain at the chains of objectivity no more!

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 12:21 PM

Pathetic strawman. Judgment does not equal an endorsement of determinism or Hegelian historicism. Nor does it grant carte-blanche for nation building, other forms of interference, or intellectual laziness. Progress exists but it is not historically inevitable.

Didn't say that. Really didn't. I know you don't believe that, I know Dr Kitten doesn't believe that. A quick pop across to the project for a New American Century website will swiftly reveal that they do, and them and their chums called many of the fateful shots.

1) The Taliban are inferior. 2) We do not have the moral right to "uplift" them militarily or otherwise. 3) We can analyze the conditions and actions that account for their inferiority.

Replace 'inferior' with 'brutal', 'horrible' etc. and you can make the same argument without even the slightest risk of historical determinism. So why not do that? It doesn't mean you're not passing judgment on their actions. No sane, moral person would endorse them. So why not do that? The only contribution that the word 'inferior' makes to the debate is to embed in it the unconsidered assumption that some sort of 'development' towards a 'superior' state is one possible answer to the problem.

D'rok

24th August 2007, 12:38 PM

Didn't say that. Really didn't.

Then who said this:
You just casually assume that they're a little delayed on the shining road of progress that leads to the holy grail of Free Market Democracy. Either give them a push or take them away and the progress of evolution along the Great Chain of Political Being is assured.

Replace 'inferior' with 'brutal', 'horrible' etc. and you can make the same argument without even the slightest risk of historical determinism. So why not do that? It doesn't mean you're not passing judgment on their actions. No sane, moral person would endorse them. So why not do that? The only contribution that the word 'inferior' makes to the debate is to embed in it the unconsidered assumption that some sort of 'development' towards a 'superior' state is one possible answer to the problem.Brutal, horrible, etc = bad.
Good = the absence of the brutal, horrible, etc.
Bad is inferior to good.
The Taliban are brutal, horrible, etc.
The Taliban are bad.
We are not as brutal, horrible, etc as the Taliban
We are at least "less bad" than the Taliban
We are closer to good than the Taliban
The Taliban are inferior to us.

Any problems with this train of reasoning? Or am I not allowed to make value judgments about brutality and its "badness" or "goodness"? If bad is not better than good, why would I choose good? Do I not choose good because it is superior to bad?

How can you make value-free judgments of value?

drkitten

24th August 2007, 12:47 PM

Replace 'inferior' with 'brutal', 'horrible' etc. and you can make the same argument without even the slightest risk of historical determinism. So why not do that?

Because it buys nothing, and costs us a potential process.

More bluntly, because it's a dumb approach.

The only contribution that the word 'inferior' makes to the debate is to embed in it the unconsidered assumption that some sort of 'development' towards a 'superior' state is one possible answer to the problem.

The only contribution? How about to embed in the debate the considered assumption that some sort of development towards a superior state is one possible answer?

Societies change via a more or less continuous process -- in fact, one of the major flaws of the Bush approach to the Mideast is a lack of awareness of this continuity, and the (unconsidered) assumption that the Islamic fundamentalist caliphate can simply be replaced by a "modern" democracy. To anyone with awareness of cultural change as a gradual process, this is of course nonsense -- gradual processes resist sudden jumps.

However, if you make the considered assumption that any change, if it happens, will be gradual, one needs to figure out how to get from here to there and what the progression -- there's that word -- will be, and what will need to change in the infrastructure and external political environment (the controllables) in order to foster that change.

The fact that the idiots at the New American Century aren't aware of this doesn't make postmodernism the only other option on the market -- or even a viable product.

I don't know how many different ways I can politely tell you that you're wrong. For that matter, I don't know many different ways I can rudely tell you that you are wrong. But there are alternatives to the unthinking nihilism of postmodernism as well as the equally unthinking jingoism of the Bush neoconservatives. And the only progress that will be made will be by people who understand that the idea of "progress" is actually meanningful. If you want to make things better, don't start by denying the existence of better and worse.

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 12:55 PM

Funny, usually when I feel "excited, bewildered, challenged, unsettled from my comfortable view of language and the world, ready to reconsider my assumptions," that's usually a sign that I have had too much to drink and/or need to lay off the cocaine for a while.

If "flourishing" is indistinguishable from "buzzed to the point of incoherence," then I'd definitely agree that PoMo flourishes.

Politics aside (the train is juddering) I've just got to respond to this. If it's true, I think it's rather sad. Has no artwork affected you in this way? Can you only access that level of mental intensity via chemical intervention?

Look, you're right in a certain sense. I don't think I can successfully argue that postmodernism has a lot of instrumental value. And yes, a lot of its political assumptions could equally be made by a good historian.

But I think it does have intrinsic value. The world is a better place for people like Paul Virilio and, yes, Derrida. What they produce has a certain kind of convoluted beauty.

Also, however it might be expressed, their thinking is humane. It's born of a desire to wriggle out from under the structures of oppression that blighted the 20th century, to find a new way of talking about things that works around the words that made that oppression possible (and if you don't believe it's all about words, I'd recommend reading the afterword on Newspeak in 1984. Orwell was no postmodernist, but he certainly believed that language determined social, if not actual, reality).

Even if it fails most of the time, isn't that worth a go?

Pipirr

24th August 2007, 01:19 PM

But I think it does have intrinsic value. The world is a better place for people like Paul Virilio and, yes, Derrida. What they produce has a certain kind of convoluted beauty.

I'll agree with you on this point. An ex of mine was studying Derrida and got me to 'experience' a Derrrida 'text' or two. To this day, I can't tell you what it was about, or sum up Derrida's philosophy, or list any contributions that he made to philosophy or society. But just reading Derrida was quite an experience, albeit a dense and baffling one.

A certain kind of convoluted beauty? I'll agree with you on that...

drkitten

24th August 2007, 01:23 PM

Look, you're right in a certain sense. [...] But I think [postmodernism] does have intrinsic value.

You are right in a certain sense. That is what you believe.

You're wrong, though. It doesn't.

The world is a better place for people like Paul Virilio and, yes, Derrida.

No, it isn't.

Also, however it might be expressed, their thinking is humane. ]

Yes. Funny how something can be humane and very bad for all concerned at the same time. It's probably humane to treat someone's complaining of a pain in their wrist by knocking them unconcsious with a crowbar --- but it's not a good idea, and it makes matters worse instead of better.

It's born of a desire to wriggle out from under the structures of oppression that blighted the 20th century, to find a new way of talking about things that works around the words that made that oppression possible

Yes, and like so much about postmodernism, it starts from an incorrect premise and degenerates into meaninglessless.

(and if you don't believe it's all about words, I'd recommend reading the afterword on Newspeak in 1984. Orwell was no postmodernist, but he certainly believed that language determined social, if not actual, reality).

Yes, and Orwell was wrong, too. The idea that language determines actual reality is of course the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it's been almost entirely discredited -- except, for some reason, among postmodernists that keep dragging it out and trying to ressurrect this half-decayed corpse. I note that you're more sophisticated than a straight-up Whorfian, and only apply linguistic determinism to social reality (whatever the hell that means) -- but there's still no support for that idea.

From Orwell (Politics and the English Language):

It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

The problem is simply that it isn't so. The slovenliness of our language does not make it easier for us to have foolish thoughts; one of the marks of human language is that the vocabulary is infinitely expansive. As a simple example, there are languages out there that have only two or three "basic color terms", but the people who speak them can make all the shade distinctions English-speakers can. In a language with only three colors, black, white, and red, something will end up being "red like a banana" or "black like the ocean." Funny, we do the same thing -- any paint store will sell you "bone," "eggshell," or "ivory" paint, and they all look different. If you can't name something, make up a new metaphor.

The whole point of Newspeak "is to remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple dichotomies (pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, good thoughts and thoughtcrimes) which reinforce the total dominance of the State." (Wikipedia). But that's exactly what the psycholingusitic experiments show to be impossible. The overall tendency of any language is to create new lexical items precisely because they need more shades of meaning than can be expressed with the old ones.

"The underlying theory of Newspeak is that if something can't be said, then it can't be thought." (Wikipedia again). But that's exactly a wrong theory; it's been actively disproven, as dead as geocentrism or the doctrine of signatures. Postmodernism takes a statement that is known to be actively false and then rings verbiage around it, badly, in an effort to inflate an obvous untruth to something profound. Unfortunately, profound truths do not arise from false assumptions; the best that one can do is get something so vague that the falsity is hidden from superficial examination.

A math professor of mine summed up the problem in a single epigram. "When you try to prove something that isn't true, the proofs get long."

Even if it fails most of the time, isn't that worth a go?

No. If the probable result of a course of action is to make matters substantially worse, then it's not "worth a go" to take that course of action. Firing a machine gun randomly out my window might happen to kill a drug dealer or a rapist in the process of sizing up his next victim. Putting cyanide in a random bottle of milk on the grocer's shelf might kill a terrorist. Is that worth a go?

Postmodernism is intellectual cyanide; it destroys the minds of those who drink of it.

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 02:20 PM

No. If the probable result of a course of action is to make matters substantially worse, then it's not "worth a go" to take that course of action. Firing a machine gun randomly out my window might happen to kill a drug dealer or a rapist in the process of sizing up his next victim. Putting cyanide in a random bottle of milk on the grocer's shelf might kill a terrorist. Is that worth a go?

Postmodernism is intellectual cyanide; it destroys the minds of those who drink of it.

Postmodernism is an immune system. It doesn't stop you from beliving in right and wrong, good and bad. It just prevents you from assuming that you have a fixed and unshakeable handle on what those words mean, or that they mean the same to everyone everywhere. It forces you to ask what you mean when you use phrases like 'the developing world' (who is developing? developing to what?) or 'freedom and democracy'.

And I still contend that some of it is very beautiful. A sort of 'mental sculpture'. exhiliarating to read, touching off all sorts of associations and ideas. Personally I don't want to live in a culture that doesn't value that sort of benefit in and of itself.

Matt the Poet

24th August 2007, 02:29 PM

Real life intervenes. I've got to go. I'll try to be back, having tackled the Heidegger...

blobru

24th August 2007, 11:01 PM

...
My graduate level rhetorical theory teacher was redefining post-modernism to make it fall in a continuum with positivist/interpretive/critical theory so her definition of postmodernism was "There is no truth. There is no way to find the truth and wouldn't be even if there was truth. There's no right and wrong involved and there's nothing we can do to figure it out or communicate it" [my u_line]
...

That's always struck me as kind of interesting though. Just as logical positivism and the dictum "scientific logic is the only valid mode and 'science' the only proper subject of philosophy" was dying down on one side of the English Channel, on the other up rises "everything but scientific logic are valid modes and science or anything else is a proper subject for philosophy" as the motto of postmodernism. Not sure there's any cause-and-effect there -- maybe lopo influenced by early, pomo by later, Wittgenstein -- but a good name for pomo might be "anti-lopo", or "alogical negativism". Each certainly led to some bombastic extremes, from the lopo's throwing out ethics to the pomo's inviting in dada. Seems whenever any movement tries to come up with a definition for philosophy beyond "clear thinking", zaniness is bound to ensue.

quixotecoyote

24th August 2007, 11:28 PM

That's always struck me as kind of interesting though. Just as logical positivism and the dictum "scientific logic is the only valid mode and 'science' the only proper subject of philosophy" was dying down on one side of the English Channel, on the other up rises "everything but scientific logic are valid modes and science or anything else is a proper subject for philosophy" as the motto of postmodernism. Not sure there's any cause-and-effect there -- maybe lopo influenced by early, pomo by later, Wittgenstein -- but a good name for pomo might be "anti-lopo", or "alogical negativism". Each certainly led to some bombastic extremes, from the lopo's throwing out ethics to the pomo's inviting in dada. Seems whenever any movement tries to come up with a definition for philosophy beyond "clear thinking", zaniness is bound to ensue.

True. I plan to see how much **** I can stir up by vigorously defending positivism.