a question of philosophy

[metaphorge]

I've noticed that a lot of folks on my friends list are critical of "postmodernist" thought as a philosophical category. I'm curious, though: who, exactly, do you mean when you use the term "postmodernists" and what, exactly, do you mean when you use the term "postmodernism"?

For example, Kierkegaard, Nietzche, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Kuhn, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Rorty and Baudrillard are all generally considered to have been influential to "postmodern" thought, but each covered different areas and came up with disparate conclusions... is a refutation of "postmodernism" a refutation of all these scholars' work on a wholesale basis, and if not, which ones (if any of them) is such a criticism a refutation?

For what it's worth, I find the following passage from Jay Lemke's "What is Postmodernism, and Why is it Saying all these Terrible Things?" to be a concise contrast of "modernism" vs. "postmodernism":

"From the postmodern point-of-view, modernism is defined by its belief in objective knowledge, or at least in the possibility of objective knowledge, and by its assumption that such knowledge refers directly to an objective reality which would appear in the same way to any observer. A further characteristic modernist assumption is that knowledge is a product of the activity of the individual mind, fashioning its ideas or mental schemas to correspond with this objective reality.

Postmodernism, on the other hand, argues that what we call knowledge is a special kind of story, a text or discourse that puts together words and images in ways that seem pleasing or useful to a particular culture, or even just to some relatively powerful members of that culture. It denies that we can have objective knowledge, because what we call knowledge has to be made with the linguistic and other meaning-making resources of a particular culture, and different cultures can see the world in very different ways, all of which "work" in their own terms. (emphasis mine) It argues that the belief that one particular culture's view of the world is also universally "true" was a politically convenient assumption for Europe's imperial ambitions of the past, but has no firm intellectual basis.

Many postmodernists go further and point out that just as Europeans temporarily imposed their view on other cultures by force, so within European cultures, the upper social classes, and particularly middle-aged, masculinized males have dominated the natural and social sciences (as well as politics and business), and so this would-be-universal worldview is even more narrowly just the viewpoint of one dominant social caste or subculture."

I submit that a wholesale rejection of "postmodern" thought is almost meaningless since "postmodernism" is far from a monolithic idea. I also submit that at least a portion of such criticism may originate in a fundamental discomfort with uncertainty and ambiguity, rather than an analysis that finds postmodern thought lacking.

I feel the most important topics typically stressed by "postmodern" theorists relate to the inherent ambiguities of language and experience of culture and its associated contexts*.

(Also, since this is getting posted really early Saturday morning when it is unlikely many of you will stumble across it, so I'll probably rerun this post at a more "prime-time".)

*To draw a parallel, think of the differences between reading the Torah in Hebrew and an English translation.

Comments

[cherrypep.livejournal.com]

I'm actually writing an article right now about separation of knowledge and information. Knowledge I am referring to as situated (having the nature of social artifacts); information is the semantic-webby dispassionate-mathematics fact-assertion side of things, and what you make of it is your own business. The semantic web and its AI ancestors have really underlined this discussion for me, because the more one thinks about semantics, assertion and reasoning the more obvious that fuzzy area between maths and experience becomes.

Frankly I am not a fan of postmodernism as such - too many people use it to score personal points - but though I consider it to be an excessive and irrational backlash, that does not alter the fact that there's a good point in there somewhere. It's just a pity it is taken to such an extreme that one can no longer see the sense. IMHO, it's a false dichotomy. Even though there are clear and well-defined bases on which to reason about a great many things, society and experience really are fuzzy things and interpretation really has fuzzy edges. Modeling and handling that is hard.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

Obviously, you know my stance on this. I'm firmly in the realm of postmodernism. I agree that much of the discomfort with postmodernism is a discomfort with ambiguity. Also, I think it's that a lot of people don't find comfort in self-made meaning - in other words, if we're all making it up as we go along, it's worthless, so to live in a postmodern paradigm is deeply frightening, because all meaning is self-made. I think the problem is that a lot of people turn postmodernism into nihilism ("if we create the meaning then it all means nothing, and if it means nothing it sucks"), and I'm not really a big fan of nihilism.

[the-van-dyck.livejournal.com]

I don't like Postmodernism because it allows to hind behind nonsense words and invent problems which do not exist.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

Care to cite some example? I've found this charge to be more prevalent in criticisms of postmodernism (similarly lacking examples) than in the writings of the thinkers I cite in this article....

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

but though I consider it to be an excessive and irrational backlash, that does not alter the fact that there's a good point in there somewhere. It's just a pity it is taken to such an extreme that one can no longer see the sense.

Sure, but this happens with every Good Idea. Witness Ayn Rand (modernism gone wild). ;)

[mojo-iv.livejournal.com]

Speech and Debate classes teach that postmodernism is a dead-end. Pretty much everyone with half or more of a decent education has taken numerous Speech and Debate classes.

--m4

[cherrypep.livejournal.com]

It does, yes.

I have nothing against rioting academics - I just don't intend to join in with enthusiasm. A moderate, experimentalist sort of approach gets better results, because a combined model fits the data and offers falsifiable predictions. Results are what matters to me.

There's a lot to be said about academic culture. Infighting, gangs and bizarre emergent support groups for whacky ideas. The joy of science is that eventually one proves one's point with results. The reality of it is that many happily spend thirty years as an academic without ever making an objectively falsifiable claim. Academic culture -> socially situated (unlike certain results - some form of bootstrapping going on there).

In a sense, academic uptake of postmodernism is an illustration of its own hypothesis. However, the bit after 'because' in the bolded part of your definition reminded me of Sapir-Whorf much more than it did postmodernism, and oddly is the only part of the definition that bothers me. Knowledge as cultural artifact fine, but a culture is not a people, a person is not a culture, communities are complex and fiercely multivariate structures. And there's something misleading or insufficiently well specified in denial that we can have objective knowledge, except for a careful definition of 'knowledge'. We're talking interpretive reworking of variables, not (necessarily) wholesale denial of objective reality, which would be garbage.

[fairnymph.livejournal.com]

I'm no philosophy expert, but it strikes me that some types of knowledge would be objective, and some would be culturally shaped.

Personally, I think ethics fall into the objective/absolute category, but I think matters of taste might fit into the latter box.

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

Actually, my Speech & Debate class taught me to use postmodernist ideals to make an end run around objectivist shut-out cases.

As with any toolset, it's all about using the right tool for the right job.

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

objective knowledge: gravity causes things to fall.

relative knowledge: abortion is evil.

i don't think it's possible for a successful human to rely wholly on either camp.

[alfrecht.livejournal.com]

That is a great encapsulation of what, at least by my understanding, postmodernism is, and which I entirely subscribe to (insofar as anyone can entirely subscribe to anything which they did not themselves engineer).

But I wonder, is the uncomfortability some people evince at postmodernism the fact that it seems to break down the possibility that there are any universals in the realm of meaning at all, which would therefore put a lot of things (including many spiritual realities) into question? I can understand that fear/reservation, but since I sort of "live" within it, it doesn't really bother me much.

Dancing on the surface.

[panshiva.livejournal.com]

Though their is a variant of schools within postmodernism, there is a definatively "postmodern project" if you will. A large part of that project is based decosntructive strategies that undercut the "Grand Narratives" of Modernism. Ideas of growth, progress, the value of reason, ect...

Though facets of this deconstruction can be useful in some sense, the overall position is reactionary. Like any reactionary position, what is left is a void that needs filling.


Deconstruction taken far enough leads to something much more interesting then the surface dancing of postmodernism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka

Schools of "Positive Postmodernism" have sprung up, like David Ray Griffins work, but most of them end up basing their work on deeper thinkers who have more integrative and synthetic paradigms. Griffin looks to the work of AN Whitehead : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology

Who has a much more comprehensive, integral, intelligent, and synthetic vision then the deconstructionist tactics of postmodernism.

The problem with reactionary positions is that one is always in a stance of retreat, or ironical distancing relative to a much greater force. This is a position of weakness, not strength.

[traumentwerfer.livejournal.com]

richpizor said:
As with any toolset, it's all about using the right tool for the right job.

I think is a really good summary of my opinion on this topic.

Having not studied Postmodernism formally myself, but from what I've read here, and from what other people have told me about Postmodernism, I think the elements of it that I agree with are as follows:

- To some extent(1), reality is subjectively created
- Context and language are very important when trying to determine what's going on
- The "quality" of a culture relative to other cultures is subjective.(2)
- To ignore the inherent ambiguity in knowledge and/or information, language, and culture is foolish, since there are plenty of real-world examples of it all the time.

Having said that, I am bothered by Postmodernists who believe that Postmodernism should completely replace science and reasoning. Science and reasoning have proven to be incredibly powerful and useful tools, and to try to replace them with statements about how everything is really completely subjective seems foolish to me.

For some context (since we all agree this is important), my background is that of a former Fundamentalist Materialist converted into a Zetetic mostly due to the influential works of Robert Anton Wilson.

A lot of what metaphorge has to say about Postmodernism resonates strongly with the RAW I've read (which is a bit more than half of his work).

(1) I say "to some extent" because we can't really know if or how much "objective" reality exists. Anyone who can thinks they can prove it would also then, by definition, not be a Postmodernist. QED :)

Besides, at this point, we certainly have strong scientific foundations for certain objective realities. But as science advances old theories get knocked on their heads. So I "believe" in these objective realities as long as they remain useful at describing the world for enough people (see above: tools, toolset, right job, etc.)

(2) Certainly the "quality" of anything can be defined in a way that allows some comparisons. For example, Neal Stevenson in the Diamond Age suggests that one way to compare relative effectiveness of cultures is by how well and long they survive. This of course says nothing about how happy the members of that culture are, or even if more happiness is necessary to make a culture survive longer. One could also argue that it is not very meaningful to define the "survival" of a culture, since the boundaries of a culture and what it evolves into are very very fuzzy. In many ways, a single culture is evolving every second.

[happydog.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I cannot decipher most postmodernist writing; I have no idea what Derrida, Lacan and Lyotard are going on about. I can't figure out their writings at all and they give me a headache when I try. What I can decipher seems to indicate that they advocate a kind of hyperintellectual nihilism, which I have no use for. The concept that everything is ideas and nothing has any ultimate meaning is interesting, but has little relevance to me or my life. If one steps out in front of a speeding truck and declares that trucks have no ultimate meaning and getting hit by one is just an idea, this does not stop one from getting run over.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

I generally reject philosophy entirely; it makes me itchy. However, I'm rather fond of Modernism. This leads to a certain dislike of post-modernism's rejection of many Modernist ideals.

Point two: In my observation, an awful lot of people calling themselves post-modernists tend towards deconstruction, cynicism, pastiches and re-uses, and no positive contributions. Boring. Even the *name* of post-modernism is reactionary.

THree:
WIthin a genre I favor, one can fairly easily relate old-school hard science fiction to modernism, and cyberpunk to post-modernism. Right now, the cyberpunk genre is stagnant because nobody's done anything new with it in years, and because it was largely reactionary and negative.

Four:
I'm rather fond of hard science, objective reality, and so on. Sociology makes me irritable, especially when it gets in the way of good solid archeology (quit conjecturing about my facts like you know what you're talking about). Ditto psychiatry versus neurology, and anything else I can't prove under lab conditions.

Five:
Post-modernism tends, from what I've seen, toawrds wanting to point out all the problems of modernism, but not having any good solutions other than "don't do that". I see no new directions.

Six:
Maybe objective reality doesn't exist, but I believe that if I punch a post-modernist in the gut, he or she will complain, regardless of our subjective personal takes on how hard I punched hir. Objective reality is too useful a concept to ditch.

Itchy now, so stopping.

[box3.livejournal.com]

I'm a definite fan and yeah, postmodernism is far from monolithic.

Postmodernism is a critique of modernism, but it's also created space for the inclusion of feminist, queer, postcolonial and other diverse voices within the academy.

Among other things, postmodernism reminds me that discourse is never neutral and that within the modernist tradition, many voices have been historically marginalised. Postmodernism is about the periphery and it represents so much more than merely an appeal to nihilism or some kind of sophic masturbation.

[box3.livejournal.com]

Correction: ...sophist (sophomoric?) masturbation. :D

[raindrops.livejournal.com]

Very similar to an argument I've used for a long time now.

"You can stand there under the piano falling toward you from above, deconstructing gravity and mass and transfer of momentum, but it's the piano that will ultimately deconstruct you."

Best response I've ever gotten to that is, "Perhaps that is proof that WE are but ideas?"

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

I agree with you in principal, though I wouldn't call "gravity makes things fall" objective knowledge as it explicitly references a human-labeled concept, "gravity"*.

A closer to "objective" way to put this would be "if you drop something, it will likely fall".

I absolutely agree with you that you have to treat some things as given due to their extreme likelihood.

*Gravity is defines as "(1) the gravitational attraction of the mass of the earth, the moon, or a planet for bodies at or near its surface (2) : a fundamental physical force that is responsible for interactions which occur because of mass between particles, between aggregations of matter (as stars and planets), and between particles (as photons) and aggregations of matter, that is 1039 times weaker than the strong force, and that extends over infinite distances but is dominant over macroscopic distances especially between aggregations of matter -- called also gravitation, gravitational force"

Re: Dancing on the surface.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that the "grand narrative" of modernism was absolute material reductionism. ;)

All kidding aside, I don't see either "modernist" or "postmodernist" thought as monolithic, opposing entities, but as one dialogue. I think it's potentially disastrous to reject either "half" of this dialogue and run with it, unchecked... I feel that the mess we've gotten ourselves into a species is largely because we've chased a certain, very specific definition of "progress" and "growth" without considering the potential consequences because we've fully embraced our own subjective (and incomplete) definitions of those terms through absolute acceptance of Western European cultural assumptions.

Re: Dancing on the surface.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

Also, it bears mentioning I'm a big fan of Whitehead's, and I should look into Griffin's work more.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

"You can stand there under the piano falling toward you from above, deconstructing gravity and mass and transfer of momentum, but it's the piano that will ultimately deconstruct you."

Straw man argument. Show me a case of any of the theorists I listed in the original post making any such argument, and then we can talk.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

All well and good, but you didn't address anything that any theorist considered to be "postmodern" actually said or argued, with the possible exception of

an awful lot of people calling themselves post-modernists tend towards deconstruction, cynicism, pastiches and re-uses, and no positive contributions

which is an interesting statement. I'd be hard pressed to point to very much artistic output, post modern or not, that is anything other than pastiches or re-uses.

Also, would you describe yourself as a material reductionist? That seems to be where you're going with your criticism of "soft" sciences.

[metaphorge.livejournal.com]

The concept that everything is ideas and nothing has any ultimate meaning is interesting, but has little relevance to me or my life. If one steps out in front of a speeding truck and declares that trucks have no ultimate meaning and getting hit by one is just an idea, this does not stop one from getting run over.

This seems to be an indictment of philosophy in general, not just postmodern philosophy.

[raindrops.livejournal.com]

It's not about the theorists or their arguments, it's about what people do with those theories an arguments.

Or don't do, as the case may be.