> I don't think that the postmodern relativistic physics and the ideas of moral relativism common in postmodern thinking are unrelated
(hopefully you read this) : they are unrelated, but I see where you came from. Postmodernism is really Postmarxism, but that wasn't sellable in the USA (nor in the USSR, that's why it was born in Europe). And it isn't really moral relativism either. It's peddled like that nowadays, but this recent and not at all a cornerstone from what I read. If anything, postmodernism is amoral (there is a lot from Nietzsch), or consequentialist, for a broad definition of consequentialism.
You have to think of postmodernism as a critique of Marxism. This critique led to the critique of everything, really, but fundamentally, postmodernists asked themselves 'where was Marx wrong'. Some responses (genealogy VS ideology especially) led to what might resemble to moral relativism, but if anything, for a postmodern, a very moral thing is to deepen your understanding of the world.
>It's hard to believe that there are still people writing the old "post-modernist philosophers are bad for civilization!" rant.
As someone on the outside of philosophy as a discipline, this is the only sort of description of postmodernism I see. Regardless of its prevalence or correctness, what do you think leads people to interpret postmodernism in this way?
> For example I don't think any of the philosophers usually called "postmodernists" have actually argued for the type of moral relativism you're describing
They openly reject the notion of aiming towards objective truth and replace it with building ideas that are better at changing power structures. There's a good reason why people are even considering 2+2=5 as an actual hypothesis.
Even if they didn't espouse those radical views themselves, it's not hard to see that they laid the framework for it.
> You're not taking into account the illusory nature of thought ...
How ironic. You've just articulated the postmodern position -- that there are no objective truths that can be conveyed from one person to another, that everything is a subjective observation[1] -- in a message that, to serve any purpose at all, requires and presumes what it has just denied. You might as well have said, "This exchange serves no purpose, I'm merely exercising my wrists."
So I'll take you at your word.
> ... you can't even truely trust that what any of your senses tell you is even real.
>various pomo terms and theories are written about as if there were anything behind them.
What do you mean? Because I don't think there's anything wrong with post-modern theory; it's a topic that's actively discussed in philosophy. I think it's unwise to dismiss something just because it's post-modern, it it given credence to post-modernism.
> One final note: none of the positive or hopeful things that I said about philosophy apply to the postmodern or Continental kinds. As far as I can tell, the latter aren’t really “philosophy” at all, but more like pretentious brands of performance art that fancy themselves politically subversive, even as they cultivate deliberate obscurity and draw mostly on the insights of Hitler and Stalin apologists.
> And today, post-modernism attempts to put forth the notion that all morality is simply cultural context and relative. Which, while perhaps strictly true, is, IMO, pointless.
Kind of self-contradictory: the statement "it's all relative" is itself an absolute statement.
A quote: "The problem with 'I'm entitled to my opinion' is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned."
Not in philosophy, where beliefs are the coin of the realm and anything goes. This philosophy lecturer, apparently disappointed by his chosen field, is trying to turn it into science. I have news for him -- science is already being taught in science classrooms.
Is it true that anything goes in philosophy? To answer, I would ask where deconstructive postmodernism was born (answer: among philosophers). Then one may ask about deconstructive postmodernism (essentially the idea that there are no shared objective truths and everything is a matter of opinion), what's wrong with it? Only that it's self-canceling -- the philosophical claim that there are no shared, objective truths must first be applied to that claim, thus nullifying it.
> the pretense that we have arrived at some idea of the "truth" based on "evidence", as if either of these things existed, and we should all start living on the basis of this paradigm. There is only ever observation (itself a fraught enterprise) and subjective interpretation
Perhaps a bit tangential, or perhaps not, but anyway - that comment was very strongly postmodern.
> The ironic thing is that if one were to string together a bunch of technical terms, they sound exactly as obscurantist to the outsider.
In other fields the obscurity is a side effect. In the humanities it’s the point, to try to make the sky-castle ideas sound more Important and Scientific than they actually are. A big part of postmodern theory is the notion that there basically is no truth, just texts with varying degrees of authority. The field unironically describes itself.
> So far I have not met anyone who can come up with an objective claim that isn't merely basing that on a frame of reference which can be deconstructed or shown to be based on a set of apriori assumptions itself.
I'm not too familiar with postmodern theory, would you explain this please?
Say I state that you posted the above sentence, and that that is an objective truth.
> While you claim to oppose the postmodern idea that there is no truth, you’ve ceded the premise to the postmodernists by framing truth in their terms of objectivity and subjectivity
I do not. What I am saying is that knowledge—if such a thing exists at all and is worthy of defense by humans—can be addressed in a rational, objective way.
Lots of things are approximations, but we do not deny the existence of categories as useful phenomena or an epistemological tool. To paraphrase a famous exchange of ideas, GB Shaw: "All chairs are quite different" vs. Chesterton: "Well how do you then call them all chairs?"
The postmodernist sleight of hand is to say that perhaps because there are differing contexts that there is not a universal tendency; such a commonality is either non-existent or should be disregarded. They would not categorically discard visceral human experiences that lead to say "thirst" or "hunger" or "anger", but they will claim that there are not common phenomena that engender "awe" or "wonder" or "intrigue". I disagree with that statement. That humans can reliably classify things that are "beautiful" across cultures (and have done so for millenia, even when they hate each others' cultures), shows there is a common tendency towards taste.
When thirsty, many people drink water, but the postmodernist looks at the few drinking Brawndo and has to deny the generalization that water quenches thirst but of thirst entirely.
And in one paragraph Dawkins shows that he has no understanding of postmodernism what so ever.
So far as I'm concerned, no-one -- including everyone who's ever called themselves a postmodernist -- has any understanding of it. There's no "there" there, only a few trite remarks about absolutes and a race to see who can out-jargon, out-pigeonhole and out-frame whom.
(all of which makes me incredibly glad that I earned my degree from a program which leaned heavily toward the analytic tradition; analytic philosophy has certainly had its big screwups, but A) it tends to be much more honest about itself and B) it still manages to occasionally produce useful results in spite of that)
> It seems that is the only branch of philosophy you are familiar with, because what you are doing is generalizing your misinformed notions of one school of thought and applying it to an entire field.
You really need to learn how to shape an argument -- your premise is false and your conclusion depends on your premise. Deconstructive postmodernism is an idea that has received much support among philosophers, which indicts the entire field's critical thinking ability. Now read carefully:
Scientists reject astrology out of hand, which supports science's respect for critical thinking.
If even a few scientists accepted astrology in a formal sense, it would indict science training.
Because more than a few philosophers detect no contradiction in deconstructive postmodernism, this indicts philosophical training and its respect for critical thinking. Which was my point.
> So again, if you actually are interested in understanding why what you are saying is misinformed ...
You skipped the part where you offered any evidence to support this conclusion. On the other hand, you're a philosopher, so my expectations aren't dashed.
> Philosophy wasn't just some fanciful step-cousin of literature, it's [sic] entire purpose was to formalize thought with the aims of eliminating the illogical.
First, you want "its" here, not "it's".
Second, that presumably explains why lit-crit is a laughingstock. Read more at:
In the above now-famous episode in contemporary philosophy, a scientist wrote a deliberate hoax philosophy article which was eagerly accepted and published. The author then revealed what he did and why.
The overarching problem is a lack of reality-testing in philosophical fields, and a less than rigorous respect for logical argument, defects not shared by science.
> I have a BA in philosophy. Rather than learning the truth, I discovered that almost all philosophers were wrong about almost everything.
Have you studied any set theory? How about epistemology, or non-binary logic?
> But in tracing the history of wrongness, wrestling with all the fashions of thinking, you learn to think with precision. That skill continues to help me.
Precision: the state or quality of being precise; exactness.
> Many people are actually vehemently against this reality. They wish to think of morality is a higher plane of thinking with internal logical consistency. They are wrong. Morality is an arbitrary set of inconsistent rules that directs human behavior for the sole purpose of survival. All else is illusion.
I agree, but the number and calibre of modern thinkers who have objective moralism leanings is interesting.
I suspect that it's because if you give up objective moralism you also risk giving up some amount of power/influence/purpose.
I'm not aware of any 'postmodern' thinker who has expounded this philosophy.
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