"The End of Faith" (er, Agathon?)

[Elok]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Just stop right there. What you know about socialism could be weitten in one post.

That one post would probably be correctly spelled though.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Aivo½so
I wonder why people always vehemently ridicule everything that bears the slightest hint of being related to postmodernism, most often without actually even seeming to have much knowledge of what it is all about? I've noticed that psychoanalysis also often receives this treatment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair

Not even the %$#@! PoMos themselves know what PoMo is "about." The whole philosophy is a thinly disguised attack on the idea of objective reality, endorsed by contrarian perverts.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Elok


That one post would probably be correctly spelled though.

[Meticulous Man]

Originally posted by Elok

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair

Not even the %$#@! PoMos themselves know what PoMo is "about." The whole philosophy is a thinly disguised attack on the idea of objective reality, endorsed by contrarian perverts.

No need to be so emotional about it, could someone explain why ideas like social constructionism are false and how the Sokal Affair debunks postmodernism.

[Elok]

It's not that hard to understand, is it? He submitted complete gibberish, including several sentences which made absolutely no semantic sense, and got it published in a respected journal. When confronted, the journal's editors claimed that the text still had merit somehow...due to the PoMo hypothesis that meaning resides in the reader rather than the text itself. Which basically turns all reading and critical examination into a variant on the Rorschach test, but never mind, it's non-hierarchichal and non-exploitative towards alternative paradigms and such and such.

Sokal's also written a whole book filled with ludicrous statements by major scholars with regards to physics. Check out the Richard Dawkins article linked to by the wiki entry. One of them claimed that the square root of negative one is related to "the erectile organ," and one woman asserted that fluid mechanics are less well known than solid physics because men, with their rigid genitals, fear the chaotic fluidity of women's menstrual cycles. PoMo's response to the book: Sokal didn't understand their philosophy adequately. They didn't deny that the mathematical postulate "i" might (in their opinion) arguably be connected to a man's penis in some sort of meaningful way, but in the right light it makes sense? WTF?

I've also encountered plenty of their BS during my time in college. Thankfully I probably won't run into any more during this last semester before I graduate, but they've done absolutely horrible things to Shakespeare.

[Meticulous Man]

It's not that hard to understand, is it? He submitted complete gibberish, including several sentences which made absolutely no semantic sense, and got it published in a respected journal. When confronted, the journal's editors claimed that the text still had merit somehow...due to the PoMo hypothesis that meaning resides in the reader rather than the text itself. Which basically turns all reading and critical examination into a variant on the Rorschach test, but never mind, it's non-hierarchichal and non-exploitative towards alternative paradigms and such and such.

Which is wrong why? Surely you don't deny that the culture you live in strongly affects the way you perceive the world?

Sokal's also written a whole book filled with ludicrous statements by major scholars with regards to physics. Check out the Richard Dawkins article linked to by the wiki entry. One of them claimed that the square root of negative one is related to "the erectile organ," and one woman asserted that fluid mechanics are less well known than solid physics because men, with their rigid genitals, fear the chaotic fluidity of women's menstrual cycles. PoMo's response to the book: Sokal didn't understand their philosophy adequately. They didn't deny that the mathematical postulate "i" might (in their opinion) arguably be connected to a man's penis in some sort of meaningful way, but in the right light it makes sense? WTF?

So because an idea seems ludicrous or revolting at first sight, it must be dismissed off hand without an attempt to understand the reasoning behind it? At least you didn't, in your post, give any attention to the framework behind the claims made by these "PoMos" and just mentioned some single examples that not very surprisingly seem ridiculous to the average reader when taken out of context.

BTW, ever read anything by Lyotard, Jameson, Baudrillard & co?

[chequita guevara]

The problem with PoMo, is that for them, everything is reduced to language. Since everything we perceive in the world is mediated through our understanding of language, there is no reality other than language. We can never hope to gain an understanding of objective reality, only our own subjective realities. This is the source of "politically correct" speech. Change the language and we'll abolish oppression. Well, we see how well that worked out. Heck, anyone who'd ever worked with the retarded could have seen how that worked out, since no matter what euphamism social workers ever used, it quickly became an insult.

Basically, PoMo inverts the world on its head. Sadly for me, many PoMos consider themselves Marxists, to much chagrin amongst us real Marxists. Interestingly, it was a Marxist, George Novak, who first wrote a rather trenchant rebuttal to PoMo before it even emerged, when he took a trend in Western Marxism to its logical conclusion to show how absurd it was.

[Meticulous Man]

I think postmodernism actually is a so heterogenous phenomenon that the sweeping statements people often make about it are mostly misdirected. Take a thinker commonly thought to be a postmodernist, like Jean Baudrillard, for example. Rarely does anyone seem to think of his (or Lyotard's, Foucault's...) ideas when postmodernism is brought up. Instead, postmodernism is equated with some unrelated ridiculous statements, the Sokal affair, political correctness etc.

[chequita guevara]

The fact that it is heterogenous doesn't mean it doesn't have a common core. After all, a philosophy that says the objective is nothing and the subjective is everything is going to have extremely different results based on the specific individual.

[Jon Miller]

I actually agree that what language you have determines what thoughts you can (easily) think..

That doesn't stop new thoughts/words/etc from being developed.

That also doesn't stop things from being reality, language only restricts what parts of reality you can (easily) grasp, it doesn't mean that reality is dependent on language.

JM

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Aivo½so
I think postmodernism actually is a so heterogenous phenomenon that the sweeping statements people often make about it are mostly misdirected.

The same is true for the Enlightenment. Never stopped the postmodernists, though.

[chequita guevara]

I agree, Jon. The problem with PoMo isn't that it understands that the objective is mediated through the subjective, but that it goes further to declare that therefore the objective is completely unknowable. This would be the difference between Derrida and Focault and with those who can after.

[Jon Miller]

I am in the group that thinks that the complete objective is unknowable..

JM

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Elok
I'm curious as to whether anybody here has encountered a strain of "modern philosophical realism" which does not hold physical experience up as the gold standard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Van_Orman_Quine

Quine falls squarely into the analytic philosophy tradition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy

The tradition of Analytic philosophy began with Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein

Originally posted by Odin
I smell postmodernist BS.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
... a philosophy that says the objective is nothing and the subjective is everything ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern

The term defies easy definition, but generally comprises the following core ideals:

A continual skepticism towards the ideas and ideals of the modern era, especially the ideas of progress, objectivity, reason, certainty & personal identity, and grand narrative in general
The belief that all communication is shaped by cultural bias, myth, metaphor, and political content.
The assertion that meaning and experience can only be created by the individual, and cannot be made objective by an author or narrator.
...

Skepticism towards metanarrative <> denial of objective reality.

Meaning and experience being subjective <> "language is everything."


It's a sad day when wikipedia makes more sense than the Che.