The square root of (-1) is......... the penis?

[Dis]

Originally posted by Odin
Postmodernists are a f*cking joke. They spew meaningless verbage and call it philosophy. It's these morons that have given philosophy a bad name and created the stereotypes people like Asher use to bash philosophy.

f*ck them.

I hate old philosophers too.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Aivo½so
I'm not convinced that he knows what he is talking about if that one was directed against Lacan, Deleuze, Baudrillard & co...

What is it with Finns and french postmodenists? First Pekka and Foucalt and now you defend them.

As the article aneeshm quoted says, it's all one big fraud.

[Sandman]

I've heard that in France, you can get a degree in psychology just by learning about Lacanian psychoanalysis, and presumably, its 'applications'.

[MightyTiny]

That was an excellent article, I'd actually read it some time before.

Postmodernism is so silly, so absurd, so painfully obviously intellectually corrupt, that I wonder whether some sort of a brain injury is necessary for one to be impressed by it?

[Meticulous Man]

Kill 'em all. PoMos misrepresented him by making him similar and made all kinds of excuses.

[Elok]

TLDR, but why'd he bother attacking PoMo in his atheist hissy-fit book? PoMos oppose all forms of purported objective truth that don't involve talk about penises and colonialism. That presumably includes all concepts of God not covered by liberation theology (which AFAIK is Marxism with Jesus tacked on).

EDIT: I am, however, pleased to see Aneeshm posting something that does not directly relate to Islam being evil, the other Abrahamic faiths being silly, or India being the greatest country on earth. Kudos, Aneeshm. Just quote shorter blocks or summarize next time.

[Nostromo]

Re: The square root of (-1) is......... the penis?

Originally posted by aneeshm
There, in a list of his articles, I came across this little gem.

Dawkin's article isn't a gem, more of a collection of gems by other people

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Odin
Postmodernists are a f*cking joke. They spew meaningless verbage and call it philosophy. It's these morons that have given philosophy a bad name and created the stereotypes people like Asher use to bash philosophy.

f*ck them.

Thank you for the vote of confidence, good sir!

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by varwnos
Since philosophy itself is a vast subject, despite its decline in respectability there are still countless new concepts which can be thought of, and analysed in introduction or in depth in new books.
However i agree that it is most common to find modern philosophers who are niehter capable of, nor appreciating of, simplicity of words and economy with the use of so-called "key-terms".
So many philosophical works are full of such "key terms", which by themselves acquire supposedly a new, more profound meaning, but which in reality were never needed in the first place. Language by itself has its own dynamics, and frequently those philosophical works become unreadable, bizarre, borring enigmata.

There is a nice saying attributed to a mathematician: "the proof that one has understood perfectly a theory is that he is able to explain it with simple words to the first person he happens to meet on the street".

There are two issues here: what language should I use when I'm writing philosophy papers and what language should I use when explaining my views to non-specialists.

A physicist could explain quantum physics, up to a certain point, by using simple words that anybody can understand. But could he do the same when he writes his research papers? Of course not!

The same is true of philosophy. I couldn't for the life of me write a philosophical paper without using philosophical concepts. (I'm a philosopher, BTW) Everyday language is just too crude a tool. Complaining that the man of the streets can't understand a philosophical paper is like complaining that he can't understand a physics paper published in a physics journal.

Now, I'm not denying that some philosophers are obscurantists. In other words, even professionnal philosophers have a hard time understanding them, assuming that what they say isn't gibberish to begin with. But we're not all like that.

[Kuciwalker]

A physicist could explain quantum physics, up to a certain point, by using simple words that anybody can understand.

Not in any meaningful way.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

A physicist could explain quantum physics, up to a certain point, by using simple words that anybody can understand.

Not in any meaningful way.

You obviously have no appreciation for the power and versatility of the words "thing," "sort of," "somewhat," and "-ish."