Ask a Philosopher

[Traitorfish]

The ideas Philip K. Dick borrowed from Neoplatonism were exactly those that were appropriated by the Postmodernists. I wouldn't have mentioned it if wasn't the case.

Well, which ideas were those? You mention that postmodernism "emphasised self-awareness" but those could equally be taken to derive from phenomenology. (Which as I understand is the conventional view.) You must realise that you're drawing a tenuous connection, here, and it isn't impertinent of me to be puzzled by it.

 

[Tahuti]

Or, if you don't concern yourself with the humanities, ignore postmodernism altogether.

I'm a CS major. That said, engaging in philosophical discussions makes it quite hard to claim I'm not concerned with humanities. The strength of humanities is that it tries to address issues that cannot be addressed with our empirical faculties. Naturally, I'm a bit concerned when so-called postmodernist philosophers want use the humanities as an excuse to negate the validity of empirical knowledge altogether.

Is this a fun fact or is it a critique?

Also, be wary that postmodernism is not 'one thing'. Its supposed authors are very diffuse and often don't identify with the tradition at all.

Well, it was primarily to point out that there are in fact two Postmodernism's: One in the arts and one in philosophy. Though the latter tends to claim it is part of the former.

Well, which ideas were those? You mention that postmodernism "emphasised self-awareness" but those could equally be taken to derive from phenomenology. (Which as I understand is the conventional view.) You must realise that you're drawing a tenuous connection, here, and it isn't impertinent of me to be puzzled by it.

The one of self-awareness was indeed original, or at least didn't had a directly notable progenitor. The multiple levels of existence thing on the other hand was borrowed from neoplatonism and does play a role in pomo claims on how truth does only exist in letters. Basically, if you try hard enough to claim that the earth is 6000 years old because literature has said so, postmodernists may well give you their support!

 

[Angst]

I'm a CS major. That said, engaging in philosophical discussions makes it quite hard to claim I'm not concerned with humanities. The strength of humanities is that it tries to address issues that cannot be addressed with our empirical faculties. Naturally, I'm a bit concerned when so-called postmodernist philosophers want use the humanities as an excuse to negate the validity of empirical knowledge altogether.

What's "CS"?

Other than that, I find your point very good and it is the very same principle I go by; each faculty to its own. There's a reason I don't apply for a job at a power plant; I would simply be incompetent.

Well, it was primarily to point out that there are in fact two Postmodernism's: One in the arts and one in philosophy. Though the latter tends to claim it is part of the former.

I think there are some tendencies in them that overlap, but not in the way some people want to. When I was introduced to postmodernism in high school, it meant something much different than the philosophical principle.

edit

The one of self-awareness was indeed original, or at least didn't had a directly notable progenitor. The multiple levels of existence thing on the other hand was borrowed from neoplatonism and does play a role in pomo claims on how truth does only exist in letters. Basically, if you try hard enough to claim that the earth is 6000 years old because literature has said so, postmodernists may well give you their support!

this is actually a misunderstanding of the point and practice of the method :/

 

[Perfection]

Cs=computer science (glorified programmer)

 

[Angst]

thanks

 

[Tahuti]

this is actually a misunderstanding of the point and practice of the method :/

Well, when I criticise something, the biggest fear is always somehow misunderstand the thing I attack, since misunderstanding of the things that are attacked is something I often observe when arguments are made. I'd appreciate if you help me out a bit here!

Cs=computer science (glorified programmer)

Correct. Especially the glorified programmer part!

 

[Angst]

Well, when I criticise something, the biggest fear is always somehow misunderstand the thing I attack, since misunderstanding of the things that are attacked is something I often observe when arguments are made. I'd appreciate if you help me out a bit here!

Again, I'm not a major and has only used this for application. I have an issue with clarity in my first language already so I apologize if this is highly inaccurate or unclear. You must be aware of the difficulties expressing postmodernist thought.

To put it way too simply: Saying that reality is only present "in the text" is not about what is written, it is about how it is written. It is not about knowing that the world is 6000 years old, it is about understanding how it is known. In the text. There is, to the postmodernists, no need for objective knowledge; critiquing the lack of objective statements or universal truths is missing the point. Postmodernist epistemology is questioning and analyzing, not defining and describing.

In the natural sciences, texts are ideally approached with a regard of clarity, understandibility, and reliance on empiry (original or accumulated) for the sake of archieving objective truths. But texts aren't always understandable. Phenomena do not represent themselves to us in the fullest.

The natural sciences know this too. Devices for acquiring information are limited in scope and only provide the answer to one question we ask. I'm unaware of the accurate English terminology, but I'm sure it was Bohr who came up with the paradox/problem. The natural sciences just have to attempt working around their limitations, as the approximation of objective knowledge is their function.

Similarly, if you want defined what postmodernism "is" - it really, well, "isn't" anything monolithic. It's a number of philosophers that make sometimes similar, but often very varying conclusions from assuming that the Age of Enlightenment, modernism, isn't a proper tool for understanding anymore.

Postmodern philosophy as such then clashes with the natural sciences that have Enligthenment as their fundamentals. Which is understandable, but honestly, to me, I'd rather use postmodernism in the humanities.

A concrete application of this premise is the very popular différance - I think Lovett mentioned this half in spite earlier? - which you must know as you seem acquainted with postmodernism. Différance means two things; first, that the meaning of a word is only created in the reference to another; and following, that such a reference creates hierarchy, binarity and opposition between those words. Inaccurately put, this destroys the possibility of a word having a meaning by itself, having objectivity a very difficult thing to archieve.

What it boils down to?

It's really just good arguments for you to have an open mind, don't be presupposed into a certain epistemology, understand the structures that constitute our framework of knowledge.

To objectivists (not the randian kind) the downing of their hegemony will of course lead them into desperation, believing that humanity will suffer without objectivity; relativism is bad n' all. But for each Bible-cosmology-scare, you'll have better anthropology, better understanding of culture, arts and the different movements, meanings and thoughts that are presupposed to each of those fragments.

 

[Tahuti]

Similarly, if you want defined what postmodernism "is" - it really, well, "isn't" anything monolithic. It's a number of philosophers that make sometimes similar, but often very varying conclusions from assuming that the Age of Enlightenment, modernism, isn't a proper tool for understanding anymore.

Postmodern philosophy as such then clashes with the natural sciences that have Enligthenment as their fundamentals. Which is understandable, but honestly, to me, I'd rather use postmodernism in the humanities.

I think that's the first problem already. There is not necessarily a link between the Enlightenment and natural sciences. While I agree with Postmodernism that certain aspects of the Enlightenment have attempted to defer epistemology to the natural sciences, in essence abdicating from philosophical discovery, Postmodernism has gone too far by attacking the Natural Sciences itself, falsely linking it with the Enlightenment.

I have a strong distaste for overt die-hard Enlightenment Fundamentalists like Richard Dawkins (still a great biologist though) and Christopher Hitchens and Postmodernists are right to question their assumptions. But my problem is that the way they do it, they are basically creating the same problems the very ones they attack make as well. Not everything about Postmodernism is bad, but then again, that is true for the Enlightenment as well.

 

[timtofly]

Could it be that part of the problem is that humans are complex entities and cannot be boxed into neat and tidy labels no matter how hard humans try to classify themselves?

 

[Neverwonagame3]

Angst:

Your form of skepticism is a rationalist position since it devalues everything experienced as uncertain, that is, potentially illusionary (ie it devalues empiry). There are some skepticisms that also devalues logic (maths for example) as being potentially illusionary, this goes back to Descartes. You seem to want to abide to that. In that case, however, it is still a rationalist position as it works within a rationalist framework, denouncing empiry before working with 'the proper issue', the evil demon's logic. Even if you're criticizing certainty of truth and rationalism itself with such a method, you're actually working within a rationalist framework.

If you mean that my approach using reasoning, even if I am challenging logic itself, then I suppose you are correct. Still, it would be a circular argument to use empirical evidence against the proposition that the world is an illusion.

I have to admit I have no idea what you're talking about here.

Phenomenologists, according to my faint memory of the matter, have tried to denounce skepticism from a phenomenological framework. According to my faint memory, they failed.

But reality isn't objective, is it? Rationalists would say it is - but many empiricists would highlight reality as experienced, therefore subjective. Which in turn, for phenomenology, builds onto and takes from an intersubjectivity that constitutes our understanding of reality. So...

I think again this is a problem of differing definitions. For me, "objective" represents an approach which avoids emotions and instead uses reasoning. It is the only way to remain grounded in reality.

From my best guess of what you mean, the problem here is that intersubjectvity cannot be demonstrated unless we know that other beings in fact exist.

... That you then require total certainty of truth - without improbability or uncertainty in the experienced - is a rationalist position of certainty. It invokes the idea of an objective world, which may or may not be attainable through logical analysis, depending on the amount of skepticism you abide to. The thing is, you're saying all that is real is rational and objective (a rationalist position), and then you say that even a logical way of thinking can be questioned by referring to the evil demon. But that criticism only works if your metholodical framework requires total objectivity and undoubtable logic. Which aren't really goals for the phenomenologist to attain.

Anyone can invent a framework of criterion for what they consider real. But unless this framework has some degree of correlation with reality (and you are assuming on faith, not reason, that your senses have a correlation with reality) then the framework is pointless.

The problem with probability is the question of how you can demonstrate that the method of probability is valid. Any method of probability has axioms, implicitly or explicitly. If you cannot demonstrate the validity of said axioms, your method falls apart.

Do you know about the phenomenological concepts of ideal and morphological structures? Because I really want to bring them in, as they underline the fundamental difference between scientific (also, indirectly, logical) epistemology and phenomenological epistemology. But if I just told you about those structures without presenting it this way, I'm sure you'd interpret them wrongly. This is not your fault, it is because I'm really bad at being clear and English is my second language.

My epistemology isn't really scientific but rational/logical. Admittedly, however, there is a problem here.

lovett:
Proving P1 is simple. For any circular argument to "demonstrate" any hypothetical fact, I can create a circular argument with different circular assumptions that "proves" that fact false. Therefore circular arguments cannot be valid.

 

[Angst]

Kaiserguard I like your post and have no particular points present against it at my current level of knowledge

Angst:

If you mean that my approach using reasoning, even if I am challenging logic itself, then I suppose you are correct. Still, it would be a circular argument to use empirical evidence against the proposition that the world is an illusion.

But that's the deal; that the world is an illusion is technically not very relevant to phenomenology, the world is only needed to present itself somewhat consistently. There is an ideal of objectivity in phenomenology but it does not follow your model. It is not total, nor is it certain, nor is it "probable". It's an approximation, and it serves phenomenology just fine. Your argument of probability does not change the framework; an event happening opposite to expectations, even opposite to probability is analyzable without phenomenology collapsing.

Phenomenologists, according to my faint memory of the matter, have tried to denounce skepticism from a phenomenological framework. According to my faint memory, they failed.

I think again this is a problem of differing definitions. For me, "objective" represents an approach which avoids emotions and instead uses reasoning. It is the only way to remain grounded in reality.

Emotions aren't real?

The stringent, cold, hard thought of nonemotion that you promote has an upside and a downside. The upside is that it gets all those iffy irrational emotion-based convictions of nonreal entities out of the way in order to determine what is "objectively" present outside the human experience. The downside is that this denial of emotional convictions severs the human experience from the human reality as it is actually experienced.

Let's try with another approach. You want philosophy as a tool of total objectivity. You realized this was impossible and therefore that philosophy is pointless. Pointless means that philosophy has no value; and it's simply wrong; no value as opposed to what? Banking? Anthropology? Do you understand that philosophy is more than rationalist epistemology, and that the other fields are actually continually making progress, developing more tools to analyze reality and humanity?

For philosphy is not pointless; it is in fact widely applicable. Understand that the experienced "reality" of people, illusionary or not, must be analyzed and not simply ignored by philosophy as a whole as (if you were to rule the philosophical discourse) rationalist ultraskeptics would deny it effeciency. But philosophy is more than total objectivity. Whether you like it or not, the experienced reality is utterly relevant to our daily life, even our blind convictions and periods of insanity, so we must investigate it.

From my best guess of what you mean, the problem here is that intersubjectvity cannot be demonstrated unless we know that other beings in fact exist.

It is a traditional critique of phenomenology that intersubjectivity cannot be proven, but it's actually a misunderstanding; the Other is definitely experiencable, and indeed as an Other, not as a tablecloth or an unliving object, but through its very actions and being.

Anyone can invent a framework of criterion for what they consider real. But unless this framework has some degree of correlation with reality (and you are assuming on faith, not reason, that your senses have a correlation with reality) then the framework is pointless.

The problem with probability is the question of how you can demonstrate that the method of probability is valid. Any method of probability has axioms, implicitly or explicitly. If you cannot demonstrate the validity of said axioms, your method falls apart.

I'm sorry but your talking about faith as integral to phenomenology as opposed to rationalism is really not accurate at all. Most faiths are infact argued for in a rationalist framework; that they are, then, sometimes logically impossible is not the point here. Rationalism is something very integral to faith and arguments against faith are most of the time based upon empiry; "how do you prove this in the real world."

EDIT: I'll seriously reiterate this point; I find it seriously weird that you would group faith with empiry. It holds little water when held up to the implications of faith, additionally, you seem to weigh faith negatively, using it as something you call convictions you don't like.

My epistemology isn't really scientific but rational/logical. Admittedly, however, there is a problem here.

First off, I'm very sure that the problem of probability is a scientific one, not a rationalist; rationalist arguments only provide total, unbending answers according to a set internally consistent logic.

Purely rational epistemology (which you strive for) isn't really a good epistemology as it does not concern itself with reality as is. If I may be so arrogant to say so. Additionally, logic has a lot of problems in itself. You have pointed them out. What you are doing is to absurdize all other epistemologies on the grounds of one yourself choose (which isn't really fair as your epistemology uses incompatible arguments) and then deny your own epistemology (rationalism) any value at all by summoning the evil demon; and if your epistemology has no value, how can its methods be arguments against others?

 

[lovett]

Angst:

lovett:
Proving P1 is simple. For any circular argument to "demonstrate" any hypothetical fact, I can create a circular argument with different circular assumptions that "proves" that fact false. Therefore circular arguments cannot be valid.

Premise 1 is this:

P1: For any assumption, P, one is epistemically justified in believing P only if one has a non-circular argument that proves P.

What is in question is not whether circular arguments are generally valid (they aren't). It is whether one needs a non-circular argument (rather than no argument at all) for a proposition before being epistemically justified in believing that proposition. You address the first point, and not the second.

 

[Mouthwash]

How is "direct realism" even a thing? Science, not philosophy, appears to have settled this question. Eyes take in photons, brains create neurological signals that appear as qualia to us. Colors and sensations are not a quality of the outside world itself.

But apparently there are still people who reject indirect realism.

 

[Perfection]

Few philosophical ideas I've had I'd like to explore:

A consequentialist ethical theory that aims to produce aesthetic beauty

Redundancy as a solution to the mere addition paradox (i.e. two people who are very different from each other have more value then two similar people)

Moral status of real humans versus fictional characters


Have you ever heard of anything like this? Any thoughts on how to explore these further?