What is Post-Modernism?

[CartesianFart]

This is Post-Modernism

Spoiler :

I have to say that was an nice answer,a simple one,but one that is utmost subtle in this thread.

What is Postmodernism?We are all imposters!Just a bunch of garbage collectors who eats nothing but egg-shells of meta-narratives and other puke borrowed ideas in our meaningless idiosyncratic way.

Postmodernism is a way of saying what era we live in.Such as the Greek city-state to Alexander,Ancient Rome,Dark ages of Christianity,Middle ages of Schoolasticism,Renaissance especially Italian City-states and other free princely states in Northern Europe,Reformantion to CounterReformation,Age of Reason,Age of Dynastic States and Empire,Modernity,and what is now.

 

[willemvanoranje]

Every and each little discipline in science has its own post-modernism.

In political science, and i think most social sciences, it's basically a different view of a few authors, that only have some minor compatibility actually. Michel Foucault is the most famous (although he denied being a post-modernist), and he bascially rearranged some ontological and epistemological views. He uses the idea that "history is written by the victor", saying the truth (or reality) is a social construct. He did a lot of research, of his own type, on for example power-relations (history is written by the victor --> those with power create reality or what is seen and understood to be reality). Each theory, paradigm, or by that each 'reality', has some underlying assumptions. Post-modernists see it as their job to use the method of deconstruction to find these assumptions.

I actually found anything beyond the greater outline really boring.. it's more theorizing about theories.. a lot of blabla about nothing, in my perception.

There also is post-structuralism which has to do a lot with post-modernism. I'm not sure I can describe either really well, they might be the same for all I know.. I do know they're both pretty vague and miles from becoming a paradigm at least.

 

[Yuri2356]

Postmodernism is a way of saying what era we live in.Such as the Greek city-state to Alexander,Ancient Rome,Dark ages of Christianity,Middle ages of Schoolasticism,Renaissance especially Italian City-states and other free princely states in Northern Europe,Reformantion to CounterReformation,Age of Reason,Age of Dynastic States and Empire,Modernity,and what is now.

But doesn't the word "modern" simply mean "current"? I mean, the word itself originated ages ago, and continued to simply to refer to whatever was hapening at the moment. Why shouldn't we call Now "Modern" and create some new label for whatever era we've just passed?

 

[HawkeyeGS]

I believe it is trying to do stuff that hasn't been done before, breaking conventions that kind of thing. So pre-modernist is someone who completes a task as if they were living in the 1800s. A modernist is someone who does what is 'in' at the moment. Post-modernists do what they think will be mainstream later on.

 

[The Strategos]

I cannot emphasize enough, though, that philosophers in general do not take postmodernism seriously, and it has little to no influence outside the fringes of the discipline. I think that people think it does because Wittgensteinian Quietism and, to a lesser extent, Quine's naturalism, seem vaguely postmodern. This is no fault of Wittgenstein or Quine's, though, it is simply by virtue of the fact that Post Modernism has a crappy ambiguous definition.

Richard Rorty, if I am not mistaken, has not objected to being called a postmodern philosopher and is arguably one of the most widely influential contemporary American philosophers (at the very least he is one of the most widely read).

 

[C~G]

Richard Rorty, if I am not mistaken, has not objected to being called a postmodern philosopher and is arguably one of the most widely influential contemporary American philosophers (at the very least he is one of the most widely read).

It's very good to mention Rorty in this discussion.

Problem ain't that he wouldn't be so widely read but that he isn't widely understood.

For many, he's just rebel without good cause.

 

[willemvanoranje]

(...) little influence (...)
(...) ambiguous (i.e. completely crappy) definition (...)
(...)do not take postmodernism seriously(...)

That's pretty much how I feel about post-modernism. I remember we had to link postmodernism to political economics and globalization even..

 

[C~G]

I remember we had to link postmodernism to political economics and globalization even..

What do you mean by that?

I found this little gem when reading wikiperdia article about Rorty.
I think the following passage doesn't only affect Rorty but the postmodern movement in general.

In Daniel Dennett's humorous Philosophical Lexicon[2], 'Rorty' is defined as 'incorrigible', which is a neat summing up both of Rorty's career and much of the philosophic community's reaction to it.

Some interpreted passages in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity as suggesting an elitist class of intellectuals[3]. Rorty had claimed that the majority of people would be "commensensically nominalist and historicist" but not ironist. This criticism was based on a misunderstanding. Rorty said that ironism was only needed for intellectuals as it is only intellectuals who are "haunted" by the Western tradition of metaphysics and epistemology. To everyone else, ironism seems like a huge overreaction.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Yup, ive always felt a certain section of academe is against postmodernism because it said "this is all bollox, pretensious psudes". Pointing out the Emperor has no clothes doesnt make you any friends.

O RLY?

annotated example:
The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all, she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids. . . From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence. The problem of turbulent flow cannot be solved because the conceptions of fluids (and of women) have been formulated so as necessarily to leave unarticulated remainders.

ya gotta love Luce Irigaray!

Looks like she said: "These mathematical models would be simpler if you realized that men have penes and women have vaginas".

That's not saying "The emperor has no clothes" to me. It's saying "If you listen to me (despite my not having a clue), good stuff will result" like the tailors did.

Postmodernism has no clothes!

 

[bathsheba666]

We'll find out tomorrow.

Post-modernism is passé, so you've already missed it.

 

[C~G]

That's not saying "The emperor has no clothes" to me. It's saying "If you listen to me (despite my not having a clue), good stuff will result" like the tailors did.

That's modernism if it comes from presupposed authority.
There are however egomaniacs (like Foucault) that could be seen as postmodern and have had huge egos since they have ultimately been iconoclasts. One of the members in here have interesting things said in his signature about iconoclasts.

Postmodernistic tailors would indeed say to emperor that you have to walk into the crowd without clothes, but it's not because they themselves believe emperor has clothes but that they see nobody else doesn't have them either. If the people believe the authority of emperor to that he has clothes, it's because they have given their authority to emperor to dictate it is so before tailors ever got into making his clothes.

That story is extremely interesting since it questions who has the authority to declare knowledge and truth.
Is it the tailors, emperor, crowd or the child?
Postmodern approach would say it depends from occasion and in what level the story is percepted.

Postmodernism has no clothes!

And it doesn't care since so is everyone else.

My analogy of "emperor has no clothes" about postmodernism, is postmodern in itself, since it's self-ironic.

EDIT: Those who want to know more here's an interesting article:
Richard Rorty and the Postmodern Rejection of Absolute Truth

 

[willemvanoranje]

What do you mean by that?

In uni we had an assignment where we had to show post-modernist and feminist criticism on International Political Economy. Now, the feminist do have some valid points in my opinion (although I also loved Susan Strange saying feminist should "stop whining and get over it"), but post-modernism...

 

[C~G]

In uni we had an assignment where we had to show post-modernist and feminist criticism on International Political Economy. Now, the feminist do have some valid points in my opinion (although I also loved Susan Strange saying feminist should "stop whining and get over it"), but post-modernism...

I understand.

You could claim that feminist theories in general are postmodern, but like many other theories there are some that just give postmodernism bad name.

 

[angeleyes]

Postmodernism, as i understand it, doesn't believe in the great ideals of modernism anymore, but it has already come to an end cause people nowadays feel we need some ideal, any ideal is better than no ideal at all (that's why i call myself a spinozist).

 

[CartesianFart]

Lets exclude my comments of the previous post i've written which was just some kind of a contempt remark on myself of having trouble coming up with a useful definition of what is postmodernism.

Postmodernism is a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school that doubt(lets say it is a revival of ancient Greek school of skepticism which was founded by the philosopher Pyrrho) any validity of meta-narratives (which are books on ethics,philosophy,religion,theoretical science or theoretical human science such as anthropology,sociology,psychology,Marxism and etc.etc.).

An advocate of postmodernism are something of a half-skeptic and a half-anti-theoreticians.Of course how can one be half of two things when skepticism is a belief that we can't know anything and at the same time be unable to provide a theory of providing why?

Why?It is because postmodernists are only therapeutic technicians that uses a variety of varible(such as deconstructionism,poststructionism,linguistic analysis and others)methods to provide an useful skill training in a specific technical process of other narrative works.

Sometimes i'd get some impression that postmodernist writers(whether they deny or affirm that they are postmodernist writers) are insecure,ironic,sardonic and downright roughshodding charlatans.Of course this is only my impression and i have to say that i like everything about those qualities since it empowers me to will my own creation for creative writing,especially criticising other people works or in oratorial debates.

 

[Fifty]

ugh, this is ridiculous. General skepticism about meaning, truth, the legitimacy of philosophy, etc. is not a characteristic of postmodernism! My god! If that were true than we'd have postmoderns as far back as the sophists and the skeptics. Again, we reach the problem that postmodernism has no good definition or defining characteristic. It is as if I made a philosophy called "fiftyism" in which we attempt to make a system of what I call "symbolic logic" to "symbolize and determine the validity or invalidity of arguments". Of course, fiftyism would not be original or important, for symbolic logic dates back to at least Aristotle. However, I might be able to fool a few people who know nothing about philosophy or symbolic logic into thinking I was innovative (of course, the appeal for coffee-shop philosophers would be less because symbolic logic doesn't sound quite so edgey as "deconstructionism" and "postmodernism").

here's some interesting reading on postmodernism and the real developments in philosophy:

Fabio Rojas (sociologist, Indiana): http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/10/postmodernism_a.html

Keith DeRose (philosophy, Yale): http://bengal-ng.missouri.edu/~kvanvigj/certain_doubts/?p=453

Brian Leiter (philosophy, Texas): http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2004/07/the_myth_of_the.html

Scott Soams (Philosophy, USC): http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~soames/forthcoming_papers/Analytic_Philosophy_in_America.pdf

Richard Rorty: http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cach...ralism+and+quietism"&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

I also recommend reading some essays in The Future for Philosophy, edited by Leiter. The introduction, as well as Don Garrett's essay on the history of philosphy, Timothy Williamson's essay on the Linguistic Turn, and Philip Pettit's essay on the Role of Philosophy will be helpful in gauging where philosophy is really at.

Take note especially of Rorty's essay, in which he (rightfully) contributes a lot of what some non-experts characterize as "post-modern" to Quietism and to a lesser extent Naturalism.

 

[C~G]

So all in all Fifty you are just saying that what people percept to be postmodern aren't really postmodern?

Do you define Rorty to be postmodern?
I would say he's very close to my line of thinking since he's postmodern pragmatic. He doesn't bow to old tradtional values of philosophy that are long and gone since as the society is now and is evolving in the future, the modern philosophy goes from armchair to wheelchair.
Of course people like traditions so they will still call it "modern" even if it would had been in coma long time ago.

The reason why peope don't want to label certain people to be "postmodern" is just because the whole movement is linked to these "french heroes" which have contributed quite a lot BTW otherwise and some people are insanely anglophilical and patriarchal academics which makes them to have distaste for french social theories. What a surprise!

We are living in postmodern times and it surely hell will effect philosophy since the postmodernism is everywhere. I consider Wittgenstein being the first one that had truly postmodern thoughts, even though he was modern still.

But then again, this is just talk about what postmodernism is in general terms rather than the tighty fitted ball of trash which you would like to be so you could throw over yours shoulder to the trashcan so your heroes would be saved, for now and never be linked with "postmodern school" (add shivers if you like).

This might become as surprise but maybe postmodern thought is still too avantgarde for some.

EDIT: Just as notification, I might be not able to answer, since I will be away some time.

FURTHER EDIT: There might be smell of irony in this message, had to add this remark as someone might sniff it wrongly.

 

[Fifty]

Do you define Rorty to be postmodern?

I can't say without someone giving me a clear definition (including a defining characteristic) of postmodernism.

I would say he's very close to my line of thinking since he's postmodern pragmatic. He doesn't bow to old tradtional values of philosophy that are long and gone since as the society is now and is evolving in the future, the modern philosophy goes from armchair to wheelchair.
Of course people like traditions so they will still call it "modern" even if it would had been in coma long time ago.

Today's philosophy is methodologically similar to all philosophy, to be sure, but if you tihnk that the prevailing movements in current philosophy are anything "antique" then well I suggest actually READING some current philosophy. Again, your insinuation that the critique of philosophical methods has definable link with postmodernism is just ridiculous.

The reason why peope don't want to label certain people to be "postmodern" is just because the whole movement is linked to these "french heroes" which have contributed quite a lot BTW otherwise and some people are insanely anglophilical and patriarchal academics which makes them to have distaste for french social theories. What a surprise!

Do you have any evidence of that? Specifically, serious work by real scholars that makes a plausible link between the complete lack of postmodern influence in philosophy and some sort of "distaste for french social theories."

We are living in postmodern times and it surely hell will effect philosophy since the postmodernism is everywhere.

It's easy to say postmodernism is everywhere when postmodernism itself is just an amalgram of vague characteristics easy to assign to practically anything. This is why it is so popular to coffee-shop philosophers: they don't have to think much to understand it or sound like they know what they are talking about.

I consider Wittgenstein being the first one that had truly postmodern thoughts, even though he was modern still.

Did you just say that Wittgenstein is postmodern? I'm now officially convinced that you have no knowledge whatsoever of any scholarship on Wittgenstein (a sad thing considering he is your favorite philosopher apparently), perhaps aside from some "popularizing-philosophy" books written by non-scholars for highschool students.

But then again, this is just talk about what postmodernism is in general terms rather than the tighty fitted ball of trash which you would like to be so you could throw over yours shoulder to the trashcan so your heroes would be saved, for now and never be linked with "postmodern school" (add shivers if you like).

You still haven't given a halfway decent definition of postmodernism.


PS: I wonder what might be a better source for information on the views of Richard Rorty? Wikipedia, an article about him by some guy who doesn't even have a readily available CV, or RORTY HIMSELF!?

 

[Narz]

This is Post-Modernism

Spoiler :

I thought that was the result of non-simple living?

 

[Perfection]

I thought that was the result of non-simple living?

Incorrect! Complex livers mostly place trash in sanitary landfills or incinerators not giganzo unkempt and uncovered piles.