I'll give you an example:

p0m0

doesn't show up on google or bing as post modernism.

Trying to participate in a technical discussion without bothering to do even the slightest bit of work acquainting yourself with the relevant terminology would certainly qualify as a colossal (and entirely predictable) waste of ones time.

i addressed the issue above.

its not a really a technical conversation.

Then I don't know what to make of this:

...are these ideas the proper referents of such-and-such words. — Pfhorrest

because I don't know what the referent of, say, "Democracy" is.

Of course it is. Its a discussion of the value or worth of a particular genre or sub-discipline of the academic field of philosophy. And "dismissed" isn't the same as "addressed", but whatever floats your boat I suppose.

But PM means Private Message on this forum.

I like to be productive with my time. — tilda-psychist

You are not forced to be here.

Pfhorrest
Then I don't know what to make of this:
...are these ideas the proper referents of such-and-such words.
— Pfhorrest
because I don't know what the referent of, say, "Democracy" is. — Banno

A process or practice can be a noun. “Democracy“ refers to some kind of political process or practice. Where is the problem?

Try “pomo” instead. The zeroes are a mocking tone.

I like to be productive with my time.
— tilda-psychist

You are not forced to be here. — Banno

oh.

I understand the referent of "Joanna Lumley" - that individual. Can you point to the individual that is the referent of "Democracy"?

Does that mean the PoMo movement has resulted in driving the political Left and Right farther apart? I hadn't thought of the cynical "fake news" notion as a reaction to Postmodern pushing from the Left. :chin: — Gnomon

In a sense. This is my historical perspective, others may think pomo played a lesser role, but it seems to me that more positive pomo criticisms and scepticisms of systems of knowledge such as feminism laid the groundwork for a 'truth egalitarianism'.

The invalid idea synonymous with postmodernism that science is untrustworthy comes from perfectly valid points made by people like Popper, Kuhn and Latour that science is not some kind of deterministic, culture-independent accumulation of facts and formulation of fact-driven theories that can be proven. There is an anchoring to popular ideas (i.e. a politics) that eventually cannot be sustained, leading to paradigm shifts. This is certainly true. It is generally necessary to embed new work within well-accepted frameworks. Funding plays a big role too, which is also political to an extent.

TL;DR version, the occurrence of paradigm shifts suggests that, at any given time, there exist other possible and very different scientific explanations for phenomena that aren't considered... yet!

The incorrect reading of this is that one theory has no more value than another. Creationism becomes the equal of cosmology, intelligent design the equal of natural selection, unknown non-human factors the equal of manmade climate change. This is not rigorous thinking but relies on non-scientific ideas: selective evidence, unjustified assumptions, suspension of the falsification criterion.

A good example is the advent of social psychology. The idea of social psychology is sound, but the mode of social psychology is to set up a false dichotomy between nature and nurture. Any evidence of natural factors (evolution) in human behaviour is instantly seized on and reinterpreted through a nurture-only lens, without evidence, logic, or any solid theoretical framework of its own. Evolutionary psychology does not assume a nature-only stance, but social psychology's raison d'etre is to undermine any possible natural factor to forward its political exploitation of postmodern scepticism: that truth is a social construct. Social psychology, dangerously, is accepted as science while being utterly anti- and unscientific, to the extent that, a few years ago, a social psychologist won an award from the Royal Society for a book which included the belief that "gonads are a social construct".

It is not postmodernism's fault particularly. It put forward valid methodologies to identify errors in systems of knowledge. To my knowledge, no one has a rebuttal. The egalitarian hypothesis came separately, from people within pomo (like Feyerabend, and Latour himself) and without, particularly the church, feminism, and capitalism. (The original investors in climate change research were Shell and Exxon. Huge investors in criticism of the science of that research were later Shell and Exxon.) The parity of systems of knowledge does not derive from scepticism or deconstruction: it derives from deliberate political decisions to push certain metanarratives while pretending to be merely rigorous about others.

This is my first post on the Philosophy Forum. I apologize if I get off to a choppy start.
Maybe I can offer some defense of postmodern philosophy, even if I don't necessarily consider myself pomo. I sometimes get lumped into that category because I write weirdly.

Postmodern writers avoid the traditional use of definitions. Definitions imply the world should be divided nicely into parcels that clearly differentiate one parcel from the other. A postmodern writer believes nature does not define herself, so any attempt to nail down a black and white concept can only represent an impulse to authority — a desire to exert power over the dialogue. A postmodern writer would not be out of line in saying, "this is how I choose to use this word when I make a speech act," but would avoid a claim that the word in use represents some "accessible meaning from all points of view" such as an Archimedean point. Postmoderns eschew a concept like "objective reality," whatever that may come to represent.

I think it is unfair to say that postmodernism resulted in a new Grand Narrative, but rather comprises a whole slew of critiques of the modern narrative.

If I were to level a critique of postmodernism, it is not that postmodern discussions replace the modern narrative with a new narrative, but that postmoderns fail to assert anything. All they accomplish is unsaying what has come before.

Unfortunately, the correct (from a modern discussion) move from postmodernism is not to ignore the critiques and simply resort back to modern ways. Instead, we find ourselves needing to build what comes next, a post-postmodern dialogue where new claims get asserted without resorting to a new Grand Narrative. The Philosophy Forum is far from getting there, yet.

I think it is unfair to say that postmodernism resulted in a new Grand Narrative, but rather comprises a whole slew of critiques of the modern narrative. — Adam's Off Ox

Well, it did, but not because of pomo. "Everything is a social construct" is a grand narrative that grew out of pomo, but it wasn't pomo. Pomo would dictate that such a system of knowledge ought to be treated with scepticism and deconstructed like any other language-based. Unfortunately pomo is associated with the former more than the latter.

Welcome to the forum! Good first post imo!

The funny thing is religionists are very often the ones who ones who reject post-modernism. — tilda-psychist

Indeed. Particularly the Fundy extremist.

The funny thing is religionists are very often the ones who ones who reject post-modernism.
— tilda-psychist

Indeed. Particularly the Fundy extremist. — 3017amen

Do you know what post modernism is? It deals with saying all or most things are subjective truth and that there is no objective truth.

Sure. That's a Kierkegaardian view. And your point ?

Are you saying objective truth doesn't exist?

You don't have to be a fundy extremist to accept that objective truth exists.

Are you saying objective truth doesn't exist? — tilda-psychist

Absolutely not. There exists both subjective and objective truth. We can't escape it. In principle, if we had a material world with no subjective observers, then one could argue that objectivity is the only thing that exists. But then that would present a paradox. Similarly, you could be like the Idealist and argue that only the mind exists, and therefore all is subjective.

In my opinion, the important takeaway from post-modernism is the value of being willing to make those distinctions between subjectivity and objectivity, both metaphysically and ontologically. Subjective truth's and objective truth's are also interesting in that they span the concepts found in logic and epistemology as well.

You don't have to be a fundy extremist to accept that objective truth exists. — tilda-psychist

Agreed! I was just supporting your view about the irony.

Postmodernism is good for showing what not to do. ;)
Might have some utility in literary commentary I s'pose.

Let's not lump together Wittgenstein and Power-mad Paul-Michel Foucault.

Long ago, they made students at the college I attended read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Thus they perpetuated the annoying use of "paradigm" and "paradigm-shift" as buzz words. They also made us read Plato's Republic. Damn them!

Kuhn seemed intent on proclaiming that science is subject to all sorts of un-scientific things, and great scientific discoveries or profound changes in science weren't really the result of (you guessed it) the acclaimed scientific method. I think. It's been awhile.

Anyhow, I view it and postmodernism (to the extent I know anything about it) as a kind of reaction to the worst excesses of the Enlightenment and the faith in the scientific method and reason as methods by which we may obtain a better world. Because it flourished in the Academy, where all is seemingly incubated, the postmodern point of view came to be applied helter-skelter, and I think got out of hand to the point that the use of reason and science was discouraged, even thought declasse in a sense; not done by those in the know.

Consider the relationships between Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction, Postmodernism (1966-present.)

What I enjoy reading about is the distinctions between the logic of language and the meaning of words. I think it was Derrida who wanted to deconstruct meaning by making a point about the meanings of words used in a sentence; he called it free play ( see below example). Similarly, I think Nietzsche argued that the very basics of knowledge and language is [not necessarily] not a reliable system of communication. Here are some examples about ambiguity in the deconstruction of a sentence:

Time (noun) flies (verb) like an arrow (adverb clause) = Time passes quickly.

Time (verb) flies (object) like an arrow (adverb clause) = Get out your stopwatch and time the speed of flies as you would time an arrow's flight.

Time flies (noun) like (verb) an arrow (object) = Time flies are fond of arrows (or at least of one particular arrow).

Probably not the best example, but the point is that rational forms of truth are limited to things like the logic of words and language. But truth and fact well up into our lives exceeding such verbal formulation. And Phenomenology, is one example of that (contemporary philosophy).

If truth is irrelevant, and power is what is to decide, then it is the powerful who make the decisions. And they will do so in their own favour. Hence, the outcome of a PoMo approach is not radical change, but arch conservatism. — Banno

Yes. That's what I meant by the observation that PoMo may have driven the Left and Right farther apart than usual. Trump seems to be the very self-interested anti-liberal capitalist power that the PMers were warning about. Ironically, his ambiguous use of language and lack of concern for Truth, may be embarrassing for traditional Conservatives. Perhaps arch-liberals and arch-conservatives have some sophistry tactics in common, merely serving different interest groups.

Are you saying objective truth doesn't exist?
— tilda-psychist

Absolutely not. There exists both subjective and objective truth. We can't escape it. In principle, if we had a material world with no subjective observers, then one could argue that objectivity is the only thing that exists. But then that would present a paradox. Similarly, you could be like the Idealist and argue that only the mind exists, and therefore all is subjective.

In my opinion, the important takeaway from post-modernism is the value of being willing to make those distinctions between subjectivity and objectivity, both metaphysically and ontologically. Subjective truth's and objective truth's are also interesting in that they span the concepts found in logic and epistemology as well. — 3017amen

I agree.

Consider the relationships between Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction, Postmodernism (1966-present.)

What I enjoy reading about is the distinctions between the logic of language and the meaning of words. I think it was Derrida who wanted to deconstruct meaning by making a point about the meanings of words used in a sentence; he called it free play ( see below example). Similarly, I think Nietzsche argued that the very basics of knowledge and language is [not necessarily] not a reliable system of communication. Here are some examples about ambiguity in the deconstruction of a sentence:

Time (noun) flies (verb) like an arrow (adverb clause) = Time passes quickly.

Time (verb) flies (object) like an arrow (adverb clause) = Get out your stopwatch and time the speed of flies as you would time an arrow's flight.

Time flies (noun) like (verb) an arrow (object) = Time flies are fond of arrows (or at least of one particular arrow).

Probably not the best example, but the point is that rational forms of truth are limited to things like the logic of words and language. But truth and fact well up into our lives exceeding such verbal formulation. And Phenomenology, is one example of that (contemporary philosophy). — 3017amen

added to my journal. Don't have time to go through it right now.

"Good God, y'all!"

Are you saying objective truth doesn't exist? — tilda-psychist

Can you explain how we arrive at "objective truth", whatever that is?