At least with shows like arrested development, it's always sunny and seinfeld, the void is recognizable as a form of experience. With the 'sincere' ones you mentioned, the soft irony and self-referentiality, are techniques used to draw the viewer towards a false sincerity which, in the end, just covers up the emptiness of our lives in world conditioned by total connectivity and total isolation. — Aubrey Grant from YouTube comments

Watched the video (mistook you to be describing a video of DFW talking about simpsons, seinfeld, office etc.) & yeah definitely very close to what I was talking about (& the youtube comment you posted is right : re-pasting the old sitcom/ morality-tale narrative beats over ironic deconstruction of tropes is probably a little too quick and easy.) — csalisbury

Yes, I agree with that youtube comment as well and as you say is "a little too quick and easy". At the end of the day, the show is not the person watching the show. The show resolves, but YOU have not and thus I also agree that there is a sort of empathy in the Seinfeld no sentimentality versions, because it is as the commenter said (my emphasis bolded) "

At least with shows like arrested development, it's always sunny and seinfeld, the void is recognizable as a form of experience. With the 'sincere' ones you mentioned, the soft irony and self-referentiality, are techniques used to draw the viewer towards a false sincerity which, in the end, just covers up the emptiness of our lives in world conditioned by total connectivity and total isolation. — Aubrey Grant from YouTube comments

But -- I take your point, which I think is essentially drawing attention to an archetypal progression:
1)Whole->(2)Rupture

(or: [eden->exile])

From (2) Rupture there are a lot of options. For example:

(A)Return
(B)Reconstruct
(C)Toil & Curse
(D)Seek Vengeance
(E)Go Forward
(F) Toil & Joke
etc etc — csalisbury

This could be a useful/productive heuristic and analysis of the post-modern idea (i.e. Whole -> Rupture/ Eden -> Exile). However, what are you applying the terms Whole/Eden and Rupture/Exile to? Is it grand narrative/ previous "given" truth ---> to individual perspectives and then one's reaction to the grand narrative once one's grand narrative is deconstructed and neutered of its grandiosity (e.g. Ahab's life previous to the encounter with the whale..Ahab seeing his previous picture of life disrupted by the tragic loss of his leg..Ahab no longer caring about anything but revenge on the whale)?

I would say that there are many 'authentic' ways to move in the 1-2-X progression and think it just plum isn't true that 1-2-C is the only one (any of these can be either 'authentic' or 'inauthentic' including C.) — csalisbury

How does this apply to antinatalism? 1) Life is good 2) One sees that life is suffering 3) One seeks to prevent that which is suffering (what you possibly mischaracterize as C)?

Rather, I see the post-modernist as saying something like this:
1) schopenhauer1, you have this false "truth-narrative" that suffering "matters" in some way beyond one's own pain and suffering.. In other words, it is used as a basis for action.

2) schopenhauer1, this needs to be deconstructed as simply your narrative. Other people don't care about suffering like your narrative. They have other narratives that are to them more important. The only linking narrative is that everyone has a narrative.

3)schopenhauer1, therefore what are you going to do about this deconstruction of narrative? Are you going to go back to the notion that suffering is still of upmost importance as a guiding principle for action?

Irrespective of what it's for, if it adds no understanding to moral behaviour, i.e. if morality is equally explicable without it, objective morality is at best redundant. — Kenosha Kid

It’s redundant to a descriptive explanation, sure. The point is there are things to do other than describe. To insist only on describing is just to ignore other kinds of questions entirely; case in point, prescriptive ones.

You seem to be talking entirely about why people do what they do and judge how they judge what each other do. I’m taking about why people should do this or that, and equivalently how we should judge what they do. Different questions entirely, and answering only the first sheds no light at all on the second.

What makes statement 2 objective, in that it states anything other than the personally held value of the speaker? Does statement 2 become objective because it has the word 'all' in it, or is there something else going on here? — Adam's Off Ox

It it a claim of objectivity because it says that a certain judgement is the correct one, one that should be held by everyone. It may or may not be a correct claim.

It’s perfectly analogous to the difference between “I see a lake” and “everyone ought to agree that there is a lake there” (which is a weird way of saying “there is really a lake there”). The latter is a claim of objectivity just because it’s not couched in any particular perspective. It may or may not be correct, depending on whether it really does pan out in every perspective or not.

For example, are both statements, "Killing humans is always wrong," and, "Killing is permissible by some class of humans," morally objective but incompatible? — Adam's Off Ox

They are both claims of objectivity, because they are not couched in any particular perspective, but because they are incompatible at least one of them has to be an incorrect claim.

their manner of expression may be more holistic than analytic. Which would make it less understandable by left-brain macho males. Hence, the anti-PM animosity expressed in sharp words by the male posters on this thread. :cool: — Gnomon

I get that. I think though, the important point to be made viz PM is that, not only did the domains of physics and psychology abandon LP as being the exclusive means to a given truth, that philosophy itself explored all they could explore with the rational left-brain, as it were. And so, another frontier was left to discover/uncover, which as you rightfully suggested, a more wholistic approach to both philosophy, logic (inductive reasoning/synthetic a priori knowledge, etc.), and psychology was embraced. It's not one over the other, as needed, both are good.

Then the other component intrinsic to the human condition, would then make full use out of those two-halves, so why not use them (aka: emotional intelligence)? At the risk of redundancy, I think Aristotle said the greatest gift we can give to ourselves is to 'know thyself'.

It’s perfectly analogous to the difference between “I see a lake” and “everyone ought to agree that there is a lake there” (which is a weird way of saying “there is really a lake there”). The latter is a claim of objectivity just because it’s not couched in any particular perspective. It may or may not be correct, depending on whether it really does pan out in every perspective or not. — Pfhorrest

So is the claim, "Everyone ought to agree that there is a lake there," also an objective moral claim, since it includes an ought (and you have already established you believe it is an objective claim).

I'm wondering how you propose we verify the correctness of an objective moral claim. I have some sense of how to cash out a descriptive claim (though I may even deny that treating a description as an "objective truth" is problematic). I don't have the same understanding of what makes an ought statement true. If a claim with ought is treated as an imperative, it doesn't seem to lend itself to being true. Saying, "Stop!" or, "Disavow killing for sport!" doesn't seem like the type of language move that gets dubbed 'true' or 'false.'

This is basically the post-truth movement in a nutshell, a systematic lapse in any kind of logic that itself privileges one binary value over another. Postmodernism is (1) by itself. Post-truth adds (2). — Kenosha Kid

Alan Sokal famously exposed postmodernism as deeply flawed in 1996 by successfully publishing nonsense in a postmodern journal.[10] Since then, postmodernism has largely been considered a laughingstock among all but the most liberal academics. — Wheatley

I think there's a very valuable skill to learn from reading people who focus on the analysis of discourse and how it intersects with politics. Especially when the truth is ambiguous, opinion will be shaped along lines of expressive power.

If you were a Marxist (or left historicist philosopher) in the 60's and 70's you were living in the wake of a failed international project of overthrowing capitalism. A project that believed intimately in the feedback of theory and practice. They liked that intersection very much, "the most advanced Marxist science" (a trope in MLM) was a guarantor that "the revolutionary class" was adapted to the local conditions of the dialectic of capitalism and thus told you what to do to overcome it.

It all failed. Catastrophically or with outstanding banality depending on where you live. Bang or whimper.

One category Marxists really liked was false consciousness; widely held thought patterns and systems of thought that justified the subjugation of the working class. If you have "the most advanced Marxist science", you purport to know the truth that these thought patterns deviate from or work to conceal.

To contextualise it philosophically, there's a quote from Sartre (in his Maoist phase) directed at Foucault; "Foucault is the last barricade the bourgeoise can erect against Marx". That poststructuralist stuff was not popular with the Marxist left. Intellectuals were very happy to call other intellectuals servitors and spokespeople of false consciousness. Debord even viewed intellectuals with a public voice as class traitors; they were consumer subjects living a life of intellectual freedom so that people could see 'em on TV and feel expressed - engendering passive contemplation rather than actually doing anything worthwhile with their critical impulses.

I think the failure of the internationals and the Soviet project hit the collective consciousness of left theory pretty hard - it especially traumatised the transfer of theoretical truth to effective practice. The truth had failed, maybe what was thought was not the truth to begin with? What went wrong? The common assumption that there was a privileged (by truth) model of historical-political development died along with its widespread Marxist examples. The truth of history you say? If true theory and revolutionary political practice were so connected, how could the truth on history's side fail?

Maybe the truth of models of historical development doesn't suffice to explain how they function in society. The truth of any model doesn't describe its societal role. That hits hard; the truth is relatively impotent. The truth about any truth: it underdetermines its own interpretation a lot.

So is the claim, "Everyone ought to agree that there is a lake there," also an objective moral claim, since it includes an ought (and you have already established you believe it is an objective claim). — Adam's Off Ox

No, that’s just me being fast and loose with trying to translate an ordinary “there is a lake there” sentence into the weird way you phrased the analogous moral claim.

I'm wondering how you propose we verify the correctness of an objective moral claim. — Adam's Off Ox

By appeal to experiences with imperative import, i.e. hedonic experiences, things that feel bad or feel good. Just like we appeal to empirical experiences to verify descriptive claims. But not just our own experiences at the present moment; that wouldn’t be objective. Objectivity is absence of bias, so it must be based on all experiences of everyone everywhere any time. We can never fully account for all of that, in either descriptive or prescriptive matters, but that gives us the direction to move toward more objectivity.

We can never fully account for all of that, in either descriptive or prescriptive matters, but that gives us the direction to move toward more objectivity. — Pfhorrest

So do you take objectivity to be a scale as opposed to binary — in that a claim can be more or less objective than another claim? Does it become more objective when more people share the experience? Are moral claims more-objective democratically? Then does that same democratic approach have any relationship to the true-ness of an objective moral claim?

I apologize if it seems like I am grilling you. I really do have an interest in establishing what would make an objective moral claim, or what would make a moral claim true. It's just that as I ran up against these same questions for myself, I did not arrive at a satisfying answer.

The reason I appeal to non-objective senses for sentences has come from hard lost battles with skepticism. Over time I have come to relate to a kind of skepticism which leans toward moral nihilism, not out of desire, but rather lack of certainty.

If you were a Marxist (or left historicist philosopher) in the 60's and 70's you were living in the wake of a failed international project of overthrowing capitalism. A project that believed intimately in the feedback of theory and practice. They liked that intersection very much, "the most advanced Marxist science" (a trope in MLM) was a guarantor that "the revolutionary class" was adapted to the local conditions of the dialectic of capitalism.

It all failed. Catastrophically or with outstanding banality depending on where you live. Bang or whimper. — fdrake

I'm not so sure. The Russian Empire was already at the start of recession when the Revolution began; indeed, poverty was part of the momentum. It got a lot worse after, then swiftly recovered. Looking back, the Soviet economy continued more or less as the Russian Empire's would have done without that economic crises; i.e. just like most other economic crises, it didn't have a long-term effect. The fall of the Soviet Union did have a negative impact, lengthened with some well-deserved sanctions. On the whole, Russia has fared less well as a capitalist democracy than it did as a theocracy or communist hellhole. I suspect the poor stayed poor throughout.

To contextualise it philosophically, there's a quote from Sartre (in his Maoist phase) directed at Foucault; "Foucault is the last barricade the bourgeoise can erect against Marx". That poststructuralist stuff was not popular with the Marxist left. — fdrake

Yes, perhaps not surprising. Marx's scientific economic theory was a key component of modernism, not just in politics, economics and philosophy but in art, design, manufacturing and technology. While the West were winning the war against Communism, modern art museums would only accept mass-produced, cheap-as-chips, disposable machine-made ceramics, for instance, still humping the Marxist dream. Sartre discovered that there's no "should" in human existence, then somehow discovered this means we "should" all be communists.

Foucault was already a big deal when he abandoned Marxism, describing it as a 19th obsolescence in The Order of Things, and rejecting humanism as a mistaken belief that man is sovereign over himself in the light of how much power epistemes have over man's beliefs. [Archaic gender-biased pronouns not my own.] For Sartre, who had done the most unexistential thing in subscribing wholesale to an external ideology, this was blasphemy.

Ideology does not suffer relativism, pluralism, or criticism at all.

On the whole, Russia has fared less well as a capitalist democracy than it did as a theocracy or communist hellhole. I suspect the poor stayed poor throughout. — Kenosha Kid

I've heard that. It's been a long time since I've read anything about it; perhaps you can critique what I remembered and sythesised.

(1) The communists really did largely industrialise the country eventually.
(2) Resource distribution was very coupled to status in the political hierarchy and extremely coupled to where one lived. It tended to keep the poorest the poorest, but...
(3) It created a network of industrial specialists that flowed freely (with some symbolic protestation from the state) within the state.
(4) Because the Russian economy was still import and export dependent for basic functioning, the state still had to play global capitalist macro policy. It played the resource extraction/subjugation game with other countries in the bloc.
(5) When the Soviet bloc fell, the Russian economy was already prefigured for capital flow, and this created the authoritarian state + oligarchy we all know and love today.

Bolshevism was ultimately another path from peasantry to capitalism.

I don't want to throw all the blame for the destitution on the communists, the trade sanctions had a huge impact. It's still worth considering a failure of communism for economic reasons as the eventual development was to capitalist oligarchy. It's even more worth considering a failure of communism for humanitarian ones (genocide, police state). Stalin was on the cover of Time magazine a lot and seen as a countercultural hero; I imagine it was like a worldwide version of the Jimmy Saville paedophile scandal for the leftist intellectual elite.

Ideology does not suffer relativism, pluralism, or criticism at all. — Kenosha Kid

At the risk of derailing the thread, I think it does now. To quote the Big Lebowski; That's Just Like Your Opinion Man and That's The Stress Talking. Well researched point? Just like your opinion man. Anger at injustice? That's just the stress talking. If we're going to recognize the failure of unifying narratives as a societal feature; that means we emphasise that we already live in a relativistic chaos of filter bubbles. Politics is mostly a spectacle; political representation in its default form is opinion management, how we socialise and are exposed to information is managed by external interests. There's a revolving door between those interests and positions of political power.

Unifying narratives don't hold much weight in a condition where no one trusts who spouts them. Their positive visions of the future are dead before they're even thought. Everything that remains is critique and political negation of manifest injustice; and you don't need a systematic world vision for that, you just need to grasp how a localised injustice is (re)produced. Pay no attention to the capital flow behind the curtain.

This could be a useful/productive heuristic and analysis of the post-modern idea (i.e. Whole -> Rupture/ Eden -> Exile). However, what are you applying the terms Whole/Eden and Rupture/Exile to? Is it grand narrative/ previous "given" truth ---> to individual perspectives and then one's reaction to the grand narrative once one's grand narrative is deconstructed and neutered of its grandiosity (e.g. Ahab's life previous to the encounter with the whale..Ahab seeing his previous picture of life disrupted by the tragic loss of his leg..Ahab no longer caring about anything but revenge on the whale)? — schopenhauer1

Oh, I was just saying that this:

[

Seinfeld is the ultimate post-modern sitcom. In a way we are living in a post-Seinfeld world. How does one take any social situation seriously really? I find it interesting with any form of satire or social criticism, that even after seeing the humor, when people go back to "living their lives" they don't actually take the lessons with them, and go back to living as if their life is not that super set of absurd circumstances as well, but a "real serious and dignified" narrative. A less obvious version of this are people who romantically think that things like "travel", "mountain climbing", "camping", and "sky diving" or (insert any modern form of trying to signal getting back to nature, going "extreme", or being an "travelling explorer") are truly some edifying thing. — schopenhauer1

]

seemed to be an example of a whole->rupture->[x?] frame, specifically the whole->rupture->return one.

In terms of applying the scheme on a grander scale: I think modernism/postmodernism/post-postmodernism is often discussed according to that scheme, but I think that's more a function of the human-mind imposing a particular narrative structure on history (as it always does) than a reflection of an absolute shift. Simpsons-Seinfeld-Office, for example, is one through-line, but only if you're selecting certain shows, excluding others, in order to make it all fit. I think that through-line is true enough, a real expression of something, but it's one thread among many.

but I think that's more a function of the human-mind imposing a particular narrative structure on history (as it always does) than a reflection of an absolute shift. — csalisbury

:up:

Just so stories are signposts.

Oh, I was just saying that this: — csalisbury

It seemed you were saying more than that :smirk: .

seemed to be an example of a whole->rupture->[x?] frame.

In terms of applying the scheme on a grander scale: I think modernism/postmodernism/post-postmodernism is often discussed according to that scheme, but I think that's more a function of the human-mind imposing a particular narrative structure on history (as it always does) than a reflection of an absolute shift. Simpsons-Seinfeld-Office, for example, is one through-line, but only if you're selecting certain shows, excluding others, in order to make it all fit. I think that through-line is true enough, a real expression of something, but it's one thread among many. — csalisbury

Yes one thread among many is what I'm saying as well (at least how post-modernism characterizes almost everything). My major critique is that post-modernism might be about threads about people's reaction to modernism, but modernism cannot be escaped. By modernism I mean here the very "real" through-line of technology, science, and how it touches all aspects of life (creating the personal narratives that we try to critique, find absurdity in, etc.). You need that superstructure there since pretty much the Enlightenment for the various personal threads and narratives to play out. It is all in reaction to that inescapable reality. You can critique it, accept it, optimism of progress, pessimism of minutia-mongering, the optimism of "authentic" experiences of travel and mountain climbing, and the pessimism of angst of being an autonomous individual in a much wider, often impersonal system. However, you cannot escape the modernism of technology. You can deconstruct narratives all you want, technology, science, and the minutia needed to keep this going is here to stay.

(1) The communists really did largely industrialise the country eventually.
(2) Resource distribution was very coupled to status in the political hierarchy and extremely coupled to where one lived. It tended to keep the poorest the poorest, but...
(3) It created a network of industrial specialists that flowed freely (with some symbolic protestation from the state) within the state.
(4) Because the Russian economy was still import and export dependent for basic functioning, the state still had to play global capitalist macro policy. It played the resource extraction/subjugation game with other countries in the bloc.
(5) When the Soviet bloc fell, the Russian economy was already prefigured for capital flow, and this created the authoritarian state + oligarchy we all know and love today. — fdrake

Nice potted history! It made me smile, and it sounds right to me. With the caveat that Russia was never not an authoritarian state. Different political structure, same authoritarianism.

Bolshevism was ultimately another path from peasantry to capitalism.

I don't want to throw all the blame for the destitution on the communists, the trade sanctions had a huge impact. It's still worth considering a failure of communism for economic reasons as the eventual development was to capitalist oligarchy. It's even more worth considering a failure of communism for humanitarian ones (genocide, police state). — fdrake

Well I suppose the mirror image of what I said is also true: it isn't at all obvious that ceasing to be a communist country has helped. But there probably is little excuse for that. They have not helped themselves.

At the risk of derailing the thread, I think it does now. To quote the Big Lebowski; That's Just Like Your Opinion Man and That's The Stress Talking. If we're going to recognize the failure of unifying narratives as a societal feature; we already live in a relativistic chaos of filter bubbles - political representation in its default form is opinion management, how we socialise and are exposed to information is managed by external interests. Unifying narratives don't hold much weight, positive visions of the future are dead. Everything that remains is critique and political negation of manifest injustice; and you don't need a systematic world vision for that, you just need to grasp how a localised injustice is (re)produced. — fdrake

Now I'm depressed. It depends where you are, I guess. I think some ideologies are now fair game, yes. I think others are trickier. It would be difficult getting your well-thought-out alternatives to democracy heard anywhere, Islamic theocracy heard in many places, capitalism heard in the US. Postmodernism (yay, back on topic!) has been roundly rejected, and fifty percent of the reason seems to me that it criticised everything: rationalism, science, Marxism, architecture, literature. Half of its counter-criticisms are "It undermines us!" We have some sacred cows left in the field. But fuck it, dude. Let's go bowling!

The Big Lebowski... contender for greatest postmodern film ever? It was so postmodern, Pynchon pretty much reused it for Inherent Vice. (Probably not. I can imagine him working on that novel for six years, going to the cinema to see the latest Coens movie, and becoming extremely paranoid :rofl: )

Postmodernism (yay, back on topic!) has been roundly rejected, and fifty percent of the reason seems to me that it criticised everything: rationalism, science, Marxism, architecture, literature. Half of its counter-criticisms are "It undermines us!" We have some sacred cows left in the field. But fuck it, dude. Let's go bowling! — Kenosha Kid

I think what I see here applies as well. I wonder your thoughts as well.

Yes one thread among many is what I'm saying as well (at least how post-modernism characterizes almost everything). My major critique is that post-modernism might be about threads about people's reaction to modernism, but modernism cannot be escaped. By modernism I mean here the very "real" through-line of technology, science, and how it touches all aspects of life (creating the personal narratives that we try to critique, find absurdity in, etc.). You need that superstructure there since pretty much the Enlightenment for the various personal threads and narratives to play out. It is all in reaction to that inescapable reality. You can critique it, accept it, optimism of progress, pessimism of minutia-mongering, the optimism of "authentic" experiences of travel and mountain climbing, and the pessimism of angst of being an autonomous individual in a much wider, often impersonal system. However, you cannot escape the modernism of technology. You can deconstruct narratives all you want, technology, science, and the minutia needed to keep this going is here to stay. — schopenhauer1

However, you cannot escape the modernism of technology. You can deconstruct narratives all you want, technology, science, and the minutia needed to keep this going is here to stay. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I think that's fine. I don't think the original movers and shakers of postmodernism were attempting to undermine the practise of science, which is what conservative scientists accused it of and which pomo's inheritors and exploiters actually did. Lyotard's criticism of scientific knowledge was merely that it must coexist with others. For instance, science cannot account for itself scientifically: it must resort to narrative. So what he's saying here is that, even for science itself, scientific knowledge is insufficient: one must be pluralistic.

That pluralism seems a difficult burden. There was I think it was an IPCC report a few years back containing various perspectives on climate change. One was journalistic, another was social science. Climate change study is fundamentally scientific and, naturally, the social scientists didn't have a great deal of success wrangling ice flow stats into their narrative, leading the usual arrays of right-wing nutjobs to sing their usual songs of hoaxes, inconsistencies, and controversies. Clearly that is a case of non-scientific knowledge being given too much weight in postmodern approaches to what amounts to scientific reporting for governments.

That pluralism seems a difficult burden. There was I think it was an IPCC report a few years back containing various perspectives on climate change. One was journalistic, another was social science. Climate change study is fundamentally scientific and, naturally, the social scientists didn't have a great deal of success wrangling ice flow stats into their narrative, leading the usual arrays of right-wing nutjobs to sing their usual songs of hoaxes, inconsistencies, and controversies. Clearly that is a case of non-scientific knowledge being given too much weight in postmodern approaches to what amounts to scientific reporting for governments. — Kenosha Kid

On a broader tangent, I think a lot of conservative ideas are post-modern actually. Look at the defense of Trump. Many people well say, look "Bill Clinton and Joe Biden did x,y,z.. the system itself is already corrupted" thus Trump's very transparent narcissism and divisiveness is given a pass. Really what they are saying is "If I don't like the other person's policies, then character counts. If I do agree with policies, character doesn't matter". Anyways, it is a form of relativism to say all is corrupt therefore this instance doesn't matter as well and is a dangerous way of thinking for any form of representative democracy.

Anyways, I see what you are saying that what one does with science, especially as it relates to competing forces of economics and political ideology is up for narrative grabs. However, I am talking about technology and science en totale. That is to say.. You enjoy perhaps having air conditioning, electricity, refrigeration, running water, advanced medicine, engineering of all kinds, transportation and the like. That just can't be narrated away. One has to reckon with that core reality. Post-modernism is always in relation to this core, but it never overtakes it. So it can make fun of the realities of having boring jobs to support this way-of-life (of the system that brings about this technology), it can provide absurd takes on things, but it is always apart of the very thing it looks to critique. There is no escaping it.

On a broader tangent, I think a lot of conservative ideas are post-modern actually. Look at the defense of Trump. Many people well say, look "Bill Clinton and Joe Biden did x,y,z.. the system itself is already corrupted" thus Trump's very transparent narcissism and divisiveness is given a pass. — schopenhauer1

Or Bush Jr's "alternative facts" era. Or the Anglican church's "Teach the controversy!" I think the conservative post-truth MO was learned from the aforementioned inheritors and exploiters of pomo on the left, though. "Everything is a social construct" is a metanarrative. "Everything is equally true or not true, it's all just perspective" is a metanarrative. Alternative facts and fake news seem to me more cynical recyclings of that.

However, I am talking about technology and science en totale. That is to say.. You enjoy perhaps having air conditioning, electricity, refrigeration, running water, advanced medicine, engineering of all kinds, transportation and the like. That just can't be narrated away. — schopenhauer1

For sure, narrative truth should not squeeze out scientific truth. My point was that I don't think it was ever intended that such an anti-technological or anti-scientific stance should be taken from pomo theory, although it obviously was. Feyerabend, who was uncoincidentally a very religious man, is the only big hitter I know of who actually tried to undermine the role science plays in society. Latour, another very religious man, was compulsively critical of scientific culture, but his actual criticisms were sound and are taught today in at least one Physics department (my old one).

Finally OP-relevant: I genuinely do think that if people were less reactionary, postmodern criticism could be useful in other ways. When I was still active in research, my department started a graphene group years after other universities had had many successful publications on graphene. By this time, graphene was a thriving area of research but no longer the fave of the condensed matter community, which had turned its eye toward topological insulators. So why get in so late? Because that's where the funding was and that's what everyone else was doing. We weren't likely to add value, but God forbid we study one of the other, lesser-studied subjects! And we're not talking a two-bit former tech college, we're talking a Russell Group university.

This is exactly the sort of bullshit postmodern critics of science were banging on about. We have cultural inertias that actually stop us doing good science. It's a bit like cinema. Remember when Scream came out and then multiplexes were filled with cheap crappy horror films for years until the next thing became a fad? Same goes for science. People study and get funding for whatever most people happen to be studying and getting funding for, while interesting questions go unanswered.

This is the sort of level postmodern criticism was aiming at. It was quite legitimate and, had the Sokals of the world not been such a bunch of crybaby reactionists, would have been really useful to take on board. I do think it's a shame that, to the extent that pomo had value, we killed it off, and, to the extent that it survived, it had hugely negative value.

And so, another frontier was left to discover/uncover, which as you rightfully suggested, a more wholistic approach to both philosophy, logic (inductive reasoning/synthetic a priori knowledge, etc.), and psychology was embraced. It's not one over the other, as needed, both are good. — 3017amen

Yes. That's the point of my BothAnd philosophy. I'm open to more holistic thinking, which is partly why I was looking into the PoMo movement, to see if they knew something I needed to know. But I am mostly a left brain thinker. So, the PM writings that I've seen just make no sense to me. Maybe I need "Queer Eye for the Straight Philosopher". :joke:

BothAnd : Individuals may have strong beliefs & principles. But interpersonal endeavors require more flexibility. So, this blog is an argument for Relativism, Negotiation, Compromise, & Cooperation.
The usual alternative to these wavering wimpy ways is the unyielding dominant stand-point of Absolutism, Conflict, and Competition. Royal and Imperial political & religious systems tend to adopt an autocratic stance of “my way or the highway”. Whereas, In more democratic and egalitarian systems, the marketplace of ideas will determine truths and values.
http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page6.html

Yes one thread among many is what I'm saying as well (at least how post-modernism characterizes almost everything). My major critique is that post-modernism might be about threads about people's reaction to modernism, but modernism cannot be escaped. By modernism I mean here the very "real" through-line of technology, science, and how it touches all aspects of life (creating the personal narratives that we try to critique, find absurdity in, etc.). You need that superstructure there since pretty much the Enlightenment for the various personal threads and narratives to play out. It is all in reaction to that inescapable reality. You can critique it, accept it, optimism of progress, pessimism of minutia-mongering, the optimism of "authentic" experiences of travel and mountain climbing, and the pessimism of angst of being an autonomous individual in a much wider, often impersonal system. However, you cannot escape the modernism of technology. You can deconstruct narratives all you want, technology, science, and the minutia needed to keep this going is here to stay. — schopenhauer1

Was going to respond in more depth to you, never did; the @Kenosha Kid beat me to it. What he said! (I think we're largely in agreement, ourselves, schop; besides antinatalism, anyway)

Just so stories are signposts. — fdrake

For sure. I think you can keep the baby of these stories while throwing out the bathwater : just because they're human impositions doesn't mean they're not worthwhile. I think they function as projections, which are, as you say, signposts. As signposts, they key you in on what one part of you is dimly aware you need to work on personally.

So you get the best of both worlds. You still get to keep everything of value in those stories, only seen (more helpfully now!) for what they were; at the same time you no longer have to project yourself into the world so much, which unclutters your vision, and lets you see it in its grainier actuality (which usually (not always) means: locally)

What he said! (I think we're largely in agreement, ourselves, schop; besides antinatalism, anyway) — csalisbury

Antinatalism?!? :scream:

But I am mostly a left brain thinker. So, the PM writings that I've seen just make no sense to me. Maybe I need "Queer Eye for the Straight Philosopher". :joke: — Gnomon

Royal and Imperial political & religious systems tend to adopt an autocratic stance of “my way or the highway”. Whereas, In more democratic and egalitarian systems, the marketplace of ideas will determine truths and values. — Gnomon

I suppose the irony would be that the left brain my-way-or-the-highway persona would be considered deficient and/ or not normal in their way of thinking :chin:

Schops never been too rah-rah about parturition, though to be fair I don’t know if that still holds. In any case, I’ve solved the problem. After decades training with the world’s foremost doulas, midwives and practitioners of Transcendental Meditation I’ve come up with a method (patent pending) of progeneration that actually decreases suffering and I’m almost ready to license it to expectant mothers for a modest fee.

I suppose the irony would be that the left brain my-way-or-the-highway persona would be considered deficient and/ or not normal in their way of thinking — 3017amen

Ha! I suspect that some wives consider their clueless left-brain husbands to be mentally deficient when they give the wife a box of tampons for her birthday. That's a joke I recently heard. :joke:

Ha! That's a whole nother confounding correlation of causal associations!! LOL

So do you take objectivity to be a scale as opposed to binary — in that a claim can be more or less objective than another claim? — Adam's Off Ox

Not quite. Objectivity, as in making an objective claim, a claim that something is objectively correct, is binary. Either you are saying that this opinion is the right one, for everyone, or else you're just saying that it's the one you happen to have. (I call this distinction between these different kinds of speech-acts "impression" vs "expression", and while I do think that impressions are kind of imperative-like in that they are trying to get others to think some way, and expressions are kind of indicative-like in that they are just showing what you think, both impressions and expressions can have descriptive content or prescriptive content, which are respectively also indicative-like and imperative-like in different ways).

Objective reality/morality is the limit of a series of increasingly improved subjective opinions on what is real/moral. There being such a thing as "improvement" in subjective opinion is the only practical consequence of there being such a thing as objectively correct, since as it is a limit it can never actually be reached. There being something objective in principle just means that differing subjective opinions are commensurable: one can be less wrong than another, rather than all being equally (or at least incomparably) wrong.

Does it become more objective when more people share the experience? Are moral claims more-objective democratically? Then does that same democratic approach have any relationship to the true-ness of an objective moral claim? — Adam's Off Ox

If by democratic you mean majoritarian, then I don't think there's anything democratic about it.

When we do physical sciences, we don't take a poll on what people believe, or even what they perceive, and then say that whatever wins that poll is the thing that's objectively real, or that things with higher poll numbers are "more objective". But we do take into account everything that is observable by everybody in every context, repeating other people's observations by standing in the same context as them, and as necessary accounting for any differences between us until we can confirm. Then we come up with whatever model we have to come up with that accounts for all of those observations, even if that model isn't what anyone perceived or believed to begin with.

I say to approach ethics in exactly that same manner. It doesn't matter what anyone intends or desires, but it matters what everyone feels in a more raw way -- their experiences of pain, hunger, etc, before they're interpreted those into particular desires or intentions. We need to take account of all such experiences (which I term "appetites") had by everybody in every context, standing in the same context as them to confirm that that is actually what someone experiences in such a context, as necessary accounting for any differences between us until we can confirm. Then we come up with whatever model we have to come up with (a model of how the world should be, rather than how it is: a blueprint, not a still life) that accounts for all of those experiences, even if that model isn't what anybody desired or intended.

The limit of the series of models come up with by the physical sciences done in such a way, as we take into account more and more empirical experiences (observations) by more different kinds of observers in more different contexts, just is what objective reality is. Likewise, the limit of the series of models come up with by comparable "ethical sciences" done in that analogous way, as we take into account more and more hedonic experiences by more different kinds of people in more different contexts, just is what objective morality is.

I apologize if it seems like I am grilling you. I really do have an interest in establishing what would make an objective moral claim, or what would make a moral claim true. It's just that as I ran up against these same questions for myself, I did not arrive at a satisfying answer.

The reason I appeal to non-objective senses for sentences has come from hard lost battles with skepticism. Over time I have come to relate to a kind of skepticism which leans toward moral nihilism, not out of desire, but rather lack of certainty. — Adam's Off Ox

I didn't feel like you were grilling me, but I do appreciate you saying this anyway. It makes me feel more like I'm helping someone figure out something they've tried and failed to figure out, and less like I'm arguing with someone trying to convince them of something they don't want to believe.

You may be interested in another thread where we're mostly discussing the same topic, and more generally the principles that underlie my view on that topic and all others:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8626/the-principles-of-commensurablism

Schops never been too rah-rah about parturition, though to be fair I don’t know if that still holds. — csalisbury

Oh, I still hold the position.

Antinatalism?!? :scream: — Kenosha Kid

And why the scream?

I’ve solved the problem. After decades training with the world’s foremost doulas, midwives and practitioners of Transcendental Meditation I’ve come up with a method (patent pending) of progeneration that actually decreases suffering and I’m almost ready to license it to expectant mothers for a modest fee. — csalisbury

Ha, please give us the secret! To be fair, there is no reason not to be antinatalist, I don't know if you still hold that non-antinatalist position. Looks like you do. We've never discussed AN from the position of how it is just force converting people (by birthing them) into the ideology (of any given society). Not sure if that's post-modern, but it is certainly understanding that there is an agenda going on, new people are tools to carry out this agenda, and considerations of suffering are indifferently left in the ditch as just an unjustified but necessary byproduct of this agenda. See my recent post here:

Ironic as the child cannot by mere fact of its non-existence be asked consent, but it is assumed that it is ok to have it. Tsk.Tsk. As an ardent antinatalist, of course I think almost anything in this universe and its variations of actual and possible sufferings is not worth starting a life on someone else's behalf.

It's interesting that we use the non-identity argument for doing anything to someone else. Since that person is not here now it must be okay to do something which will affect someone (almost inevitabley negatively) in some future state, one which they indeed will exist. Of course the tune changes if we think of something, like on immediate birth into the world, the child will 99% likely to befall something terrible.. Now, be a bit more creative and extend that to a lifetime of known and unknown sufferings... Subtract romantic notions of how the "goods of life are just so worth it", "technology justifies life", "parent's pain of not getting to decide if someone else's life should be started", and "civilization needs to continue just because!" and other drivel.. and you see the argument clearly.

Oh and add in that we are so attached to the procedures and processes of a way of life, people simply want to "force convert" or force "missionize" people into the ideology of any given society's habits, norms, and institutions by way of birthing them, literally into it. — schopenhauer1

Instantly made me listen to it lol.

Objective reality/morality is the limit of a series of increasingly improved subjective opinions on what is real/moral. There being such a thing as "improvement" in subjective opinion is the only practical consequence of there being such a thing as objectively correct, since as it is a limit it can never actually be reached. There being something objective in principle just means that differing subjective opinions are commensurable: one can be less wrong than another, rather than all being equally (or at least incomparably) wrong. — Pfhorrest

It is interesting you bring up the idea of limit. I'm not sure if you mean this as a metaphor, or as a literal model of what you are trying to convey. From what you say, I gather that objectivity is binary. I also gather that an objective claim can either be correct or incorrect. While no idea can be more correct than correct, I gather you are saying some ideas can be more incorrect than others.

I appreciate that you put your model in terms of limits. That is a language I can follow. In analysis, limit is understood with a very formal definition. The concept gets described in terms of number, with deltas and epsilons. There is a very precise and formal way to test for a limit.

Would you be willing to share a formal definition of limit as you apply it to objective morality? I'm trying to gauge if you are trying to convey something you intuitively understand, or if your idea can withstand the scrutiny of logical analysis.

The limit of the series of models come up with by the physical sciences done in such a way, as we take into account more and more empirical experiences (observations) by more different kinds of observers in more different contexts, just is what objective reality is. Likewise, the limit of the series of models come up with by comparable "ethical sciences" done in that analogous way, as we take into account more and more hedonic experiences by more different kinds of people in more different contexts, just is what objective morality is. — Pfhorrest

This is an interesting description of what we do with science. I would have described the method differently. Could I ask you, do you have hands on experience with science? Have you done lab work in a university setting or been paid for scientific research? I ask because my experience has been different.

As always, my position is: if it's broke, and you can't fix it, then fantasies of fixing it are....fantasies. I no longer believe suffering is meaningless, but even if I did, I'd say the same. I like what you've said about the irrecusable (apologies to Ray Brassier), ineluctable, sheer fact-of-the-matter of technology(modernism/capitalism/etc) - yes! You're plunked down somewhere, and the way back is barred, like a pile of pixelated concrete in a survival horror game; you have to go forward. I don't think arguing that no one else ought be plunked here is the best course of action, because no one considering having kids is listening. Any pretense of 'this-is-actually-about-actually-reducing-suffering' vanishes quickly; if what we're talking about a pipe dream, then we're not meaningfully talking about reducing suffering anymore; we're very much in something else.

But we've talked about this before. And our conversation on this thread is much more interesting than the antinatalism thing.