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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3261 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 9, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I would say Postmodernism is a revolt against enlightenment rationality, not a continuation of it

The postmodernists themselves would say exactly the opposite!

A lot of people will look at Nietzsche for example and say that he was just a romantic poet railing against rationality because he thought it was like, stupid or something. But those people haven't actually read his work; his arguments are far more subtle than that.

Essentially the argument is not that we should reject (an overriding commitment to) rationality as something external to us, but rather that rationality "overcomes itself"; it undermines itself from the inside. In order for the irrationalists to be "wrong" in some objective sense - in order for rationalism and irrationalism to not just be two arbitrary sides of the same coin - then there has to be a sense in which we just "should" believe what is true. We should believe the truth because it's true, and if you knowingly choose to believe something false instead, then you're doing something wrong. In other words, there have to be normative facts about what we should believe - there have to be objective facts about what you should or shouldn't do in a given situation.

But, Nietzsche contends, rationality itself has shown that there are no normative facts! Such facts don't fit in with a scientific, materialist worldview. There is no God to tell us what we should or shouldn't do; God is dead. Just like there are no objective facts about what you should or shouldn't do from a moral perspective, there are also no objective facts about what you should or shouldn't believe either. So a commitment to being rational ends up leading you to the conclusion that there is no reason to commit to being rational, beyond your own arbitrary choice. You can just decide to keep being rational anyway; but then, it's hard to explain how your choice is any better than the postmodernist's commitment to ignoring rationality and simply believing whatever he wants. Obviously, true beliefs are very useful in most situations, but false beliefs can also be useful.

This is a theme that gets repeated throughout the "postmodernist" tradition. Derrida is careful to constantly stress that he's not attacking classical philosophy from the outside; rather his project is to show that a scrupulous commitment to classical norms will ultimately lead to those norms undermining themselves. Whether he succeeds or not is another question. But the concern is there, at any rate.

So, the postmodernists don't think they're rebelling against rationality. They think they're taking rationality to its logical conclusion.

I told you I'm not interested in whether they consider the enlightenment their daddy or not. My problem is the garden-variety claims their otherwise tolerable adherents make in my sub.

Just like there are no objective facts about what you should or shouldn't do from a moral perspective, there are also no objective facts about what you should or shouldn't believe either.

You know, I can't take this, I'm going to adopt a tells-it-like-it-is prole persona, and challenge those highfalutin folks to believe poison is actually coke, and then drink it. I'll show them the usefulness of reality.

Derrida is careful to constantly stress that he's not attacking classical philosophy from the outside; rather his project is to show that a scrupulous commitment to classical norms will ultimately lead to those norms undermining themselves. Whether he succeeds or not is another question.

Sounds like he wasted his life searching for nonsense nobody asked for, and even failed at that.

There’s never been an iron-clad argument against skepticism. Even in ancient Greece you would get people who would sit there and say “nope, nothing’s real, I don’t believe anything, it’s all BS”.

All you can ever do is engage with the arguments someone presents as best you can, or, if you think they’re talking total nonsense, just stop talking to them.

If this was a 'how many dancing angels on a pin' question, I would leave them to their games. But it's burning their epistemology! They think empirical questions are a matter of choice! They are completely incapable of updating on some of the most important questions. Each of them is trapped in their own cell (the woke cell, the anti-jew cell, the anti-elite cell, etc) and despairing. They will only come out to fight each other.

They think empirical questions are a matter of choice!

No. I, at least, think you are calling questions empirical when they are not.

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