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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 9, 2018 14:31:42 GMT -5
The first generation of postmodernists (Rorty and Derrida for example) said that there is no truth, only different "narratives."
The second generation of postmodernists said since no narrative is better than any other, we should give equal time to all narratives.
Now comes the third generation.
Well, that's one possible explanation why students are refusing to let anyone they disagree with even speak and present their views. Could that be why comedians are avoiding performing at colleges?
Bob
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2018 18:33:39 GMT -5
The problem with post-modernism is that it keeps you living life as you think it is, rather than how it is.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 9, 2018 21:06:02 GMT -5
The problem with post-modernism is that it keeps you living life as you think it is, rather than how it is. Good summation. Well put Lily. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2018 22:32:31 GMT -5
The problem with post-modernism is that it keeps you living life as you think it is, rather than how it is. Good summation. Well put Lily. Bob I think I must have channeled some smarter person. Lol |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2018 18:31:05 GMT -5
If everyone who disagrees is already delusional, why bother to learn anything from them? You already know the correct truth, you already believe correct beliefs. They, on the other hand, think incorrectly and believe incorrect beliefs. There is nothing to be gained from acquiring wrong statements of wrong belief.
That position is the exact opposite of scepticism. It's intellectual complacency.
A post modern viewpoint actually forces me to engage with different points of view on a subject on equal terms, rather than being able to dismiss them as irrational lunacy by default simply because my beliefs are the correct ones (or so I believe).
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 11, 2018 22:10:15 GMT -5
If everyone who disagrees is already delusional, why bother to learn anything from them? You already know the correct truth, you already believe correct beliefs. They, on the other hand, think incorrectly and believe incorrect beliefs. There is nothing to be gained from acquiring wrong statements of wrong belief. That position is the exact opposite of scepticism. It's intellectual complacency. A post modern viewpoint actually forces me to engage with different points of view on a subject on equal terms, rather than being able to dismiss them as irrational lunacy by default simply because my beliefs are the correct ones (or so I believe). But I did examine postmodernist views before before I reached my conclusion. Don't you find it even a little difficult to believe there is any validity to postmodernist claims that there is not truth, only narratives? If there is no truth, then their statement is self-referentially inconsistent, isn't it? Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2018 13:32:20 GMT -5
First of all, the term "postmodernism" itself is vage, overgeneralizing and inconsistent in its application. Sometimes it is being used to describe a specific set of French Marxist philosophers, sometimes it is being used to describe all Continental philosophy, sometimes all post 1960s leftist philosophy, and sometimes even people who were never associated with any of these movements, like Kuhn or Feyerabend. So unless you can specify who said what and where, a discussion of the actual positions of actual "postmodernists" (however you want to define that term) is largely going to be a waste of time for both of us. I'm not an expert on the entirety of post 1960s Continental philosophy, and I only have a very limited understanding of e.g. Derrida, Deleuze or Baudrillard. So, with that disclaimer, I am trying to sketch a rough outline where the (in my opinion, misleading) claim of "truth as a narrative" or "there is no truth" (which are contradictory claims by the way, in case you hadn't already noticed  ) may have come from. The post modern concept of truth I'm familiar with is based on the idea that what we think of as "truth" comes in the form of true statements - an idea that they themselves adapted from the Logical Positivists and the Vienna School (as far as I know). Statements, of course, exist as speech, and because they are speech, they are made of language, and language is always by necessity part of a cultural context. But not only that, but the meaning of speech is dependent on the context in which it is spoken. So if we accept these notions, then we can derive two characteristics of true statements: They are part of a cultural context, and their meaning is dependent on the context in which they are spoken. So, if truth exists in the form of true statements, then that form of truth changes its meaning contextually. For example, the statement "In the Morning, the Sun rises in the West" changes meaning depending on whether you speak it in an everyday context or when you are making a scientific statement - in the latter case, it's a nonsense statement because the Sun doesn't "rise" from an objective scientific POV (and the "in the Morning" would be too imprecise for astronomers), but it can still be a true statement in a different context. |
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 13, 2018 13:59:58 GMT -5
First of all, the term "postmodernism" itself is vage, overgeneralizing and inconsistent in its application. Sometimes it is being used to describe a specific set of French Marxist philosophers, sometimes it is being used to describe all Continental philosophy, sometimes all post 1960s leftist philosophy, and sometimes even people who were never associated with any of these movements, like Kuhn or Feyerabend. So unless you can specify who said what and where, a discussion of the actual positions of actual "postmodernists" (however you want to define that term) is largely going to be a waste of time for both of us. I'm not an expert on the entirety of post 1960s Continental philosophy, and I only have a very limited understanding of e.g. Derrida, Deleuze or Baudrillard. In the full article, the author mentions Rorty, Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault. What this does is conflate truth with [true statements[/i]. A description is not the same as the thing described. First of all, the Sun never rises in the West. Second, what you are implying here is that there are two different "truths": a scientific truth that the rotation of the Earth on its axis makes it appear as if the Sun is rising in the East, and an everyday truth that the Sun is actually rising in the East. This is not the case. The statement "The Sun rises in the East every morning" is simply an imprecise way of describing the event. There are not two different worlds where each description is true. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2018 20:45:58 GMT -5
So is an imprecise way of describing an event true or false?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2018 20:59:58 GMT -5
First of all, the term "postmodernism" itself is vage, overgeneralizing and inconsistent in its application. Sometimes it is being used to describe a specific set of French Marxist philosophers, sometimes it is being used to describe all Continental philosophy, sometimes all post 1960s leftist philosophy, and sometimes even people who were never associated with any of these movements, like Kuhn or Feyerabend. So unless you can specify who said what and where, a discussion of the actual positions of actual "postmodernists" (however you want to define that term) is largely going to be a waste of time for both of us. I'm not an expert on the entirety of post 1960s Continental philosophy, and I only have a very limited understanding of e.g. Derrida, Deleuze or Baudrillard. In the full article, the author mentions Rorty, Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault. Well, I am not familiar with any work of Foucault's where he wrote that "there is no truth", or that truth is a "narrative". So that undermines the original premise of the argument a little. I don't understand what you are trying to say. Are you saying that truths exist physically? If not, then what exactly is a truth, and what makes it "a thing"? If descriptions of the state of physical reality do not count as truths by your definition, then what exactly is your definition of truth? If the characterization of "truth" as a set of statements bothers you: Would you agree that true statements are relative and/or contextual, even if "The Truth" were not? |
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 16, 2018 22:53:29 GMT -5
In the full article, the author mentions Rorty, Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault. Well, I am not familiar with any work of Foucault's where he wrote that "there is no truth", or that truth is a "narrative". So that undermines the original premise of the argument a little. How about this: "Foucault uses the term ‘power/knowledge’ to signify that power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’: ‘Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true’ (Foucault, in Rabinow 1991)." www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/foucault-power-is-everywhere/So truth is subordinated to "power." A statement is true iff it correctly describes an existing portion of objective reality. What bothers me is the postmodernist claim that "truth" is dependent on something else. For Foucault, this something else is power. Those in power decide what constitutes truth. For Derrida, it is the interpretation of "texts." Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2018 12:27:34 GMT -5
Well, I am not familiar with any work of Foucault's where he wrote that "there is no truth", or that truth is a "narrative". So that undermines the original premise of the argument a little. How about this: "Foucault uses the term ‘power/knowledge’ to signify that power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’: ‘Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true’ (Foucault, in Rabinow 1991)." www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/foucault-power-is-everywhere/So truth is subordinated to "power." : "The first generation of postmodernists (Rorty and Derrida for example) said that there is no truth, only different "narratives." The second generation of postmodernists said since no narrative is better than any other, we should give equal time to all narratives." Where in the passage you quoted does Foucault say that "there is no truth, only different narratives"? Where does he say that "since no narrative is better than any other, we should give equal time to all narratives"? But that doesn't answer my question. If true statements are not "truth" (as you claim), then what is "truth"?If truth can be summed up as a set of true statements, then all I've talked about regarding the post modern conception of truth is still valid. You may disagree with their conclusion, but the premise is sound. If there are true statements, then these true statements are speech. If they are speech, then all the common characteristics of different modes of speech apply to true statements. Of course truth is dependent on something else! Even in the Correspondence model, truth is dependent on the correspondence between spoken words and physical reality. And language (remember, true statements are formed by language) does not exist in and of itself, but as a cultural construct created specifically to transport meaning and produce interaction. |
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 17, 2018 21:54:40 GMT -5
You are right. Foucault didn't talk about "narratives." He talked about "power" and how those in power mandated what is true. But the result is that there is no objective truth. What one power group says is true has no more validity that what some other power group says is true. What you are doing here is eliminating the necessary link between a statement and the objective reality that it describes. "Truth" cannot be simply a set of statements unless each and every statement has a connection to a part of objective reality that this statement is describing. Yes. That is exactly my point. Without that correspondence, a statement has no link to objective reality. That "cultural construct" has to have a link to objective reality. If not, then it is a meaningless construct. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2018 10:16:58 GMT -5
I don't see how my argument about the contextual nature of statements is in disagreement with your claim that true statements are connected to an objective reality.
Do you?
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 18, 2018 12:25:29 GMT -5
I don't see how my argument about the contextual nature of statements is in disagreement with your claim that true statements are connected to an objective reality. Do you? They are not in disagreement! Knowledge is Contextual, but it also has to be linked to objective reality. My objection to the postmodernists is that they deny the link to objective reality. Rorty seems to think that people just get together and decide what is true. But objective reality does not work by vote. Derrida says that it is all a matter of "text." But without a link to objective reality, the text is meaningless. Foucault says that "truth" is decided by those in power. If so, then how does he know that is true since he never had any power himself. What Foucault should have said is that those in power claim to have established the truth. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2018 14:01:07 GMT -5
Where is your evidence that either of these people "deny the link to objective reality"?
On the contextuality: Do you believe that it is only possible for a true statement to be read and interpreted in one way? Or is it possible for a statement to have a different meaning in a different context?
Do you believe that a different context can change the truth value of a statement? If not, why not?
And if not, then is it possible for a true statement to be refuted or revealed as wrong?
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 18, 2018 22:00:13 GMT -5
Where is your evidence that either of these people "deny the link to objective reality"? Rorty: "Truth is simply a compliment paid to sentences seen to be paying their way." Read more at: www.brainyquote.com/authors/richard_rortyDerrida famously said that there is nothing behind the text. Yes and yes. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2018 12:03:14 GMT -5
If the truth value of a statement is dependent on its context, then how can you claim that its truth value depends only on its link to physical reality, when it clearly depends also on the context of the statement itself?
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 19, 2018 13:15:46 GMT -5
If the truth value of a statement is dependent on its context, then how can you claim that its truth value depends only on its link to physical reality, when it clearly depends also on the context of the statement itself? If living depends on breathing, then how can it be claimed that living also depends on eating? Actually, both are necessary. All human knowledge is contextual. But if there is no contact with objective physical reality, then it is not knowledge of anything real. Both context and a link with objective reality are necessary. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2018 14:17:20 GMT -5
But you just agreed that context can change a statement's truth value i.e. determine whether it is true, false, uncertain, unknown etc. How is this possible when, as you claim, truth value depends on a link to physical reality?
Wouldn't both have to change in order to change a statement's truth value?
And what if context stays the same, but the link to physical reality changes?
If the link alone determines truth value, and context can change truth value, then that's a logical contradiction.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 20, 2018 22:31:47 GMT -5
But you just agreed that context can change a statement's truth value i.e. determine whether it is true, false, uncertain, unknown etc. How is this possible when, as you claim, truth value depends on a link to physical reality? It should be obvious that truth depends on both context and connection to objective reality. Wouldn't you have to get both a bullet to the heart and a bullet to the brain in order to be dead? If there is no contact with objective reality, then the context no longer matters. In a similar fashion, if there is a bullet to the head, then the heart no longer matters, Yes, it would be a contradiction. That's why I did not make that claim. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2018 13:08:44 GMT -5
You agreed that changing context changes truth value.
But what you actually meant is "changing context and the link to physical reality at the same time changes truth value, but changing context alone does not".
Correct?
In other words, we don't actually agree because the only thing that matters is the link to physical reality.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 21, 2018 21:37:49 GMT -5
You agreed that changing context changes truth value. But what you actually meant is "changing context and the link to physical reality at the same time changes truth value, but changing context alone does not". Correct? In other words, we don't actually agree because the only thing that matters is the link to physical reality. No. If the context is wrong, the truth value can also be wrong. And if the link to physical reality is broken, the truth will be broken too. The context matters just as much as the link to physical reality. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2018 7:10:00 GMT -5
You are contradicting yourself there. You have three possible situations regarding changing truth values: 1. Context changes, the connection to reality stays the same. 2. Context stays the same, the connection to reality changes. 3. Context changes, the connection to reality changes. If only 2 and 3 result in a changing of truth value, then a changing context is not in fact important - the deciding factor is the link to physical reality. If all three result in a changing of truth values, then that's a post modern approach to truth.  |
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 22, 2018 13:56:09 GMT -5
You are contradicting yourself there. You have three possible situations regarding changing truth values: 1. Context changes, the connection to reality stays the same. 2. Context stays the same, the connection to reality changes. 3. Context changes, the connection to reality changes. If only 2 and 3 result in a changing of truth value, then a changing context is not in fact important - the deciding factor is the link to physical reality. If all three result in a changing of truth values, then that's a post modern approach to truth. Could you give an example of a context changing and the connection to reality staying the same? Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2018 7:39:23 GMT -5
One example would be the earlier one I gave with "The Sun rises in the East". Depending on the context it's either a true statement or a bunch of nonsense.
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 23, 2018 16:10:17 GMT -5
One example would be the earlier one I gave with "The Sun rises in the East". Depending on the context it's either a true statement or a bunch of nonsense. Actually, the link with reality has changed here. People once thought that the Sun went around the Earth every day. After all, they could see it moving. But the claim that the Sun goes around the Earth every day is now known to be false. In other words, it is no longer linked to reality. The expression "The Sun rises in the East" is now just a shorthand for "The Sun appears to rise in the East." Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2018 7:45:52 GMT -5
When I say "The sun rises in the East", am I saying something true or false? Does the sun rise in the East or not?
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Post by rmarks1 on Feb 24, 2018 12:40:01 GMT -5
When I say "The sun rises in the East", am I saying something true or false? Does the sun rise in the East or not? The Sun appears to rise in the East. To say the Sun rises in the East implies that the Sun is moving around the Earth, and that implication is false. Bob |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2018 1:36:18 GMT -5
Then "the sun rises in the East" can never be a true statement. The context does not change the truth value.
Therefore, context is irrelevant to a statement's truth value. Therefore, any statement is either universally correct at all times and in all places, or it is universally incorrect.
Correct?
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) may have come from.