tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post5084191071538008187..comments2024-03-22T06:22:08.010+00:00Comments on Stephen Law: Baudrillard - J'accuse! (again)Stephen Lawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02167317543994731177noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-24601048742786030172015-11-26T14:26:44.507+00:002015-11-26T14:26:44.507+00:00In response to Phonolinguist:
I think you're c...In response to Phonolinguist:<br />I think you're completely right, and most of what you say is the exact standard postmodern criticism of analytic philosophy and pretences to "clarity": I.e clarity is <i>simply</i> yet another paradigm, another ideological platform. All semantics are indeterminate, except in relation to a framework of meaning, which is <b>ITSELF</b> indeterminate. Hence, there is no ultimate truth, only a multitude of culturally and historically determined truths. Even this last statement is just another claim which is only substantiable in relation to postmodern discourse... which acts as a sort of "negative" proof of postmodernism.<br /><br />Once we reject foundationalism (which has largely been done long ago, in the analytic tradition) there isn't a heck of a lot dividing potsmodernism/structuralism from its English-speaking counterpart, verbiage aside. I think it's important to recognise that you are largely making the same (correct) postmodern point, here.<br /><br />On the other hand, I feel it is unfair of you to criticise certain types of theory for being <i>"(purely) theoretical"</i>. Insofar as we can claim to know anything, there is already a theory working in the background. So, I would argue that no knowledge is non-theoretical, whether we choose to acknowledge this or not. Science does not get let off the hook on account of it being somehow closer to reality than a supposed ivory tower discipline, because scientific knowledge is still entirely theoretical (I mean, even the doctrine of the scientific method/empiricism is nothing more than a theoretical construct, however useful it may be to us).<br /><br /><b>"despite peer-review, philosophers are largely in the dark as to whether they're making sense."</b> How is this not true of any science? How does any discourse (religion, science, philosophy, politics etc..) make sense outside of a community of people who speak and understand on the same terms?Commenternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-26836722670437957742015-03-03T16:47:12.406+00:002015-03-03T16:47:12.406+00:00Further to my comment above, fresh off Scientia Sa...Further to my comment above, fresh off Scientia Salon:<br /><br />'Metaphysics and (Lack of) Grounding'<br />Massimo Pigliucci<br /><br />https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/metaphysics-and-lack-of-grounding/Philolinguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09622819518795177507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1905686568472747305.post-13434341572847356432015-02-27T15:26:12.535+00:002015-02-27T15:26:12.535+00:00From what I've seen, most of what passes for &...From what I've seen, most of what passes for 'postmodern theory' proceeds by 1) stating the obvious, 2) exaggerating the trivial, and if all else fails, 3) obfuscation. However, the main problem with postmodern theory is not that it's postmodern, but that it's (purely) theoretical. <br /><br />Hence 'analytic' philosophy in general suffers from the same semantic indeterminacy, but this is masked by the fact that analytic philosophers tend to write more plainly. So we are lured into thinking that because they're using plain language, the words used must carry their plain meanings. <br /><br />As I've argued elsewhere, much of analytic philosophy is probably as semantically indeterminate as the postmodern stuff. But in order to realize that, we have to step back from the trees, the minutiae of philosophical arguments; and look at the woods, the socio-psychological flaws of any purely theoretical discipline; where peer-review is the sole arbiter of whether the discourse is making sense. Such an arrangement has a tendency to degenerate into a mutual admiration society (notwithstanding some, largely arbitrary, internal disagreements on what is admirable).<br /><br />It's not the same with the sciences (apart from purely theoretical fringes like string theory), because they have to make predictions that the non-expert can often easily test (e.g. that an eclipse will occur at a certain time), and to some extent, understand the theory behind. The applied sciences also have to produce artifacts (radios, etc) that demonstrate they're not just playing with words. <br /><br />So the non-expert public is actually heavily involved in keeping nonsense out of the sciences, effectively acting as a second layer of intellectual scrutiny after peer review. Not so in philosophy, where you have to be an 'expert' (i.e, a member of the mutual admiration society) for your opinion to count. <br /><br />There are genuine philosophical problems, but despite peer-review, philosophers are largely in the dark as to whether they're making sense. So I don't think philosophy can be called a body of 'knowledge' (except a very slim one). I think it is an activity that some people feel compelled to engage in, but like another such activity, art, there's no methodology for measuring 'progress', for converting 'theories' into 'knowledge'. <br /><br />That's important to realize, because it means that a philosopher cannot be a moral 'expert', someone that the lay public ought to defer to on ethical questions because he has a qualification in philosophy (in the same way that we might defer to a doctor on our medical problems).Philolinguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09622819518795177507noreply@blogger.com