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xssve -> RE: Human Consciousness - Meaningful or Meaningless? (6/24/2011 8:13:24 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
quote:
ORIGINAL: Moonhead
Not wishing to sound snotty, tweak, but postmodernism is an art movement that's migrated from architecture into other branches of the arts. While the question of whether it actually has any inherent merit of its own, or is just a retreat from everything that was worthwhile about modernism is an interesting one, it doesn't have anything to say about philosophy, or the sciences. (In fact, there's a lot of cultural critics who feel that postmodernism's main defining characteristic is that it's incapable of saying anything as it's primarily a distancing stance auteurs can hide behind if they don't want to be held responsible for anything they might say...)
Sorry Moonhead but this falls a little short of your usual well informed standard.
Postmodernism, as 'singular' movement has many streams ranging from architecture, the arts and literary theory through to politics, the human 'sciences' and philosophy.
The philosophical stream resists accurate definition. As I understand it, a useful way of looking at it is; it's a series of perspectives that take, as their starting point, the impossibility of Truth. There is a particular emphasis on the philosophy of language (eg. 'discourse analysis' and 'deconstructionism') and the Language/Knowledge/Power nexus. This is unsurprising as Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are often credited as the primary sources of the stream of thought that has evolved into 'post-modernist philosophy'. Among its more notable and influential figures one might list Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Kristeva, Rorty, Lacan, de Lueze, Guattari and Beaudrillard. There are many others.
Like any movement of this breadth, it has its critics. Dawkins has been particularly savage though his writings on the subject lead me to conclude that Dawkins is either unable or unwilling to comprehend post-modernism at its most basic fundamental level. However, no matter what it's critics say, there's some pretty substantial stuff there to get your teeth into if you're interested. If I may I'd strongly urge you give it a try!
A good introduction text is Lyotard's "The Post Modern Condition"
For those interested there is a brief account of post modern philosophy here
I fail to see how "a series of perspectives that take, as their starting point, the impossibility of Truth" can ever amount to anything but clever party chatter.
It's a corrupt philosophy that begins in relativism, and ends in "fit" - it's logical conclusion by process of elimination.
Whether or not objective meaning exists, meaning is assigned, you cannot escape it - so erring on the side of empiricism is the only reliable method of avoiding navel gazing - or worse.
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