Richard Rorty in Tehran
thenation.com
thenation.com
Once I hit something that describes post-modernism and seems fairly thoughtful and authoritative ... I don't understand it.
It is the idea that some values are absolute and can be forced on other that was originally being objected to. Some historical cases are obvious others are still ambiguous. Thus a debate is interesting.
Likewise, inside our society we have crucial rights justified as being "endowed by our creator". We would need to justify these values on something stronger than a particular theology to explain their universality. So again, discussion is worthwhile. I believe raising this point is what caused a ruckus in Iran.
But yes, the term "post-modern" has made it's way into pop culture and is so widely used it is often hard to figure out what the speaker means by it. Better would be specifically referencing "Rorty's ideas" which I am certain you would find coherent and very intriguing. Rorty was most definitely not in Iran to say "theology is as good as democracy".
The relation "means" or "signifies" is a predicate taking 3 arguments: a source-text term, a conceptual definition, and an interpreter. That is:
means(A, B, C) is true iff source-text A signifies concept B to interpreter C.
The postmodern project seeks to emphasize the role of the interpreter (or their frame of reference) in the interpretation of everything. That's the third term in the predicate, which we often like to think is universal, in the way that "universal suffrage" turned out to be not universal at all.
> In contrast to Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Jefferson or Immanuel Kant, anti-foundationalists argue that there are no self-evident truths or inalienable rights, and indeed, no such thing as a stable, discoverable human nature, rational or otherwise, “for human beings make themselves up as they go along.”
That is what at least one branch of postmodernism (Rorty) says. But in mathematics, without axioms you can't prove anything. In the same way, if nothing is self-evident, then nothing can be proven. (If I recall correctly, I'm stealing this line from C.S. Lewis in "The Abolition of Man".) I think that's what's so hard about postmodernism - they say you can't prove anything, and in fact you don't know anything.
But the same thing is true of the postmodernists themselves - they also don't know anything, and can't prove anything, including the claims of postmodernism. They can't even prove that you can't prove anything! (That doesn't disprove postmodernism. But if they are just spouting theories of which they can't actually be sure and that they can't prove, then they can give you no reason why you should take them seriously.)
As I see it, they're interested in coming up with satisfactory answers when perfect ones aren't available. If we wait until we have a universal and unimpeachable answer for what to have for dinner we'll all starve. But "proving" that perfect answers to certain questions can't be obtained, or that some imperfect answers can be satisfactory, is somewhat beside the point -- they're not in the business of proof. "Proving" things is a modernist fetish, and trite paradoxes around nothing being universal are mostly just cute jokes for entertaining undergrads :-p.
If you want to read a philosophical account of mathematics as it is actively practiced today, Synthetic Philosophy of Contemporary Mathematics by Zalamea (a practicing mathematician) is good. It is far more sympathetic to postmodernism than you would think.
And for an account of modern logic by a logician in a postmodern vein, La Fantome de la Transparence by Girard is gr8. Only in French atm.
On the topic of Postmodernism:
http://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/218
My understanding:
Terms like 'modernism' and 'postmodernism' assume that such terms represent meaningful periods of history. If we roll with this assumption, then modernism refers to a collective cultural mood of optimism about the prospect of Utopia, marked by a strong sense of personal agency, derived from the intellect and the technology produced by the intellect. If modernism were a person it would say something like "Now that religion--dogma--is out of the way, I can use my brain to invent things that will improve our lives, and eventually we will live in a Utopia, or something close to it."
In contrast, postmodernism refers to a collective disillusionment with the world, a loss of faith in or a deep suspicion of Utopia, especially w/r/t the intellect and technology, and a consequent erosion of a sense of agency such that the very existence of the Self is uncertain. Postmodernism might stay in bed and say things like "I'm depressed because, while rationality has undoubtedly helped some people, it has also hurt quite a few, on a scale made possible only by the technology I've created, such that it's not clear anymore if life is actually improving at all."
That's the way I see postmodernism. An exercise in humility, it's a kind of moody, self-reflective style of thought that is ruthlessly critical of one's own perspective, intensely vigilant the self's capacity to distort perspective by tending to itself at the center of things, and always suspicious of one's own position in power structures for the sake of leaving no stone unturned in the search for meaning.
Examples:
- action against climate change is neither "good" nor "bad", it all depends on where and how each individual ascribes value to the human race. All views are equally valid.
- physics is no more "valuable" or "worthy of study" than gender studies.
- IQ tests measure only cultural conditioning, not intelligence (or to go even further, intelligence is an empty, meaningless concept).