A good laugh- Random post-modernism

[levinas12]

Qoeleth,

Are there any random generators of Thomistic arguments? Of Neo-Darwinian papers? Of scientism tracts?

If so, don’t post them.

You may risk alienating everybody else on this subforum.

 

[levinas12]

…, you have to have a pretty grounding …

A pretty **good **grounding …

What can I say? I’m tired and it’s late. Maybe more coffee is required.

 

[JacquesMaritain]

Jacques, your posting about quantum mechanics has been very helpful…(snip)

But the question of history must be confronted. Does culture/language put any constraints on our understanding of Being? Is our understanding somehow finite, bounded? This is a question that needs to be explored. Kant opened pandora’s box without perhaps knowing all the implications of what he was doing. Hegel injected history into the mix and then passed the torch to Heidegger (and Derrida).

Hi Levinas:

Thanks very much. I stress that I am not an expert in this (or indeed any other) field, but I try to help wherever I can. I left out your philosophical discussion as it is not my place to debate relativism, but you did have a couple of questions so I will try to answer them as best I can.

Does language put any constraints on our understanding of Being? I believe it does; the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis certainly suggests that it does; variants of color analysis across cultures seem to provide some support for this, as do studies of mathematical knowledge in prehistoric/preliterate cultures (I think the most famous one would be the Piraha peoples of the Amazon jungles, a primitive tribe who had no language for abstract mathematics/counting) The famous, “one, two, many” idea, satirized here:

xkcd.com/764/

Is our study somehow finite/limited? I suspect it is, given that we are finite beings, but a formal proof of that is probably impossible, given that we are capable of grasping the idea of a mathematical infinity, transfinite numbers and so on. I think that the writings of the mystics (people like St. John of the Cross) suggest that humans are capable of glimpsing beyond finite existence, but simply lack the words/understanding to explain it in any coherent way. My own namesake, the Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain spent a lot of time on this (what he called “supra-rational knowledge”; the knowledge of the Christian mystics is of the third order of suprarational), but I don’t think he made as much progress as he would have liked. His magnum opus is here (you likely already know of it, but if you don’t, you are in for a real treat!):

amazon.com/Degrees-Knowledge-Collected-Jacques-Maritain/dp/0268008868

Jacques

 

[Qoeleth]

Qoeleth,

Are there any random generators of Thomistic arguments? Of Neo-Darwinian papers? Of scientism tracts?

If so, don’t post them.

You may risk alienating everybody else on this subforum.

Hi Levinas, please accept my apologies. I acknowledge such parodies are always at the expense of serious work within these languages. No offence intended…

 

[Sair]

Qoeleth,

Are there any random generators of Thomistic arguments? Of Neo-Darwinian papers? Of scientism tracts?

If so, don’t post them.

You may risk alienating everybody else on this subforum.

I would suggest that if there are such generators, they would be rather less effective as parody than the random postmodernism generator - the entire point of the latter appears to be that postmodernist jargon is all about using deliberately inaccessible language to say little, if anything at all.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The possibility of a parody, the paro (para?)/possi-bility, reveals in engagement with the haecity of the soi-disant post-modern, at the expense perhaps, of its ipseity. But is this anti-thesis of haecity and ipseity a mere illocutionary quasi-gesture, a rhetolalia, an attempt to sustain the thanatic mytheme of subject/object dyadity, to hyliciate an eidos- a final attempt to restore the phallocentrism of the Logos, whose very logocity is diminished by this very pluravocity, this fecundity, this emergence, not of the Logos but of toi logoi. Is this (ab)-use of the logology of de-construction an ironically non-utilitarian bricollage, an autocidal pseudo-bricollage sans object, whose failure is, ideo, success and whose (autem) success is failure. I, for one, am in-clined, so to think.

:ehh: I feel a headache coming on. Am I on the right planet?

 

[levinas12]

I would suggest that if there are such generators, they would be rather less effective as parody than the random postmodernism generator - the entire point of the latter appears to be that postmodernist jargon is all about using deliberately inaccessible language to say little, if anything at all.

Maybe so. And my remarks were a bit tongue-in-cheek.

But babble is not confined to postmodernism. It’s a disease that infects every intellectual venue.

The major figures in postmodernism do have interesting insights. Their questioning of “truth”, for example, cannot be dismissed out of hand but must be confronted head-on.

Certainly, the postmoderns have been “excessive” at times. And this has contributed to their “inaccessibility”.

But there’s also another reason for their inaccessibility. And I know this will sound snooty. To understand someone like Derrida, or Foucault, or Lacan, or Levinas, you have to be familiar with the history of philosophy, especially Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Nietszche, Husserl, Heidegger.

But, alas, philosophy has fallen upon hard times. For some time now (like the last three hundred years), the focus has been on physical science. To paraphrase Laplace, philosophy isn’t necessary anymore. In fact, many people believe that philosophy (not just postmodernism) is frivolous.

All I can say: Woe, the desert is growing (Nietszche).

 

[Bakmoon]

Maybe so. And my remarks were a bit tongue-in-cheek.

But babble is not confined to postmodernism. It’s a disease that infects every intellectual venue.

The major figures in postmodernism do have interesting insights. Their questioning of “truth”, for example, cannot be dismissed out of hand but must be confronted head-on.

Certainly, the postmoderns have been “excessive” at times. And this has contributed to their “inaccessibility”.

But there’s also another reason for their inaccessibility. And I know this will sound snooty. To understand someone like Derrida, or Foucault, or Lacan, or Levinas, you have to be familiar with the history of philosophy, especially Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger (and others).

But, alas, philosophy has fallen upon hard times. Since Comte, all the focus has been on physical science. To paraphrase Laplace, philosophy isn’t necessary anymore. In fact, many people believe that philosophy (not just postmodernism) is frivolous.

All I can do is quote Nietszche: Woe, the desert is growing.

(yes, I’m whining)

Agreed. The paper seems more like a parody of the intellectual snobbery that seems endemic to some philosophical journals and such more than of postmodernism itself.

 

[levinas12]

Hi Levinas, please accept my apologies. I acknowledge such parodies are always at the expense of serious work within these languages. No offence intended…

Please my apologies. I’ve been in a bad mood. Male menopause.

 

[Qoeleth]

Maybe so. And my remarks were a bit tongue-in-cheek.

But babble is not confined to postmodernism. It’s a disease that infects every intellectual venue.

The major figures in postmodernism do have interesting insights. Their questioning of “truth”, for example, cannot be dismissed out of hand but must be confronted head-on.

Certainly, the postmoderns have been “excessive” at times. And this has contributed to their “inaccessibility”.

But there’s also another reason for their inaccessibility. And I know this will sound snooty. To understand someone like Derrida, or Foucault, or Lacan, or Levinas, you have to be familiar with the history of philosophy, especially Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Nietszche, Husserl, Heidegger.

But, alas, philosophy has fallen upon hard times. For some time now (like the last three hundred years), the focus has been on physical science. To paraphrase Laplace, philosophy isn’t necessary anymore. In fact, many people believe that philosophy (not just postmodernism) is frivolous.

All I can say: Woe, the desert is growing (Nietszche).

I agree. Philosophy tends to be part of a dialogue, and there is often a large amount of background knowledge assumed.

Also, the distinction between philosophy and literature is increasingly blurred, which is something encountered particularly in late Derrida.

My admiration and enjoyment of Derrida, Levinas, Baudrillard, and Deleuze is unlimited, and I find them all to write clearly, beautifully and, at times, prophetically. The problem occurs when writers of lesser originality and ability try to imitate them, and come up with a lame and pretentious pastiche. In would include myself in this group.

 

[levinas12]

Nietzsche

Most of my time on this subforum is spent correcting my own typos.

Well, looking on the bright side, it increases the number of my postings.

Then again, maybe “typo” postings shouldn’t be counted.

Wait. There may be a typo lurking in this posting.

Yikes, I may be involved in an infinite regress.

 

[levinas12]

I would include myself in this group.

Include me as well.

 

[jmcrae]

Something which I found mildly amusing is a page which present randomly generated post-modernist philosophy papers:

elsewhere.org/pomo/

They are rubbish, of course.

It is not a valid critique of post-modernism, but perhaps a valid performatic critique of people who read philosophy with ‘pretentions of understanding’.

I would have received an “A” on that, in my Aesthetics course, back in the day.