Maybe those people are not real post-modernists, but they do exist:

addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,”
— WSJ — Lionino

A lot of confusion around the word postmodernism. In the field of philosophy it tends to lumped in with trends that are quite tangential to it and in many cases opposed to it (Marxism). Pomo authors like Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida often get blamed for the excesses of wokism and cancel culture, when in fact the repressive moralism coming from these movements is attributable to such doctrines as Critical Race Theory, and figures like Franz Fanon and Antonio Gramsci. These approaches are heavily influenced by Marx and psychoanalysis, which are put into question by pomo writers like Foucault and Derrida.

Maybe those people are not real post-modernists, but they do exist: — Lionino

You surely can get a clueless person that has only been taught something what you would call 'post-modernist' to say something incredibly stupid.

That's the way how the "culture war" works: find the most stupid, most fringe remark from the social media (very easy to do) and then declare: "Look at these idiots!" You aren't engaging in discussion, trying to understand the others point of view or to get the most sensible argument. Nope. You are there to win the argument and warn how dangerous the other side is.

And there's a lot of ignorant views there. The basic problem is simply when you teach the critique of something, but not the actual school of thought or philosophical view being criticized, the person is simply clueless.

But let's take for instance one of these "pomo" attempts that was declared to be the threat for mathematics (I forgot by whom). So I listened to the lecture. She didn't say 2+2=5. The basic reasoning was to find examples closer to the lives of the pupils and understand when the lack basic skills and how to operate then.

I did have a thread of Decolonizing Science which was basically the same subject matter, not "pomo", but still.

I think I've just become a bit cautious of those that warn about this pomo-leftism in science or math. In the end they aren't interested in the actual math, so one shouldn't be so angry about it. It's just the present way of virtue-signalling.

Pomo authors like Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida often get blamed for the excesses of wokism and cancel culture, when in fact the repressive moralism coming from these movements is attributable to such doctrines as Critical Race Theory, and figures like Franz Fanon and Antonio Gramsci. These approaches are heavily influenced by Marx and psychoanalysis, which are put into question by pomo writers like Foucault and Derrida. — Joshs

:ok: Very well put. Actors such as JBP and Shapiro are doing a disservice to their own cause when they bring up Derrida and Foucault, all the while the people they want to fight are seldom named — some might say they are poisoning the swamp, but realistically they are just ignorant. But then, what about Lacan?



I don't understand what you are getting at. I provided plain proof that there are indeed people who deny mathematics for political (leftist) reasons. Maybe they are not post-modernists, perhaps some are and others aren't, or maybe none of them are. What place is there for post-modernism to be productive in mathematics after all? As Count said:

There is already a lot of pluralism and "questioning all assumptions," in the foundations of mathematics/philosophy of mathematics, so it's hard to see what a post-modern critique of mathematics would find worth critiquing. I've never seen one, and I've certainly looked in places where they might show up.

She didn't say 2+2=5 — ssu

Maybe she (whoever) didn't, but many did.

What is this "more primordial and fundamental" way of thinking from which mathematical 'qualities' derive? And how does the derivation work? And are "objectivity, correctness , exactitude and effectiveness" "peculiar to mathematical logic"? Why? — Banno

Mathematical logic and its use in geometry produces pure, but empty idealities. They introduce the pure idea of precision, exactitude, accuracy that then becomes the basis for the aim of exactitude of correctness in the empirical
sciences.

“The only objectivity that belongs to exact natural science is based upon "geometrization," an idealization which is able to encompass theoretically, by idealizing them, all the possibilities of experience as experience of what is identical in infinitum; it does this by means of ideal concepts—con­cepts of what is in itself and of ideal truths as truths in themselves.” (Husserl)

The catch is that applying the pure idealizations of geometry to the natural world is describing a world that is no longer ‘empty’, no longer protected from contextual change in meaning. There are no pure forms , shapes in nature, and no self-identically persisting objects. For the purposes of convenience, scientists, beginning with figures like Galileo, fabricated a geometricized idea of the empirical object. As Husserl writes of this invented object:

“A true object in the sense of logic is an object which is absolutely identical "with itself," that is, which is, absolutely identically, what it is; or, to express it in another way: an object is through its determinations, its quiddities, its predicates, and it is identical if these quiddities are identical as belonging to it or when their belonging absolutely excludes their not belonging. But only ideals have a rigorous identity; the con­sequence would be that an individual is truly something identi­cal—i.e., an entity—if it is the ideally identical substrate for general absolute ideas.”

What Husserl means when he says only ideals have a rigorous identity is that in order to adopt the notion of a self-identical empirical object, or the concept of a logical subject and predicate , we have to conceal the subjectively changing processes of actual experience, to ‘freeze’ them into temporarily unchanging identities so we can compare and manipulate them. The world doesn’t come to us packaged as self-identical objects.

“ It is high time that people got over being dazzled, particularly in philosophy and logic, by the ideal and regulative ideas and methods of the "exact" sciences — as though the In-itself of such sciences were actually an absolute norm for objective being and for truth. Actually, they do not see the woods for the trees. Because of a splendid cognitive performance, though with only a very restricted teleological sense, they overlook the infinitudes of life and its cognition, the infinitudes of relative and, only in its relativity, rational being, with its relative truths. But to rush ahead and philosophize from on high about such matters is fundamentally wrong; it creates a wrong skeptical relativism and a no less wrong logical absolutism, mutual bugbears that knock each other down and come to life again like the figures in a Punch and Judy show.”

“The point is not to secure objectivity but to understand it. One must finally achieve the insight that no objec­tive science, no matter how exact, explains or ever can explain anything in a serious sense.

Heidegger writes:

The ontological presuppositions of historiographical knowledge transcend in principle the idea of rigor of the most exact sciences. Math­ematics is not more exact than historiographical, but only narrower with regard to the scope of the existential foundations relevant to it.

If Land subverts the establishment’s norms because he truly believes in rigid boundaries of gender, racial, class or whatever, and their strict hierarchization , then this places him by my reckoning on the philosophical right. If , on the other hand, his aim is to anarchically tear down all extant hierarchies and stratifications , with no desire to replace them with new ones,( I’m reminded of Zizek endorsing Trump in order to blow up the whole political order in preparation for his Marxist utopia), then I’d place him on the philosophical left regardless of how violent and disruptive the results.

He's a radical libertarian in key respects, so it's much more the latter. However, I would still place him squarely on the far, reactionary right.

Land is concerned with freedom and sees democracy and liberalism as incompatible with it. We can consider the Alt-Right racist who asks: "how can the leftist claim to be concerned with freedom? Why can't like minded individuals like me live in our own 'whites-only' communities? Why are we not 'free' to do this? They say they are for freedom, but then they want to enforce a hegemonic value system on us. Sure, they might allow the Amish their own small communities (although even there they interfer with gender politics), but they won't let us do as we please."

Perhaps a bit more sympathetically, the Silicon Valley start up captain asks: "why am I not free to hire and promote people based solely on my own judgement? Why must my actions be forced or prodded into conforming to the goals of the leftists re "diversity?" Why must diversity be defined how they define it and why must I be coerced into acting according to their standards?"

For Land, the ideal is something of a cross between the ancient city-state polis and the Silicon Valley start up. The CEO is the philosopher king and no outside moralizing agent has the right to tell him or her what the good is. If people don't like living in an Alt-Right City State they can flee. But the merit and the greatness of the CEO philosopher king will make some city states better than others, and so people will be free to also subject themselves to the "great men" (or women) who produce the most vibrant polis.

Is this not more free than the leftist vision where an overarching moralizing set of norms is applied universally, using state coercion whenever it is necessary? And isn't saying "thou shalt not have hierarchies," itself an absolutist decree being made from on high? Why aren't we free to generate the neo-facist, neo-feudal aesthetic we find interesting? Isn't this more true to the goal of exploring "the infinite plurality of creative spaces?" How committed to this infinite creativity are you really if your response to some forms of it are "no, you cannot be creative like that!"

"But you have to be creative while allowing creativity for all, without dominating them," can be met with, "why? Why must I subscribe to your dogmatic declaration of the appropriate scale for considering the actualization of freedom? Why must it be for the individual and not the fascist collective?"

IDK, reading Land, it's hard to deny that his style, verbage, analysis, and influences are deeply rooted in Continental Philosophy (the overlap with POMO is of course strong, but hardly absolute). His right wing turn certainly seems more like an internal type of critique rather than a rejection of the system he started in.

And I think Land's critique is particularly difficult for his former school to deal with (which might explain why the rebuttal attempts tend to involve a lot of moralizing and ad hominems). The Thomist or Platonist has no problem dismissing Land as a man child with a defective sense of freedom as largely limited to negative freedom from restraint, and a deficient understanding of the virtues. Rule in accordance with the Logos is not equivalent with rule in accordance with desire. When a parent sends their child down for a nap despite their tears they are not engaged in the arbitrary elevation of their will over their child's or acting "dogmatically," but in an way informed by what is truly good for the other.

I am not sure what a good POMO rebuttal to Land would be. I've certainly yet to see one.

So far as I can make sense of what you have written here, you have said that maths is abstract, and applying maths requires something like particularising (?).

I might be wrong. I find your style quite obtuse. To be candid, it seems intended to be clever rather than clear.

So for instance that second quote from Husserl looks to want to say that an individual is determined by the predicates that apply to it, but of course Kripke's modal logic tells us otherwise. No fault to Husserl, since possible world semantics post dates him. But why the language?

If I am right you have not explained a "more primordial and fundamental" way of thinking from which mathematical "qualities" derive.

I find the following laughable, so I must be misunderstanding it:

Math­ematics is not more exact than historiographical, but only narrower with regard to the scope of the existential foundations relevant to it.

This seems to be saying that maths is only about maths; the "existential foundations" of maths are applicable in applied maths, or physics, or engineering.

Maths has a far, far greater reach and explanatory power than 'historiography'.

Mathematical logic at least explicates symbolic logic, and symbolic logic is useful. We are all typing on computers whose invention and development are based on concepts in symbolic logic, mathematical logic and the theory of computability that really took off with mathematical logic (though, I woudn't necessarily be unsympathetic to the idea that we might all be a lot better off without these blasted, annoying, buggy, and intentionally mal-designed digit boxes).

I read most of 'Fashionable Nonsense' quite a while ago. There were quoted examples from certain writers. If those quotes were in fair context, then indeed those writers are completely full of BS regarding the mathematics they mentioned.

isn't saying "thou shalt not have hierarchies," itself an absolutist decree being made from on high? Why aren't we free to generate the neo-facist, neo-feudal aesthetic we find interesting? Isn't this more true to the goal of exploring "the infinite plurality of creative spaces?" How committed to this infinite creativity are you really if your response to some forms of it are "no, you cannot be creative like that!" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Deleuze is not commanding anybody to discard hierarchies, he’s showing how we can understand them as deconstructing themselves. Either you see this or you don’t. If you don’t, then Deleuze’s opinion is that your idea of freedom is a compromised freedom because it is unable to see beyond stratified categories that restrict as much as they liberate you. It’s your loss, not Deleuze’s. He’s just offering what he sees as options. It’s up to you whether you recognize them as useful alternatives or not.

Land isn't responding to only Deleuze, although it seems likely given some of his lines that he would say he is doing to Deleuze what Deleuze claims to do to other thinkers: "buggering" them to produce demon offspring. That the demon offspring is recognizably related to the author but a sort of heretical corruption is sort of the point. I don't know how someone who conceives of their philosophy in such a way can be "misread," as it would seem that "misreading," shows proper application of the method that is recommended.

Land isn't responding to only Deleuze, although it seems likely given some of his lines that he would say he is doing to Deleuze what Deleuze claims to do to other thinkers: "buggering" them to produce demon offspring. That the demon offspring is recognizably related to the author but a sort of heretical corruption is sort of the point. I don't know how someone who conceives of their philosophy in such a way can be "misread," as it would seem that "misreading," shows proper application of the method that is recommended — Count Timothy von Icarus

You’re not resolved of the responsibility to read Deleuze carefully. You don’t get off the hook that easily. Deleuze’s work is rigorous in what it is trying to say. It can be placed in just as precise a region as any of the other philosophers of our era. Deleuze lets us know the difference between ‘buggery’, where he uses authors like Leibnitz and Spinoza for his own purposes, and where he rejects what he doesnt like in their work. Readers of Anti-Oedipus have no doubt he was influenced by Freud and Lacan but leaves them decidedly behind at a certain point.Readers also know where he stands in relation to Derrida , Husserl and Hegel. Deleuze work tells us where to situate him with respect to the history of philosophy, praising Foucault and Heidegger but also letting us known where they fall short , venerating Nietzsche as his most important influence, resurrecting Bergson for his notion of lived duration but critiquing his subjectivism.

Despite his differences with Derrida, I believe Deleuze would endorse the latter’s thoughts about truth and relativism:

For of course there is a "right track", a better way, and let it be said in passing how surprised I have often been, how amused or discouraged, depending on my humor, by the use or abuse of the following argument: Since the deconstructionist (which is to say, isn't it, the skeptic-relativist-nihilist!) is supposed not to believe in truth, stability, or the unity of meaning, in intention or "meaning-to-say, " how can he demand of us that we read him with pertinence, precision, rigor? How can he demand that his own text be interpreted correctly? How can he accuse anyone else of having misunderstood, simplified, deformed it, etc.? In other words, how can he discuss, and discuss the reading of what he writes? The answer is simple enough: this definition of the deconstructionist is false (that's right: false, not true) and feeble; it supposes a bad (that's right: bad, not good) and feeble reading of numerous texts, first of all mine, which therefore must finally be read or reread.

Then perhaps it will be understood that the value of truth (and all those values associated with it) is never contested or destroyed in my writings, but only reinscribed in more powerful, larger, more stratified contexts. And that within interpretive contexts (that is, within relations of force that are always differential-for example, socio-political-institutional-but even beyond these determinations) that are relatively stable, sometimes apparently almost unshakeable, it should be possible to invoke rules of competence, criteria of discussion and of consensus, good faith, lucidity, rigor, criticism, and pedagogy.

Right, but the question was: "did elements of the Nu/Alt-Right grow out of/use ideas from post-modernism?" not "does Nick Land understand Deleuze in particular?"

The attacks on science and the concept of accelerationism in particular don't change much in content when employed by their new users.

By way of example, we might allow that Karl Marx seems to have misread Hegel in some core respects, but he certainly didn't misread or fail to understand everything Hegel was laying down. Nor would it be unfair to say Marxism clearly grows out of Left-Hegelianism.

However, like I said, it seems unreasonable to assume that someone who had a successful career as an academic publishing on Deleuze and wasn't subject to particular criticism until after he adopted controversial political opinions completely misread his sources. I don't even know if these sorts of questions are answerable. You get no clear summary of Plato in Aristotle, and lots of contravening opinion, but whether Plato's star pupil failed to understand him seems unlikely, even if no clear answer lies in the text.

As for the quote, the debates about Derrida are interminable. The claim of his critics is not that he didn't ever voice positions akin to that quote; this is easy to verify. The question is if other parts of his work contradict that sentiment, or claims that it becomes "truth for me, but not for thee," in practice. I'm not really interested enough to care who was actually right here, and it's irrelevant to the point about the modern right being influenced by post modernism.

↪Joshs

Right, but the question was: "did elements of the Nu/Alt-Right grow out of/use ideas from post-modernism?" not "does Nick Land understand Deleuze in particular?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

If we agree that there are in fact substantive ideas offered by particular authors labeled as postmodern , then in order to determine whether someone’s ideas ‘grow out of/ use ideas from pomo’, we first have to establish what exactly we’re talking about, and I think that requires picking a specific writer, whether it be Deleuze, Foucault or Lyotard. and determining a connection with Land’s work.

it seems unreasonable to assume that someone who had a successful career as an academic publishing on Deleuze and wasn't subject to particular criticism until after he adopted controversial political opinions completely misread his sources — Count Timothy von Icarus

A lot of scholar glom onto and base their careers on parsing each word of a major figure. They hew so close to the original texts that it is difficult to see where their thinking departs from the master until they write something controversial.

You’d be surprised by how wildly students of particular philosophers can misread them. For example , Graham Harman, who founded object oriented ontology, a branch of speculative realism, offers a reading of Heidegger about as far removed from pomo as I can imagine. I recently read a piece which claimed, somewhat convincingly in my opinion, that Land settled on a libertarian Kantianism, which it seems to me is impossible to characterize as ‘growing out of’ Deleuze or pomo. Your thinking doesn’t grow out of an approach that is built out of a direct critique of what you’re growing into.

I think its the case that Land was always a traditionalist, but also a cultural hipster who joined the latest intellectual fad (which happened to be Deleuze) without absorbing more than superficial elements of him. As he became older and learned to read philosophy more carefully he discovered his true mentors were not pomo at all but transcendental idealism.

we first have to establish what exactly we’re talking about, and I think that requires picking a specific writer, whether it be Deleuze, Foucault or Lyotard. — Joshs

Has pretty much been the way I've been thinking about the question. At a certain point "postmodernism" isn't a useful frame for thinking -- you have to dig into a particular author because they don't necessarily agree with one another. "Postmodern" is a generalization about history (in various disciplines -- the periods differ depending upon which discipline you look at), but that generalization doesn't have a general perspective on all science, or mathematics specifically -- which shouldn't be surprising given the themes.

This is true, and it's worth noting that many of the "big names" associated with the movement rejected the label. It's seems like only younger scholars ever came around to embracing it.



Well, to my broader point, it certainly seems like elements of the right have taken Baudrillard’s thesis in “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place,” to heart. If you look at narratives on the war and Ukraine, what can be said to have "actually happened," invocations hyperreality, or the ubiquitous claims of wartime events as "psyops," it seems at least something has seeped in.

Perhaps we can't rightly call anti-realism vis-á-vis history, (or even contemporary events) post-modern, but it certainly gets lumped in with the term, and it's a cornerstone of Alt-Right thought.

I generally find myself agreeing with Freinacht (who does seem to embrace the pomo label) on the ways in which the movement is itself post-modern. At the very least, it is emblematic of the problems many post modern thinkers were striving to identify re globalization and late stage capitalism. I think "blame" narratives miss the mark, because in many cases theorists were diagnosing problems, and this is unfairly conflated with them advocating for those same problems.

https://metamoderna.org/4-things-that-make-the-alt-right-postmodern/


If we allow that critical theory and identity movements fit under the umbrella of post modernism then the relationship is even more obvious because the Alt-Right is both a self-conscious reaction to these movements, while also itself being a similar sort of identity movement employing similar methods of critique.

Has pretty much been the way I've been thinking about the question. At a certain point "postmodernism" isn't a useful frame for thinking -- you have to dig into a particular author because they don't necessarily agree with one another. — Moliere

Yes, I am aware of this - it's generally one of the first things people say when you use the term postmodernism. I chose to keep it broad to see what would come in since I am no expert. I'm not really interested in any particular writer and I wanted to see what people would select and highlight. We've done ok with 4 pages so far.

Perhaps we can't rightly call anti-realism vis-á-vis history, (or even contemporary events) post-modern, but it certainly gets lumped in with the term, and it's a cornerstone of Alt-Right thought — Count Timothy von Icarus

Could you cite some examples of anti-realism as an explicit doctrine of the far right? I can’t help but think your own realist-based thinking is leading you to inappropriately lump together as ‘anti-realist’ everyone who doesn’t accept the scientific consensus of what has been objectively proven to be true, and ignoring their reasons for rejecting it. There are a wide variety of realisms, and I view the far right , to the extent that generalizations can be made here, as embracing a more traditionalist form of realism than the one you endorse. I think this is the source of your difference with the far right, and pomo’s alleged influence here is largely a popular scapegoating for cultural trends they have almost nothing to do with, based on an inability to read them effectively.

Gotcha. And surely I don't mean to denigrate the attempt -- I've been scratching my head about how to respond and that's still the closest thing I had in my mind.

A riskier response, in generalities: I'm always open to philosophical broaches of sciences by scientists or laypersons with knowledge of the particulars. As such I don't mind a few silly vaunts into the territory of 2+2=5 -- we can all think through it and feel our way to a conclusion so there's no need to think this sacrosanct or silly if a person with knowledge is exploring, though we certainly don't need to believe it's true either. It could just be interesting and that's enough, though I know I can't make five eggs out of a double of two eggs.

But I've come around to denying Quine and thinking philosophy is different from science -- so I'd say postmodernism is philosophy, and mathematics is science, so the relationship is a bit open to explore and depends upon particulars.

I hear you. I find the range of ideas which flow around the categories of post structuralism and post modernism very interesting. The antipathy they frequently generate makes it even more fascinating. On this site I’m mostly interested in the conversations we create. If I were of a studious disposition I’d probably just read books and avoid untheorised fora opinions.

But I've come around to denying Quine and thinking philosophy is different from science -- so I'd say postmodernism is philosophy, and mathematics is science, so the relationship is a bit open to explore and depends upon particulars. — Moliere

In crude terms, the various strands of thinking often loosely described as postmodern seem to be a form of skepticism and a disavowal of metanarratives and foundationalism. They are also known for relativism and perspectivism. From conceptual frames like this, I wonder how math and its underlying assumptions are understood. Particularly given maths status as a universal language, with exceptional effectiveness.

Joshs said something interesting here:

You’re right to see maths as a central concern of pomo thinkers. They recognize that the essence of modern science is the marriage of the pure mathematical idealizations invented by Greek and pre-Greek cultures and observation of the empirical world. The peculiar notion of exactitude which is the goal of scientific description has its origin in this pairing. — Joshs

This notion of 'mathematical idealizations' which are essentially empty seems a promising direction as per below -Derrida followed by Joshs

“I can manipulate symbols without animating them, in an active and actual manner, with the attention and intention of signification…Numbers, as numbers, have no meaning; they can squarely be said to have no meaning, not even plural meaning. …Numbers have no present or signified content. And, afortiori, no absolute referent. This is why they don't show anything, don't tell anything, don't represent anything, aren't trying to say anything. Or more precisely, the moment of present meaning, of “content,” is only a surface effect.”

The contentlessness of numeration leads to the fascinating fact that its components originate at different times and in different parts of the world as a human construction designed for certain purposes . And yet, even though these constructions emerged as contingent historical skills, their empty core of the identical ‘again and again’ allows them to be universally understood. — Joshs

Derrida, writing in Margins of Philosophy, says:

Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written (in the usual sense of this opposition), as a small or large unity, can be cited, put between quotation marks; thereby it can break with every given context, and engender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashion. This does not suppose that the mark is valid outside its context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center of absolute anchoring. This citationality, duplication, or duplicity, this iterability of the mark is not an accident or anomaly, but is that (normal/abnormal) without which a mark could no longer even have a so-called “normal” functioning. What would a mark be that one could not cite? And whose origin could not be lost on the way?

I guess I've been curious how this approach applies to maths. What does it say about the certainty and universal reliability of equations?

, , interesting then that this thread so quickly ceased to be about mathematics and became instead a discussion of the opinions of the various PoMo theorists.

All topics are connected by finitely many degrees of separation.

Golly this was 7 years ago: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/512/reading-group-derridas-voice-and-phenomenon/p1

That's where I'd start because @Joshs mentioned Husserl's understanding of mathematics and Derrida is critiquing Husserl's interpretation of the sign from the deconstructive perspective -- at least if we want to generate thoughts from a text roughly in line with the ideas of the thinkers, though we'd have to apply some interpretive leaps from Derrida to Husserl in conversation.

At least as a thought.

After that -- I think the certainties of mathematics can easily be accommodated to the uncertainties of a given post-modern philosophy. The interesting bit is how you do it, and I agree it's interesting but you're asking a question that's hard without more textual fidelity, imo. Though a historicist would say that.... :D

Not too surprising, I think. At least if I'm right that science and philosophy are different, and math is science.

:up:

At least if I'm right that science and philosophy are different, and math is science. — Moliere

Heidegger argued that modern philosophy from Descartes to Nietzsche is grounded in a particular notion of the mathematical which founds the modern conception of science. With Descartes is born the contemporary philosophical metaphysics of the subject-object binary. The subject posits the object via an axiomatic method that defines in advance what it means to be an object, and in this way the modern notion of the mathematical becomes the basis of what subject and object are.

Mathematical method is not one piece of equipment of science among others but the primary component out of which is first de­termined what can become object and how it becomes an object…

Descartes does not doubt because he is a skeptic; rather, he must become a doubter because he posits the mathe­matical as the absolute ground and seeks for all knowledge a foundation that will be in accord with it. It is a question not only of finding a fundamental law for the realm of nature, but finding the very first and highest basic principle for the being of what is, in general. This absolutely mathematical principle cannot have anything in front of it and cannot allow what might be given to it beforehand.

This objectifying of whatever is, is accomplished in a setting-before, a representing, that aims at bringing
each particular being before it in such a way that man who calculates can be sure, and that means be certain, of
that being. We first arrive at science as research when and only when truth has been transformed into the
certainty of representation. What it is to be is for the first time defined as the objectiveness of representing, and
truth is first defined as the certainty of representing, in the metaphysics of Descartes. The whole of modern metaphysics taken together, Nietzsche included, maintains itself within the interpretation of what it is to be and of truth that was prepared by Descartes.

Eugene Gendlin’s analysis helps to clarify Heidegger’s comments:

There is a serial procedure employed in counting. In this procedure we obtain various numbers because we always keep in mind the units al­ready counted. Our counting “synthesizes” (puts to­gether) fourteen and another, another, and another. We keep what we have with us as we add another same unit. Our own continuity as we count gets us to the higher number. As Kant phrased it, without the unity of the “I think,” there would be only the one unit counted now, and no composition of numbers. We get from fourteen to seventeen by taking fourteen with us as we go on to add another, another, and another.

Thus, our activity of thinking provides both the series of uniform steps and the uniting of them into quantities. These units and numbers are our own notches, our own “another,” our own unity, and our own steps. Why do two plus two equal four? The steps are always the same; hence, the second two involves steps of the same sort as the first two, and both are the same uniform steps as counting to four. Thus, the basic mathematical composing gives science its uniform unitlike “things” and derivable com­positions. Therefore, everything so viewed
becomes amenable to mathematics.

But Heidegger terms the modern model of things
“mathematical” for a second reason. He argues that “mathematical” means “‘axiomatic”’: the basic nature
of things has been posited as identical to the steps of
our own proceeding, our own pure reasoning. The laws
of things are the logical necessity of reason’s own steps
posited as laws of nature. It is this that makes the model “mathematical” and explains why mathematics
acquired such an important role. The everywhere-equal
units of the space of uniform motion of basically uni­form bodies are really only posited axioms. They are the
uniform steps of pure, rational thought, put up as axioms
of nature. Descartes had said it at its “coldest” and most extreme: Only a method of reducing everything
to the clear and distinct steps of rational thinking grasps
nature.

Is not such an approach simply unfounded? Every­thing may follow from the starting assumptions, but what
are they based upon? How can that be a valid method?
Heidegger says that the axiomatic method lays its own
ground . He thus gives the term “axiomatic” a
meaning it does not always have: he makes it reflexive
(as Descartes’ method was ). “Axiomatic” means not only
to postulate axioms and then deduce from them; it does
not refer to just any unfounded assumptions one might
posit and deduce from. Rather, Heidegger emphasizes that the axioms that rational thought posits assert the nature of rational thought itself. Axiomatic thought posits itself as the world’s outline. It is based on itself. It creates the model of the world, not only by but as its own steps of thought. As we have seen, it is rational thought that has uniform unit steps and their composits, logical neces­sity and so forth. The axiomatic ground-plan of nature is
simply the plan of the nature of rational thought as­serted of nature. This, then, is the basic “mathematical”
character of modern science. It is founded on the “‘axio­matic” method of “pure reason,” which, as we shall see,
Kant retains but limits.

I did read have a cursory read of Izmirli's piece which you provided. Aside from the historical survey I wasn't quite sure what the piece was saying. I was just pointing out that people's take on postmodernism varies. In this case, White versus joshs. It seems to me that joshs was making the point that White has it wrong. — Tom Storm

What's odd is that the article, which @Joshs pilloried, makes much the same point as he makes.

It specifically provides an example of where a re-situated 2x5=1 is true.

It also presents a sympathetic account of PoMo pedagogy in maths.

No pleasing some folk.

Pomo authors like Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida often get blamed for the excesses of wokism and cancel culture, when in fact the repressive moralism coming from these movements is attributable to such doctrines as Critical Race Theory, and figures like Franz Fanon and Antonio Gramsci. These approaches are heavily influenced by Marx and psychoanalysis, which are put into question by pomo writers like Foucault and Derrida.
— Joshs

:ok: Very well put. Actors such as JBP and Shapiro are doing a disservice to their own cause when they bring up Derrida and Foucault, all the while the people they want to fight are seldom named — some might say they are poisoning the swamp, but realistically they are just ignorant... — Lionino

The irony...

It's Critical Theory, not 'Critical Race Theory'. You should read it.

It's Critical Theory... not 'Critical Race Theory'. You should read it. — creativesoul

Both exist and one is derived from the other. The post I replied to specifically said the latter. I have much better stuff in my reading list, that is especially clear to me when I see that "reading Critical Theory" has not taught you how to use an ellipsis.

The whole point of the "9/11 didn't happen," meme popular on places like 4chan isn't that people actually think that the government falsified the construction of the Twin Towers in some objective sense, and then faked an attack on non-existent buildings. That would be too ridiculous even for those circles. The point is that history is whatever people in power say it is (and that Alt-Right activists possess this same power to change history). Objective history is inaccessible, a myth. The history we live with is malleable. It's a joke, but a joke aimed at an in-crowd who has come to see the past as socially constructed.

This is what is normally refered to as anti-realism in philosophy of history at least.


Are there people who really believe that Taylor Swift's entire career was a "psyop" to build up a media figure who could be leveraged for political gains? I'm sure there are, but the whole wave of attacks on her has an air unreality. The audience isn't supposed to see it as objective truth, the point is precisely that it is ridiculous, as this gets it into the mainstream media which in turn makes it real in a way, because once something is in mass media then people need to take a side based on their identity allegiances. It's trolling, which is at the heart of the Alt-Right. And at the heart of that sort of political trolling is the same sort of "performative transgression," you see in third wave feminist actions like the "Slut Walk."

This is a movement that happily rejoiced in the term "alternative facts."

Another main route for anti-realism to enter the far-right has been through esoterica, particularly Julius Evola and Rene Guenon. On places like 4chan it is not rare to have people talking about tulpas, creating realities through concentrated thought — thinking something is true makes it so — although this generally partially ironic (like everything in the Alt-Right). Hence, their God who was created from memetic energy or whatever. Everything is ironic and unreal, a sort of trolling of the "real" to show its total groundlessness. The Christchurch shooter covered his weapons in meme jokes because even terror attacks are covered in a level of irony and unreality, DFW's sincere post-irony in the flesh.

The subtext behind declaring every mass shooting a "hoax" is that "you can never be sure what is happening in current events." In a world where consensus reality has collapsed, identity has primacy and determines the world narrative. Daniel Friberg doesn't urge "rebutting" or "debunking" leftist "lies" but "deconstructing their narratives" in "metapolitical warfare." When Mark Brahmin lays out his plan for a new religion based on worship of Apollo he is not claiming the Greco-Roman gods are "real," but that they were real and can be again. (And we can consider all the neopagans and the ubiquitous references to "LARPing" here too.)

Adherents to this religion are meant to forge religious Männerbünde: elite male groups of cultural critics and creators, metapolitical warriors. Their goal? The overthrow of "Saturn"—representative of perceived dysgenic, anti-Aryan forces in religion, politics, and society—followed by the establishment of a Nordicist "eugenic cult" and the erection of Apollonian temples and idols

This certainly looks a look like the campus projects that grew out of continental philosophy at least.

Both exist and one is derived from the other. — Lionino

Indeed.

Critical race theory can be thought of as a paradigm that goes all the way back to the Frankfurt school of critical theory. What the theorists were arguing is that, in order to understand modern society, you have to pay attention to the power relationships among members and groups.

https://news.temple.edu/news/2021-08-05/untangling-controversy-around-critical-race-theory