Here, I am suggesting that even though postmodernism comes with potential problems, in that it can give rise to a collapse of values, the insights of modernity and postmodernism are important for enabling critical analysis. — Jack Cummins

Out of interest, Jack - what do you think are a couple of useful insights post-modernism has given us?

Probably the context in which I have followed through the ideas of postmodernism is within sociology and it is on this level that I think it is useful. I would not advocate postmodernism to be the point where self reflection is undervalued. I do believe that this aspect of modernism is so important and needs to triumph in spite of other aspects of philosophy we adopt.

I am really interested in Lacan's work on psychoanalysis and his book, 'The Psychoses', although I have only read parts of it. I am also interested in Baudrillard's idea of simulacrum. However, I am in the position of having only read a little on these areas of thought and do wish to explore them in further depth.

Politically, aesthetically and emotionally, no one seems to much like the present time, no one seems to praise the modern and most folk seem afraid of the post-modern and the future. People seem to be going for pre-modernism. — Tom Storm

I do like the present time. I'm as happy now as I've ever been. I do think we may be in a very dangerous period. It seems like all of science at once has advanced to the point where we can modify the very ground of our existence. It started with nuclear weapons, but now it includes genetics, computer science, biology, physics. There are those who speculate that the reason we've never run into any aliens is that when a civilization advances to where ours is, it kills itself off. I worry for my children.

When people go on about the good old days, I usually say "Yeah, back in the days when only white people could vote and we could beat up gay people." But... I also think stable families are important. Parents rather than the government should be the primary force in a child's life. There is value in having a mother and a father. Marriage and sexual responsibility are valuable. Subsidiarity works best - social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level that is consistent with their resolution. We should know our history and value, be grateful to, those who came before us.

I usually say "Yeah, back in the good old days when black people couldn't vote and we could beat up gay people. — T Clark

Yeah... I do pretty much the same.

What you say is wise and useful TC. I like the present time too, but I have met very few people in my extended circle who do. I'm particularly fascinated by young people who talk of the good old days they have not known - when products were better made, when music, art and writing was better, when the world was cleaner and free. They sound like baby boomers. But it's just possible I have made too much of this...

What you say is wise and useful TC. I like the present time too, but I have met very few people in my extended circle who do. — Tom Storm

If you don't mind - how old are you? I'm 69. I won't be offended if you don't want to say.

55

Well, I suppose that depends on where you live and the political-economic situation of your community and region ...

— 180 Proof

:smile:
I do wish I had your way with words and a smidgeon of your knowledge of philosophical isms. — Amity

I know what you mean. I also turn a little green when I see what is floating in the stew @180 Proof dishes up. But I also remind myself of the old wisdom, "Be careful what you wish for!"

Ok. So no hints for general approaches?

"General approaches" are ahistorical, or context-free, and not concrete enough, or insufficiently focused, to have much effect on exigent situations (like e.g. utopian programs, romantic ideals, "new age" nostrums & other decadent posturings).

:up:

@Jack Cummin @Tom Storm @Amity @ssu

From "post-political" to "post-truth" – what we owe the likes of Foucault, Thatcher-Reagan & MAGA: compostmodern follies redux ...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/15/michel-foucault-self-individual-politics

Modernity DOA? :mask:

I think the distinguishing mark of modern philosophy is the mathematical concept of reason. Descartes' mathematical method for solving any unknown, however powerful at its inception, has not been able to do what was hoped for. The alternative is not to abandon reason but to hold to a more modest view of reason and the limits of what it is capable of.

Yes. In the vein of Peirce and Dewey, Zapffe and Camus, Wittgenstein and Arendt, Popper and Feyerabend / Taleb, etc.

I am not modern, I am ancient. I have not recovered from the fall.

With many positions on modernity and the individual, can one say they are indifferent? Some philosophers say we are still living in modernity, for some we are in post-modernity, some say we were never modern. — Warren

I'm a neo-enlightenment philosopher!

You can't be really ancient if you've "Fallen". Just a very fucking old modern, I think.

I'll let the great George Carlin speak for me:

“I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke free. A diversified multi-cultural, post-modern deconstruction that is anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been up linked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond! I’m new wave, but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive and from time to time I’m radioactive."

:cool:

I have not recovered from the fall. — unenlightened

Adam and Eve's fall or as in "I've fallen and can't get up"? (The latter might be an US cultural reference.)

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/gods-little-rival-on-remi-bragues-the-kingdom-of-man/

I think the distinguishing mark of modern philosophy is the mathematical concept of reason... — Fooloso4

...applied to the objective domain and only interpretable in those terms.

Descartes did not limit his method to the objective domain as the term is now understood. It applies to the Meditations, questions of soul, God, and all the rest.

True, but I'm referring more to the way in which modern philosophy, or modernism, subsequently developed.

The alternative is not to abandon reason but to hold to a more modest view of reason and the limits of what it is capable of. — Fooloso4

I think the pre-modern view acknowledged that reason has its limits but it points to a source that is higher than reason.

The modern conception of reason was somewhat promethean, that man could displace God as the source of meaning. From the review linked above:

...a new “religion of Humanity” appeared in the works of the positivist school led by Auguste Comte.... The positivists believed that Humanity had to be substituted definitively for God. Modern individuals who managed to subject nature to their needs now expected to achieve full autonomy, self-sufficiency, and self-determination. They felt entitled to give value to things, and decide what is good and evil without the aid of religion or tradition; this is what Nietzsche once called the “hyperbolic naiveté of man: positing himself as the meaning and measure of the value of things.”

The implications of this shift were far-reaching. “Two centuries after the project of a domination of nature...the project of a rivalry with God appeared.” From that moment on, it dominated the agenda of modernity. Modern individuals could no longer content themselves with dominating nature: they became God’s challengers, believing that there could only be one Sovereign on earth. The result was the appearance of an exclusive, atheistic humanism that went beyond rejecting God to actively seeking to replace him with the new godlike man. As the ultraconservative Joseph de Maistre once put it, “A boundless pride leads them continually to overthrow everything they have not themselves made, and to bring about new creations.” Nothing seemed impossible anymore to modern individuals, armed with the tools of new science, technology, and knowledge that made them capable of experimenting and controlling phenomena.

I think this also shows up in the 'creative destruction' of capitalism, the unquenchable thirst for the new, for novelty, for something never before seen, and that consumes and devours anything in its path to feed this insatiable hunger.

:lol: :clap:

Roughly speaking:

'Modern' period - commenced with publication of Newton's Principia 1687.
'Post-modern' period - commenced with publication of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity 1915.

Modernity is characterised by the idea of progress, trust in science, confidence in civilized values, the idea of destiny.

Post-modernity is characterised by nihilism, distrust of meta-narratives, cultural relativism, rejection of universal values, a plurality of competing cultural and social constructs. — Wayfarer

Short & sweet! Just what the doctor ordered (for me). :up: Thanks

So, the modern period describes the first step taken by humanity in the domain of science onwards to the point when postmodernism, characterized by nihilistic worldviews and so forth, enters the scene. I'm just curious but the terminology is a bit confusing - modernism and postmodernism give off the impression that the two are related in ways other than simple temporal succession, as if something happened that effected this transition from modern to postmodern. My question to you is, what brought about this shift in outlook, attitude?

World War 1 - the spectre of appalling savagery and loss of life in the heart of Europe; and the subsequent discovery of relativity and quantum physics, which undermined faith in the mechanistic model of the universe that had reigned after Newton.

‘Things fall apart
The centre cannot hold’

~W B Yeats.

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
~Also Sprach Zarathustra

The modern conception of reason was somewhat promethean, that man could displace God as the source of meaning. — Wayfarer

More precisely: reason dispenses with God-of-the-gaps "explanations" and (over)interpretations of such non-explanations (i.e. "mysteries" "visions" "divinations" etc). It's the mathematization of Logos translating Mythos (i.e. asymptotically collapsing the woo-of-the-gaps paths of least mental effort vestiges of the pre-Bronze Age) which has inaugurated modern philosophy. "Meaning" denotes relevance derived from context; the only constant in our civilizational context is accelerando (towards extinction or apotheosis?) so that the future is "the source of meaning", not "the new" or "the latest", but the always not-yet or sublime, temporal singularity of unknown unknowns – unbounded immanence (Spinoza contra-ultra Descartes).

Prometheus' stolen gift to humankind: the fire in which we burn. What we can make of that, how making can remake us in this crucible-process, is the modern source of meaning. Barely four centuries underway out ten or so millennia of blinkered striving, not nearly long enough to adequately judge and condemn this era's significance in contrast to the demon-haunted candlelit darkness that came before; another several centuries more at least for a 1:10 comparison... What are you perennial (or p0m0) mysterians, mystifiers & mythagogues so afraid of, Wayfarer? :fire: :eyes:

You've got it all backwards. Man didn't challenge God. Man challenged a book about God, and a war mongering, corrupt institution built on that book, and got burnt at the stake for his troubles! Your post is gloating over the fact that religion has successfully undermined science - by putting Galileo on trial for heresy, and encouraging subjectivist philosophy, starting with Descartes, to the exclusion of the objective.

Maybe you think you are going to Heaven, and so it doesn't matter to you that depriving science of recognition as the means to establish valid knowledge of reality has allowed government and industry to abuse science, and apply technology badly, or worse, madly - until the human species is looking extinction in the face!

But for me, it matters that humankind is headed for extinction. My claim on immortality is not supernatural - but genetic, intellectual and economic. If I do not belong to a species with a future, everything is at best, mere masturbation!

Your refusal to take these accusations seriously shows your moral vacuity. If someone accused me of genocide, I'd take care not to appear to gloat over it!

"Meaning" denotes relevance derived from context; the only constant in our civilizational context is accelerando (towards extinction or apotheosis?) — 180 Proof

That's the question. I don't know if literal extinction is a threat but there's a lot of conditions short of extinction that would still be horrendous. Sometimes when I'm pushing a trolley around our lushly-merchandised supermarkets, I imagine a voice saying 'sorry, your civilization has just been cancelled on account of debts owed to the future'. Resulting in collapse of the financial sector, as damn near happened on 18th September 2008.

I don't really believe it, but I do recognise it as a possibility. Much of the world's banking system is underwritten by growth curves, but when it becomes unmistakeably clear that economic growth can't go on because of resource shortages, then I really do think there could be civilizational collapse. There are any number of catastrophes that could trigger that.

Therefore, I would have thought that development of an economic and social philosophy NOT based on consumerism and acquisition might be of vital importance. What are people going to pursue, if not endless upward mobility? What form of culture could facilitate that? I think there have to be some deep philosophical changes for that to occur.

//oh, and the Ubermensch ain't it.//