However, I would think that someone like you would be concerned when serious physicists like Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont show how many of the figures belonging in this school of thought, make science a total metaphor, making meaningless statements about how math and physics relate to politics or power. — Manuel
Parisian pomo's — Manuel
Agreed, and he lambasted Derrida's 'obscurantist terrorism', as reported by Searle.Foucault could be quite clear
France has moved on, I think. — Manuel
Foucault, Deleuze & Eco I'd found were worth the trouble; — 180 Proof
What gets me in the willful obscurantism. If they have something to say, say it clearly. Foucault could be quite clear when he wanted to. To say that there are many different perspectives and that one should be critical of what scientists say, is not particularly hard to state or understand, I don't think. — Manuel
Umberto Eco? I love him but never saw him as Pomo... ? — Olivier5
But then arguably structuralism is also postmodern, at least insofar as it attacks meaning in written language, which is the language of philosophy, science, etc. — Kenosha Kid
Semipomo — Kenosha Kid
True, but not a pomo-specific thing. I think more a French and German thing, right? (I'm thinking of the French and German existentialists in particular.) Lyotard, of what I've read, isn't particularly difficult in the scheme of things. — Kenosha Kid
France used to be different, they strove for clarity as seen in Descartes, Diderot and so on. — Manuel
I don't think such manipulation of scientific discourse was happening before Pomo. Maybe I'm wrong, but the idea is that the current post-truth moment is a child of Pomo. — Olivier5
He's a borderline case in my book – post-structuralist, aesthetician, mixed-genres novelist, cultural critic – a medievalist who reads a lot of medievalism in 'modernity', and not anti-modern at all, just interpreting 'the modern' as a (subliminal/semiotic) medieval masquerade. Joyce & Borges, I believe, are Eco's literary influences too.Umberto Eco? I love him but never saw him as Pomo... ? — Olivier5
Searle admired Foucault. And Foucault was a brilliant thinker. His critique of Derrida is that obscurity is a way to avoid critique and accountability, because it makes it facile to say that the critique 'does not understand'. He did not say that any and all of Derrida is books was worthless, but that Derrida was too facile in his rejection of other philosophers' critique.
That's the main problem I personally see with some pomo texts and authors, which tend to think 'en roue libre' (free wheeling) i.e. without subjecting their thought to empirical refutation or critical analysis. Too facile. — Olivier5
Rest assured that not every French philosophers tries to impress his or her audience with jargon, and I'm pretty sure there exist obscure charlatans in English-language philosophy too. — Olivier5
This just smacks of anti-intellectualism. If you can’t understand the French writers, then so be it. But don’t blame them for your difficulties. — Joshs
such as Badiu and Lacan. But not Derrida or Deleuze. They were trying to convey new and difficult concepts, so the appearance of obscurity goes along with the territory. — Joshs
I put most effort in trying to understand Deleuze. The book by Claire Colebrook was inscrutable, all it did wad repeat the word "difference" many times over. Other books, like his alphabet, just repeated the words with no insight. Eventually I just read many parts of A Thousand Plateaus, I got some fancy vocab and a vague idea, but not the rewards one would expect given the effort put in. — Manuel
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