What he proved is that a leading pomo journal could not distinguish sense from nonsense. And that's a fact. — Olivier5
Starting from people studying the social sciences, which ought to use similar questioning, objectivity and try to refrain from subjectivity even if the answers cannot be gotten by performing laboratory tests as in the natural sciences. At least that I was taught in the university while studying economics and economic history.Do you have a sort of person in mind? Scientists should use the scientific method. In my view more things should take a scientific approach. But it can't be forced on people. — Kenosha Kid
I was talking from the scientist's point of view. Science rolls on pretty merrily amid, for instance, every thread you've seen on here declaring that science doesn't work! It's pretty resilient. Which only makes it more unwise to go off on one when it is criticised. The threat of 'science being undermined' was just never credible imo. — Kenosha Kid
Philosophical movements seldom have clear aims or objectives. Their impact comes from basically how they effect or alters the debate / discourse and just what kind of studies, investigations and research is done. What kind of research it crowds out. That still can have a major effect.I don't think postmodernism is aiming to take over the running of the state and, if it did, my principle concern wouldn't be for the health of scientific research. Postmodernism concerns discourse. Religion's need to dominate and crush doesn't obviously translate. — Kenosha Kid
Philosophical movements seldom have clear aims or objectives. — ssu
Starting from people studying the social sciences, which ought to use similar questioning, objectivity and try to refrain from subjectivity even if the answers cannot be gotten by performing laboratory tests as in the natural sciences. — ssu
I just think it is unwise to reject empirical validation (or refutation) as it turns philosophy into a freewheeling imaginative discourse. I see the idea by Rorty et aliquem (e.g. Quine, so it was not just a pomo idea) that we should dispose of a representationalist account of knowledge and language as literally beyond philosophy and science, as an invitation to treat philosophy and science as just another kind of literature. — Olivier5
What according to you then is the scientific method?This seems to be the sort of totalitarianism of metanarrative that's in dispute. I'm not sure that can be the answer. If the objection is that it's called 'science' (however soft), yeah I agree. — Kenosha Kid
Science is most definitely a social construct. Personally this doesn't injure my ego any: I had no illusions that science was anything other than something people do, disseminated via language. Perhaps your conception is closer to divine revelation. — Kenosha Kid
Ok, I edited my text to say scifi instead of literature.In terms of literature, scientists also call it "the literature" — Kenosha Kid
Not only do I agree with you that empirical validation is essential, I'd say that postmodernism has nothing at all to say about facts generally, and Rorty agrees. It only concerns texts, including texts about facts. If facts are critical -- and we agree that they are -- then it is all the more important that we minimise the bullshit in our narratives about those facts. — Kenosha Kid
Yes.Evidently science is a social construct, but
it is constructed via a certain method, which combines observations, hypotheses building aka modeling, and sharing and critiquing. Not everything goes. One has to anchor one's models in observations aka facts. — Olivier5
What according to you then is the scientific method?
Or you think the scientific method is a totalitarian metanarrative? Very postmodernist. — ssu
Evidently science is a social construct, but
it is constructed via a certain method, which combines observations, hypotheses building aka modeling, and sharing and critiquing. Not everything goes. One has to anchor one's models in observations aka facts. — Olivier5
That is precisely the value of Pomo to me: to make scientists (and others) better aware of the permanent presence of cultural a priori and biases in their own mind, as unsaid, unarticulated présuppositions, as these permeates their work more that they sometime should. — Olivier5
I mean, would speaking about science be necessarily a narrative? It can take the form of a narrative, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. Describing what photons do when they hit the eye or why the Earth goes around the sun is an explanation of observable facts. — Manuel
This however doesn't clear up why postmodern lenses are an improvement over mitigated skepticism, for example. — Manuel
And occasionally, thanks to the Sokals of this world. As you recognized, it's important to minimize the level of bullshit. It cuts both ways: humanities can occasionally humble scientists and scientists (such as Sokals) can occasionally humble humanities... :-)Well that's one value, and one that science has done very well out of despite the Sokals of the world. — Kenosha Kid
If facts are critical -- and we agree that they are -- then it is all the more important that we minimise the bullshit in our narratives about those facts. — Kenosha Kid
Sure. Even Derrida himself can be deconstructed.But pomo isn't limited to science, it's any text or discourse.
Right. Of course, who here is saying that science is the only way to do anything, Kenosha Kid?The narrative here is that science is the best and only way to do anything, and so social studies and science studies should be scientific, right? That's a totalitarian metanarrative (as Lyotard would have it, and I'd agree). — Kenosha Kid
art can depict reality, but that doesn't make it science or an academic study. And nobody should have any problem with this. — ssu
Science uses the same method again and again. Philosophy looks back at what has been pondered in philosophy and builds on that. Hence the German romanticism or even postmodernism are quite logical ways to try to think about reality in a different way. Yet many times these new ideas don't overthrow anything that has become before, even if some people think that they have done so.how is this progress different from the progress of science. — Joshs
Sure. Even Derrida himself can be deconstructed. — Olivier5
And therein lies p0m0's self-subsuming self-refutation just like relativism, global skepticism, nihilism – categorical deflations, or negations, which necessarily apply to themselves as well. Derrida deferred. — 180 Proof
Pretty much everything on earth is. Even the landscape in most places is anthropic. — Olivier5
Right. Of course, who here is saying that science is the only way to do anything, Kenosha Kid?
Absolutely nobody. — ssu
Starting from people studying the social sciences, which ought to use similar questioning, objectivity and try to refrain from subjectivity even if the answers cannot be gotten by performing laboratory tests as in the natural sciences. — ssu
The basic problem in my view is that postmodernism is basically criticism of something depicted vaguely as modernism, yet unfortunately to understand it one should first clearly know and understand what is criticized in the first place. That usually is what is missing. — ssu
Because if what you are taught only is what Foucault, Derrida and etc. have written without starting from those "age old white men from the Enlightenment"...( — ssu
Far too easily, and I can remember this from decades ago, the student who had studied contemporary social history (with postmodernism or similar ideas) would use the observation that "science is a social construct" as a refutation, something that questions a scientific hypothesis. — ssu
Well, that is the actual worry.. If that is the state of social studies across universities, then it seems we have a totalitarian metanarrative on our hands — Kenosha Kid
Yes, you do find those types too. Those are the ones who get angry at you if you refer to philosophy when they are talking about science. Usually they, as sometimes happens here in PF, simply assume to know already where the discussion is going when the words "social construct" are uttered, and they assume they have to take a stance to defend their cherished science. It's no wonder strawman arguments are so popular.But likewise you'll still find today people who see "science is a social construct" as a blasphemy or assault. — Kenosha Kid
What I'd be interested to hear is how post-modernism has changed people's thinking or enhanced their experience of art/culture/philosophy/knowledge in any way. — Tom Storm
But I do think it's person dependent, in terms of getting value of certain philosophers. Some get lots of value from Levinas others from Quine or Carnap. Likewise with Derrida or Husserl or Hegel. It's not even that continental is obscure whereas analytic is clear, that's often not true. — Manuel
The mosquitoes near my house are very misanthropic, and I have red lumpy legs to prove it. — Kenosha Kid
On the contrary, your red lumpy legs indicate that mosquitoes like you quite a lot. — Olivier5
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