… According to Lefty Tim. There’s a sense in which he’s right, although he probably doesn’t know it. There’s no doubt that a postmodern epistemology has some defensible aspects, but as I’ve argued before, it’s not new and it can easily slip into a sort of nominalism. Nevertheless, postmodernism has contributed to an awareness in the social sciences of the undeniable truth that there is no single truth - there is no Archimedean point from which you can view the world objectively. This point, though, is probably better captured by feminist epistemologies and weak versions of social constructionism in sociology. The problem with denying that there is any truth (coloured as our view of it may be by where we stand) is that it has the tendency to undermine argument, debate and rationality, as is well demonstrated by the Bushite view of the world as a script that Empire can write. Postmodernism, though originally an academic movement of the left, now has objectively right wing consequences.
I think what’s at stake here is nicely articulated by the British philosopher Simon Blackburn:
There are real standards. We must fight soggy nihilism, scepticism and cynicism. We must not believe that anything goes. We must not believe that all opinion is ideology, that reason is only power, that there is no truth to prevail. Without defences against postmodern irony and cynicism, and relativism, we will all go to hell in a handbasket.
The consequences of ethical relativism are clear from the “debate” over torture.
Similarly, there is no doubt that there is such a thing as cultural value, again coloured as our judgements are by factors such as social class and nationality, as well as the hierarchies of high culture. In that vein, I think Georg has made a very sound argument at Stack (perhaps in reaction to a net quiz which found that she was a postmodernist:
Surely the learning of literature should be just that, about literature. I know, I’ve done years of undergraduate pomo work, anything can be a text these days. Well, anything can be read as a text but that doesn’t actually mean it’s any good. Obviously, the criteria by which something is judged to be ‘good’ has been heavily weighted by non-literary measures in the past, but this doesn’t mean we have to put Barbara Cartland on a par with Jane Austen.
If the kids can handle the classics, give them the classics. Give them just above what they can handle, push them, but not too far that they are turned off books for life. Sometimes reading is like muesli, it might taste like shit but you just know it’s doing you good…
To accept this argument does not imply elitism, or an uncritical reading of the classics. Nor does it imply that ideology in texts ought not to be studied, or a belief that the “Western Canon” is some sort of eternal essence. It does imply that we shouldn’t sell people short by denying access to classic texts which stimulate reflection in this culture and about this culture and its relation both to its interior and exterior. The position taken by the late and much lamented and very great critic Edward Said, author of Orientalism. Said expertly analysed the books of Jane Austen and Joseph Conrad, for instance, for what they said about the ideological structures which supported Imperialism and racist hierarchies. But he also recognised their great value as literature, and the value of understanding the cultural tradition which continues to shape our social and political lifeworlds. If we turn our backs on the study of such texts, and of religious motifs at the heart of Western culture, to take another example, then we disable our own ability to change our lifeworld for the better. Because if we don’t understand the world first, we can hardly change it.
Said wrote in Secular Criticism:
“Textuality” is the somewhat mystical and disinfected subject matter of literary theory. Textuality has therefore become the exact antithesis and displacement of what might be called history. Textuality is considered to take place, yes, but by the same token it does not take place anywhere or anytime in particular. It is produced, but by no one and at no time. It can be read and interpreted, although reading and interpreting are routinely understood to occur in the form of misreading and misinterpreting. The list of examples could be extended indefinitely, but the point would remain the same. As it is practiced in the American academy today, literary theory has for the most part isolated textuality from the circumstances, the events, the physical senses that made it possible and render it intelligible as the result of human work..
That’s my kind of cultural studies.
The irony with postmodern relativism is that on the left, it acts as a depoliticising force, drawing attention away from material inequalities and focussing instead on naming identities and reifying popular culture. To the exclusion of any engagement with the single most powerful forces for inequality in the world today - Imperialism and neo-liberal capitalism. The right, by contrast, employs postmodern relativism politically - to reshape the world and rename phenomena strategically in its image. It is therefore a severe mistake for the left to abandon rationality and truth. The result will not be a utopian world where playful irony rules, but rather the prison of language where the actual factors shaping inequality and alienation can no longer be named for what they are, or contested.
Elsewhere: John Quiggin reiterates the theme developed over a long period of time by Australian left bloggers that right-wing postmodernism is extremely dangerous. Writing about the same article John discusses, where E. J. Dionne argues that “conservative activists have become the new postmodernists”, Tim Dunlop makes a powerful point:
For the left, pomo has always been of interest as a philosophical position, applicable in theoretically interesting ways across a rage of disciplines, from architecture to literature. When the logic of it began seeping into political discussions, as it did via the works of Foucault and Said for instance, there was an immediate reaction from within the left pointing out the dangers and the ultimate futility of abnadoning capital-T Truth in favour of postmodern deferment to power. The left policed itself very well in terms of pushing back against any tendency to judge political issues on the basis of anything other than the facts at hand.
Wait a minute. After having liberated themselves from the shackles of absolute truth, the literary and other theorists find something valuable has been lost? Golly, I guess this is what is meant by unintended consequences. An earlier, blunter generation would say what else could be expected from what they called educated fools.
Jerry, on the one hand each individual is an isolate with an individual consciousness, trapped in his/her own experience, without any absolute proof of the existence of anything else.
On the other hand our consciousness is nothing if not socially constructed and we are inevitably part of an ocean of consciousness.
We tend to live in the tension of this polarity.
Similarly on a physical level the skin can be seen as defining us or an eminently permeable zone.
So in matters of Truth we tend to live in the tension between the desire for the absolute and the experience of relativism, with language and symbol systems both key and a complication.
I’m not saying these dualities can’t be resolved, but it is not easy and then not easy to communicate.
Altogether a fantastic post, Mark.
Having just read the quote at Stack, I just have to say this: What IS the problem with putting Margaret Atwood and other “modern” writers alongside Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare? There is nothing wrong with introducing students to good modern literature alongside that of the canon. To say otherwise is just simple bah-humbugism.
No-one is suggesting in the boston.com article that Stack points to, that anyone has to put “Barbara Cartland on a par with Jane Austen”.
Bret Easton Ellis, Don DeLillo, or JG Ballard, maybe (well, they are probably not suitable for high school, by which i mean the moral guardian set wouldn’t like their novels being read by teenagers, but you get the general idea). The debate in the boston.com article is about the quality of literature presented to high school students, and I’m pretty sure we will nearly always have that debate. In my view this is a debate that always ebbs and flows back and forth setting alight various useless straw men and this is yet another of them.
It’s interesting that people get grumpy about “postmodernism”, increasingly it is a term that is postmodernist in itself as it can be made to mean anything the author likes, or as is the usual case, dislikes.
It is objectively true that John Howard played the key role in shutting down the people smuggling mafia - thus preventing the drowning of probably hundreds of people by now. The left wants to put the Asian dons in business again. Who knows why? Tim Dunlop’s argument that the left has ably policed itself as regards adherence to truth is almost Monty Pythonesque in its hilarity. It was the left that spent 30 or more years destroying objectivism in academe (even colonising hard science). When John Paul II issued Veritatis Splendor he was castigated and pilloried. By the left.
So is Postmodernism another left-wing boomerang, like identity politics? That would be poetic justice.
Great post Mark. Yes, look, I think the understanding that politics has many symbolic elements, and the struggle is therefore to define (rather than reveal, qua Marxism)the interests and identities at stake in a conflict has been a positive to social theory.
The problem has been - the failure of pomos to realise that discourses are often strategic in nature, are employed, by actors, to certain ends. An yes, maybe they cant control the larger meanings of them, sure, but they refine and adapt them to suit certain intersubjectively agreed interests.
Plus, much the time they do so, its to further a conception of their rights, as a means of addressing material goals.
In other words - its a war of position, pomo!
The thing that makes me laugh is how contradcitory it all is. If we cant privelege certain knowledges - then why am I reading you pomo? I might as well talk to my cat.
The horrible unspoken secret of the pomo brigade is that want to privelege the knoweldge of intellecuals, over other, more earthy social actors.
You know, CL, just because you say one thing means another, doesn’t make it so. What is this “left” you speak of? The postmodernists who attacked objectivism? That’s circular reasoning. But it’s nothing that rational, reality-based empricists haven’t come to expect from the deferring-to-power, make-it-up-as-you-go-along “right” wing.
Science, especially the “hard” kind, in my understanding of it, is founded on empiricism, not objectivism. So when you say objectivist, do you mean the naturalist objectivism or the non-naturalist kind? Or do you mean to speak of logical postivism, rationalism, or Popper’s theory of falsification of scientific conjectures? But what the hell would I know, I’m only an engineer, and speaking as one who is trained in both the hard arts of designing machines that work, and soft art of literature and history, I must be some sort of irredeemable postmodernist leftie because I can make a distinction between a theory about novels and a theory about neutrinos.
I think that it is fairly empirically established that when these sorts of attacks on “the left” and their supposed irrationalism emanate from the conservative rhetorical apparatus, they are ideological and very rarely grounded on any scientific, rational, or scholarly basis of fact.
I think that just about sums it up. My understanding was always that for at least some strucuralists those strategic natures where of primary importance. So given that postmodernists are seen as the inheritors of the strucuralist project, what went wrong?
Here’s a wild guess Rex. No sensible person understood what in the hell they were talking about - including them.
Rex, going back a couple of comments - Margaret Atwood’s place in the canon is secure, as is Don DeLillo’s, according to Harold Bloom (’The Western Canon’). There’s never been an objection to studying great modern literature along with great old literature, as far as I know. I studied Salinger, O’Neill and Tennessee Williams in high school two or three decades ago.
And:
‘…but rather the prison of language where the actual factors shaping inequality and alienation can no longer be named for what they are, or contested.’
A bit pessimistic, Mark? No discourse has ever achieved hegemony, even when backed by the full coercive power of the state. Nor has any mythology silenced the alternative meanings of the sign. There has always been resistance, and the excavation of heretical readings. I think there always will be.
Perhaps I should have clarified, Rob, I don’t have a problem at all with modern literature being taught - I wasn’t endorsing all of the quote. I’m thinking more of placing popular culture texts on the same level as literature or teaching them instead of literature.
I’m not personally much of an Atwood fan, but I like DeLillo.
On your last point - yes, I agree, I’m just articulating my particular resistance. I’m probably prone to a bit of apocalypticism sometimes. Must be that Catholic thing!
I love Atwood, especially ‘Alias Grace’.
An excellent post Mark. I think the application of your thoughts to cultural and literary value are spot on.
I find, however, the following sentence of your post somewhat problematical.
“Nevertheless, postmodernism has contributed to an awareness in the social sciences of the undeniable truth that there is no single truth - there is no Archimedean point from which you can view the world objectively.”
To my mind, this is a very interesting, but strong, philosophical assertion and raises at least three deep issues concerning the nature of truth, of “objectivity” and of theoretical and factual assertions. I feel that various distinctions between these notions and that you may be conflating some of these ideas.
I accept that “factual” assertions involving the nature of the world are inevitably “theory laden” and that this is what you may mean by “objectivity”. But I wouldn’t accept that it necessarily follows that there is “no single truth” or the possibility of “objectivity” in a stronger sense than that of the theory-infused nature of factual statements.
I believe that pomo runs into a lot of trouble by drawing ontic and epistemic implications on the basis of a supposed “relativity” of truth or the impossibility of objectivity and by inadequately arguing in support of these theses.
To clarify, Gaby - two points:
(a) I think our notion of truth differs whether we are talking about making sense of social realities or making statements about physical phenomena. In analytic philosophy, it’s normally assumed that a truth-statement covers both and I think in fact we’re talking about two different types of speech act and “truth”.
For instance, if I assert “Australia is a classless society” - how can this be verified? Empirically perhaps, but the interpretation and selection of the empirical evidence is dependent on a prior decision about what constitutes the category “class” as well as what would be the relevant test. It’s a statement very different in form from “that is a rock” but even here the access we have to classificatory types is linguistically and culturally mediated.
My answer to the first question will depend largely on a whole host of social factors - some individual to me and most particular to various larger sets of which I am a member.
(b) If we are talking about the natural as opposed to the human sciences, my point about the lack of an Archimedean point still holds - ie the observer effect, the selection of a problem, the construct involved in determining what constitutes a “law of nature”, etc.
Note that none of this involves a denial that there is a reality which exists independently of our perceptions - or a purely idealist philosophy - both of which strong versions of po/mo have a tendency towards.
Gaby, if you want to have a look in more detail, but still of digestible length, at what Mark calls “the observer effect, the selection of a problem, the construct involved in determining what constitutes a ‘law of nature’, etc”, have a look at this article by Harold Williamson.
It seems that things go pretty squishy in science when you look for underlying reality at the micro and micro levels.
That should be ‘micro and macro’ of course.
Thanks for your detailed reply Mark.
Re (a), I disagree that there are two types of “truth”. If “rock” or “that is a rock” are theory laden, then, a fortiori, so are “class” and “Australia is a classless society”. Truth is not a determined by the method of verification of a statement.
Re (b), I think I’m confused by what you mean by an “Archimedean point” and what you require by it. I would want to argue that the objectivity of a statement concerning even “social” phenomena requires a naturalistic explanation that involves some independent facts of the matter and that this type of explanation can accommodate all of the matters you have raised.
Sorry Brian, I didn’t see your comments as I was working off an “unrefreshed” page. Thanks for the reference and I will certainly have a read.
Gaby, perhaps we’re at cross purposes - yes both statements are theory laden but the second is also (more) value laden.
By the Archimedean point, I mean a traditional epistemology which holds that there can be unmediated access to truth independent of the viewpoint of the observer.
Mark, I think we are to some extent.
On theory-ladenness, I think we are saying the same thing. But this doesn’t mean that there are different types of applicable truth, which is what I thought you were saying.
Similarly I believe that the absence of an Archmidean point does not entail that there is no simple truth or objectivity to empirical matters.
It depends what you mean by “empirical matters”, Gaby. Returning to the point about class - if we were to measure it by income distribution (perhaps a more “objective” measure than self-identification) then we can have confidence - within the bounds of statistical validity and reliablity - in the figures collected - but our interpretation of those figures will be determined by our presuppositions regarding the meaning of class. I, and many others, would argue that if you purport to measure class in this way you’re not defining the construct validly on theoretical grounds.
Sorry for the double post Mark.
But isn’t your example just unexceptional science in the sense that it turns on the referent of a theoretical term. If the view is that “Oz is a classless society” and this is falsified on data collected by reference to a theory of class using “class”(income distribution) but confirmed by using a notion of “class”(self-identification), where the latter is considered theoretically better and offering a superior explanation of empirical phenomena.
Isn’t this analogous to the case of “mass”(Newtonian) as against “mass”(relativistic)?
How does it affect the existence of truth or objectivity?
I’m just using it as an example, Gaby. It’s salient because one’s subjective politics will determine the interpretation of the “objective” truth.
Mark, is this a complicated way of saying that every system and strategy of knowing is a belief system and nothing exists independent of such?
It seems that this would be tantamount to saying we will never change our minds, that our positions are pre-configured (or however Hayden White described it - ‘prefigured’?) by our politics; that we are imprisoned by our own discourses; that we can never say, ‘What was hitherto my conviction is negated by objective reflection, by recognition of a sequence of empirically demonstrated facts, facts that, somehow, have a greater force than my prejudices/belief system’.
Yet is happens all the time in everyday life.
No, Rob, if we become aware of how our knowledge is shaped and conditioned that gives us a powerful tool to revise it should we choose. But not just as we’d like so to speak. My impression of White’s work is that he goes very far towards a relativistic epistemology where narratives are relatively independent of facts, particularly in his later work. I’m less of a pessimist (at least of the will) than White and the early Foucault.
Hi Mark,
I can’t agree that subjective politics determines objctive truth in the social sciences.
I think we are at cross purposes. I take “objectivity” to be as an ontological feature of the world, i.e., that there is a world existing independently and objectively of my perception of it. And consequently that there is a way the world is independently of me.
You seem to be denying objectivity in an epistemic sense and I think also truth as a semantic property of statements about the world. You seem to be denying that we can “know”, or have “true beliefs” about, or access, the objective independent world.
I think I’ll go off and read that article that Brian recommended….
Great post. I’ve struggled a lot with these ideas and pretty much came to same conclusion. “Truth” is such a slippery word; concepts of objective truth and knowing seem simple but become extremely complex when you think about it.
Gaby, I think we all agree that yes, there is a world existing independently of your perception. However, as you can only ever perceive the world as yourself, your perception is inherently unobjective. You cannot stand outside yourself and take stock of the world “as it really is”; you can only ever observe and experience it via your senses and think about it with your mind. As yourself. So your observations are really all you have. That sounds so banal…
So, ok, you hold a rock and you know it is a rock, that is “true”; but if you were a Geologist you’d know what sort of rock it was, how it was formed and where it came from. These are all levels of the “truth”. In one way it is true to say Australia is a classless society if you frame class as being like the Hindu caste system. So many things come down to words, and understanding how language can create the way we think about things, these discourses, can open up the world like nothing else can.
Po-mo isn’t so much about truth or falsity, it’s about language and building concepts. How does language shape the way we think? How does ideology shape language? Can you take something like “the sky is blue” apart and see what’s going on there? It’s almost a childlike thing, always asking “why” and “why” and “why”. Must be why I was drawn to it.
Anyway, po-mo has taught me to really think about the things I say, the way I frame ideas, the assumptions behind those ideas. It hasn’t made me believe I live in a Wachowski like Matrix-world where nothing is real — but it has made me question my own assumptions and the assumptions of others.
As for po-mo and leftiness… well, part of the reason I think that my own style of leftiness is so unpopular is because it is filled with “ifs” and “buts”, nuance and layers of meaning. Nuance is unpopular, questioning is unpopular because it is difficult, you often find things you don’t like, left and right.
Time for a cup of tea, I think, and a bit of rumination about this whole issue.
Nice comment, Kate.
Gaby, I don’t deny that there is a world objectively existing outside of us but I do argue that we only have access to it through perception and I’m not fond of the Kantian model of same. If you look at it from a phenomenological point of view, it’s a world we are thrown into and our constructs contribute to its meaning and recreation.
I think you need to be more specific on you notion of objectivity in social science for me to understand just what your objection is. To return to my example, statistics about incomes tell us nothing in and of themselves.
Kate, I’m impressed!
Kate and Mark, all we need now is to throw into the mix the changing “I” which is never the same from one minute to the next. Our sense of self is only a construct built up from a series of snapshots of awareness where one stream of brain activity reflexively turns inward.
If that makes sense.
Mark, a thought. You’ve posted quite a lot on the Schapelle Corby case. Do you think it’s possible, on an objective reading of the available facts, to come to the conclusion (hedged as may be required by qualifications, not having all the evidence, not having seen the demeanour of witnesses in court, etc.) that she is very likely guilty? And that that is an objective, impartial finding on your part or ours, uncluttered and uncoloured by prefigured discourses? I think it is.
And Kate:
Isn’t this just classic solipsism? ‘Nothing exists but me and my thoughts?’
I don’t think Kate’s comment is classic solipsism at all, Rob. Any theory of perception recognises that perceptions are individual first and foremost. I think the problem of other minds, so called, is a non problem, because our perceptions are intersubjectively shaped and shaped in relation also to the world into which we are thrown and whose meaning itself has been created socially by others before we were born and whose meaning will persist after we die (and language is a key factor in this).
You probably realise that I’m a bit of a Merleau-Ponty/early Heidegger fan. I’m way too tired to expound on it more tonight. I’ve written a fair bit on my friend M-P as part of my thesis and I might dig some out and post it sometime in the next few days - which will make my position clearer than I’m capable of doing at the moment!
On Corby, no I don’t think my judgement is objective. I think she is probably guilty, but I’m not sure. It does raise the interesting question of objectivity and subjectivity in legal decision making, but perhaps that’s one to be discussed another time. It’s also one that Ken Parish has expertise and interest in and I might suggest to him that he write something on it.
Six minutes for a lightning response, Mark - amazing! I labour for hours over these things.
Two thoughts occur: one, if your position is not objective, how can it claim to be privileged? Not that I’m saying you make that claim; but from what authority can you speak, amongst the Tim Blairs and Mirandas, if not from this?
Two: someone, whether an Indonesian judge or some other, has to make a ‘privileged’ decision, one that can blight the life of a human being. What authority can they reasonably appeal to, if not objectivity?
I’m tired, too, and probably not making much sense.
I think Gaby has made some excellent points on this thread.
Phronesis, Rob - in other words, pragmatic judgement on the basis of the available facts and putting them in the context of past similar occurrences.
Rob, I’ll give you my take, Mark can give his when he returns.
Every time you speak you make a ‘claim’. And your position is the only one you’ve got, so in that sense you are claiming some privilege. If you claim you speak ‘objectively’, however, you are claiming that there can be no other view.
On solpisism, Mark has actually given a rational answer. I think you can be sure on the basis of common sense that other selves exist, and I think that is OK until reason proves it wrong.
btw I think we can’t know whether Corby is guilty, so I’m agnostic, and, further, I think that no-one else can know either except herself and perhaps her mates who saw her pack her bag (the ones the judge wouldn’t admit as evidence.) So I think the judgement is unsafe.
But all that is only on the evidence that I have experienced, so I could be wrong!
Yeah, he’s quick isn’t he? I’m going to bed. Cheers.
By “objectivity” I mean only that the world exists independently of my perception of it. The world is not constituted by my knowledge of it.
Some of the things that exist are matters studied by the social sciences. These too are objective in the above sense and in a way no different from physical or biological things, processes or states of affairs. This allows supervenient or emergent properties.
Applying this to your example of “class” as a “social” fact, means that it can be studied as such. Of course, since class is not a natural kind, the meaning of “class” depends on conscious decision, Further, this name may not refer to anything because the thing referred to just does not exist. “Unicorn” is a banal example. “Anomie” could be another.
I also want to rigorously distinguish ontic, epistemic and semantic (truth) issues. I think that modern philosophical naturalism more than adequately deals with routes to various “anti-realisms” by way of epistemology (like Kant did) or by way of the philosophy of language (say like Whorf). Australian philosophers have made substantial contributions to the advances of philosophical naturalism.
To take your example, the raw facts about income are objective in my terms and in yours I take it. But for me, so are any events, processes, states of affairs that depend on such “brute” facts, provided relevant tokens of the former categories objectively and independently exist. To me, this case is clearly analogous to that of “electron” or any other theoretical entities the existence of which a scientific realist would allow.
I don’t think it is correct to say that because we are dependent on perception, our perception “is inherently unobjective” as Kate wants to argue or, to similar effect, as you seem to me to be arguing, that because our language is needed to formulate concepts and names to describe and explain the world this renders it “unobjective” in a relevant ontological sense.
Thanks, Gaby - interesting issues you raise.
Objectively speaking, I’m too knackered to make sense in response so I’m also off to bed. Hope to respond properly soon.
Why do post-modernism and relativism have to be bad things? They may have been hijacked by the right for partizan purposes as you say, but that does not make it inherently evil. It all depends on how you use it - and this is the same with anything and everything. Ive said this before, but I dont believe that there is such thing as truth, or at least Truth, because nothing can be proven completely, only beyond reasonable doubt, therefore everything is open to debate and people need to be exposed to different arguments in order to make up their minds.
As a result there are no “moral absolutes”, or absolutes of any other nature, only what society and individuals construct for themselves, the viability of each can be debated in an attempt to find the best possible solution. Society decides something because a critical mass of well-placed people come to an agreement, or because public opinion changes the culture, either by the affect of these well-placed people, or the other way round.
To me, it is to believe that everything is an interpretation or an opinion, and that though facts exist, they are always open to scrutiny. Believing these facts is all very well, but blind acceptance without challeging and question it from as many angles as possible is dangerous. It is the belief that no matter how certain you are about something, there is always a possibility that you may be wrong, no matter how negligeable, and they you must be prepared to be flexible should you realise your mistake. It is the ability to see actions and ideas not as themselves, but as being different and meaning different things depending on the circumstances. There is no good and no evil, there is no black and no white, there are only shades of gray.
The human mind cannot propperly function on purely relativistic platform, so some artificial “absolutes” must be created. The difference is that the nature of these are in such a way as they are much more basic and much less numerous than those with an absolutist platform. And, critically, they are open to change. Flexibility and adaptability are paramount.
I find it very difficult to explain and convey this, even to myself, and suspect it will take me a significant portion of my life to figure it all out, so this is by no means an especially coherent comment.
Ill gladly discuss this, but wont respond to anyone using the words “torture” or “Iraq”.
Nic,
Do you think the existence of a force called gravity has been proven beyond doubt? Do you think water boils at 100C at sea level? Shall I reel off other stuff that science tells us is true, subject to the usual Popperian caveats?
Unless you want to disappear up your own subjectivist orifice, you do accept that there is a real world beyond your senses, and that truth exists, even if only in the form of natural laws.
Why are PoMo and relativism bad? I don’t think they’re inherently evil, but there is a good argument that adoption of a relativist mindset discourages the search for truth and absolutes, which should be a fundamental objective of science and philosophy. IMHO PoMo also tends to attract the worst kind of intellectual charlatan and onanistic neologist, but that’s not a problem with the theory so much as its followers.
There’s been some good discussion on the subject of science and knowledge over @ catallaxy.
I think anyone who has studied post-modernism at any point realises that there’s a limit to it. As Brian and Mark have quite rightly said.
There’s a quote from one of the grand-daddies of cultural studies which says “what good is cultural studies when people are dying of AIDs?” (I can’t think of his name and I can’t be assed going through my notes). Po-mo raises the same question in me — what good is theory when people are dying in wars and of starvation?
Seriously, though I’ve studied post-modernist writings (not in great depth, more as an adjunct to communication studies), I don’t deny others selfhood, or agency, for example, and I do think there are objective facts that one cannot deny. There is this thing called gravity, there is income disparity in Australia, right now, my dog is sitting on my foot.
However, I do believe that the WAY we know things is not an objective process, and that language isn’t just a transparent signs system but one that shapes the way we perceive the world. Your perception of something is not the same as the thing itself.
It may be solpsistic to state that “I am the only I that I can experiece” or however you want to put it, but to deny that each human being experiences the world uniquely and that we can only ever imagine, not actually KNOW exactly what’s going on in someone else’s head, seems pretty obvious. As a child I always wondered if others perceived colours the same way I did — the simple fact of colour-blindness made me wonder if we all perceive colours differently, and hence, my view of the world was unique and different to everyone else’s. That’s an amazing thought, to me, that each person in the world not only experiences the world but helps create it in their own mind.
Anyway, Gaby, I don’t think we disagree, I think we’re just coming to same point from different directions.
Now, a contrarian perspective. As a feminist, po-mo is undeniably problematic because it can be used to effectively deny some of the political aims of feminists. Feminism isn’t just an academic discourse; it’s a political project which aims to dismantle control mechanisms that oppress women and children (and men, too). Po-mo can really undermine any attempt by women to improve their own and others real living conditions.
In this way, relativism is both a blessing and a curse. I say, well, I don’t believe that Muslims have the wrong end of the stick and they have the right to practise their religion how they want. But I do believe the subjugation of women under Islam is a bad thing. Where does that leave me?
I guess this all begs the question; where does one’s moral code come from? Majikthise had an interesting post on moral relativism a while back, and concluded that it’s pretty much a bunk position, that everyone has some sort of code that they apply.
I do mostly agree with you, Fydor, that science and philosophy need to be in search of absolutes. It’s worth remembering that scientists often claim to be objective, but often are not — remember all thos bunk studies in the early C20th that tried to prove that black people had smaller brains? Ah, you say, that’s not real science! Nooo, but investigating potential biases and ideological positions, and this tricky question of “who is the I doing this rsearch/writing etc etc” and questioning all human endeavours can help us untangle the absolutes from the bull****.
OK, time for a cuppa.
I while ago I read Neil Levy’s Moral Relativism and his answer was to advocate a form of value pluralism which though mildly relativistic, allows for criticism of practices in other cultures.
Kate, Levy (IIRC) does use the subjugation of women under Islam as an example. I’ll try and find the book and summarise Levy’s conclusions sometime this evening. I found the book very interesting as Levy does contrast and explore both relativist and absolute positions through the book.
Why do post-modernism and relativism have to be bad things? They may have been hijacked by the right for partizan purposes as you say, but that does not make it inherently evil
Nic, if you’re a postmodern relativist there is no good or evil!
Gaby, two points:
To take your example, the raw facts about income are objective in my terms and in yours I take it. But for me, so are any events, processes, states of affairs that depend on such “brute” facts, provided relevant tokens of the former categories objectively and independently exist. To me, this case is clearly analogous to that of “electron” or any other theoretical entities the existence of which a scientific realist would allow.
I don’t see how you reason from your first point to your second, given that I can either deny or affirm that classes exist based on the same “brute” facts.
I don‚Äôt think it is correct to say that because we are dependent on perception, our perception “is inherently unobjective” as Kate wants to argue or, to similar effect, as you seem to me to be arguing, that because our language is needed to formulate concepts and names to describe and explain the world this renders it “unobjective” in a relevant ontological sense.
Because language is a shifting and constructed phenomenon and the contexts and concepts are contestable, and are contested.
“Nic, if you‚Äôre a postmodern relativist there is no good or evil!”
I was speaking in general terms, like the rest of you may believe there is good and evil, and even so pomo/rel isnt bad.
“Unless you want to disappear up your own subjectivist orifice, you do accept that there is a real world beyond your senses, and that truth exists, even if only in the form of natural laws.”
That was kinda what I meant when I said that the human mind cant handle a completely relativistic platform - you have to accept some stuff, but you have to be able to change them too if necessary, like if its somehow proven that water does not boil at 100C, etc.
“IMHO PoMo also tends to attract the worst kind of intellectual charlatan and onanistic neologist, but that‚Äôs not a problem with the theory so much as its followers.”
Yeah, its the people that use it and how they use it that are the problem.
Trackback.
A summary of Neil Levy’s views using Kate’s comments on the curse and blessing on relativism as a starting point is now up at my abode.
I dont think I really go with Levy’s compromise either. In some ways yes, especially the first part of your post, but not the final chapter.
Exactly what do you not agree with Nic?
“it does not advocate respect for all views as constraints are placed on moral system.” would be the major point.
Well lets use a concrete example. Female circumcision is criticised in the context of Levy’s argument as a practice with little emperical support. The justifications are religion, culture, preservation of the family. prevention of immortality and increased sexual pleasure for men. From an emperical basis we can cast doubt on these justifications. And within Levy’s framework we can condemn the practice.
What say you Mr White?
And it is done at birth so the child in question has no choice in the matter.
This is more something that was covered earlier in your post:
“Levy states that while we can’t criticize the notions of honour that are part of the Islamic moral system we can ask its practitioners to justify the form it takes. Defenders of Islamic practices cite perceived differences in intelligence between men and women, the importance of preserving the family unit, that women can’t control their emotions and the sexual power that women have over men. These are the reasons used to justify Islamic subjugation of women. But as Levy points out, the reasons have little or no empirical justification. Levy states that “.. the justifications that we offer for our ethical systems had better be broad and as deep as our science, our psychology and our philosophy allow.”
The point is if a moral system appeals to but lacks solid empirical foundation it can be criticized.”
Of which I have no problem with. I dont so much think you cant criticise anything - you can say you think someone or something is wrong and why you think so, obviously. Just that something cant be definately wrong, you just think its wrong and you are entitled to that opinion, as is someone who takes a contrary position.
I agree that values change. I also agree that because there is a contrary position that doesn’t mean that it is wrong. However, I feel that ones position needs to have a solid basis not just “I believe this is so because.”
It is important to acknowledge how social, gender, political etc influences affect what we believe. But at the same time that doesn’t always mean that because some has a contrary position that it is valid. If someone tries to tell me that the Sun’s energy is not the result of thermonuclear reactions then I have good reason to think they are an idiot.
That is not to say science is privileged knowledge or immune from social influence but there are good reasons why what we think we know is close to the mark. And as I’ve taken this off on a tangent my closing remark is the Eels by 13 + over the Panthers.
OK.
Hi all,
I’m diggin reading this blog and the thread, you all rock. I’ve only studied hard science and thus do not have the reference you all enjoy(yes intellect envy) but do think that truth is reletve(sorry Fyodor I enjoy & usually support your posts but water does not always boil @ 100 degree’s etc, yech I know it’s the Properian crevates etc that get u every time, tell me about it). So I apologise for my ignorence and look forward to considering your corrections. Further I’ve probably had a scotch or 2 2 many but here goes.
In pomo isn’t truth dynamic? And is dependent on perception at a static point and is therefore reletive truth and not ultimate truth. How can there be an absoute truth with a moving target?
And isn’t perception reactive regarding circumstance(culture/availible opinion/personal influence/motivation x time)?
And btw lanuage is dependent on perception e.g. circumstance (culture/available and personael opinion x time(sorry 2 repeat myself I’m figuring this as I go)). And thus a really a clumsy vechile to express ideas.
Then with each change of circumsatnce truth changes. Which is why it gets hijacked by vested interests. At which point morals/standards/values can be included into the mix.
The question is if ultimate truth exists is it like the old world navigation maps and we find we won’t really fall off the edge of the world, or will we never reach it.
Personally I don’t think we’re capable of expanding our thought that far.
Cheers
Moriarti
Moriarti,
I’m not sure if this’ll answer your questions but po/mo is really a species of nominalism. That is to say, the philosophical position that the classification of entities through language is an arbitrary articulation of sign to signifier. In other words, there are no universals. For po/mo, it’s not so much that perception shapes language but rather that language determines perception. Where ideologies or interests fit in - they’re inescapable according to po/mo and any truth is going to be coloured accordingly (and thus local or partial).
Your position is more akin to a phenomenological one - ie we’re thrown into a world constructed by language and our own iterations of language shift its meaning imperceptibly while combining to create a shared meaning that will go on after we’re gone, though not in a frozen way. But a phenomenologist would argue that there are truths outside the ideological/interest framed worldview - but we can only see them in retrospect. In other words, history is open and at the moment we make a choice we don’t know how it will turn out. But our fate is to choose.
That’s probably not particularly responsive - it’s a bit difficult to do that with highly abstract epistemological/ontological discussions.
Mr MARK,