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But asking those questions bring you right back at defining them. We can ignore it just like we can ignore quantum physics talking about classical physics but t

But asking those questions bring you right back at defining them. We can ignore it just like we can ignore quantum physics talking about classical physics but that just mean we are ignoring them and reducing the discussion into a frame of reference which is exactly the point of postmodernism.

goatlover 8y ago
I don't think any interesting questions boil down to agreeing on a dictionary definition. Say you could get everyone to agree on the same definition for free will or consciousness. You're still left with the same questions about to what extent do we have defined free will and subjective experiences, which people will still disagree and debate on. Unless you get people to agree on definitions that define the problem away, but then you're just going to be using a different definition to pose the question that came up, because it will keep coming up. Language is just a tool to express ourselves. It's not the fabric of existence.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  Besides personal experience of phenomena what other way do you express your philosphical inquiry in? The dictionary isnt the point here, postmodernism isnt concerned about that. Its actually a critique of exactly that.
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  It's not about agreeing on some dictionary definition. The exercise is semantic in the sense that it seeks to describe and then connect sets of concepts to sets of beliefs in certain contexts. So in that sense, it's analytically deep. However what tends to happen is that most casual students get to a certain depth in PM, say undergraduate level, give up on the complexity and then throw their hands up and say "nothing is real so I can create my won world that you need to conform to." That's the problem.
moolcool 8y ago
That comes with the implication that everything in classical physics is a solved problem though. Just because you can distill anything to meta-questions doesn't mean you should, or that it's (necessarily) a productive exercise for your application. You can build an engine without pondering the nature of iron atoms
- ThomPete 8y ago
  You can but philosophically you cant without creating some sort of frame of reference. Scientific discoveries are not philosphical truths they are something else.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
But that's a dead end. In Francis Schaeffer's phrase, in postmodernism "language leads to language and nothing more" (emphasis added).
- jacobush 8y ago
  Any Turing machine can be described in any other?
- ThomPete 8y ago
  Language does lead to language and from a philosophical perspective, that's a valid observation that doesn't invalidate postmodernism though in fact, it supports that perspective.
roenxi 8y ago
But in practice we can clearly define some things objectively. If that were truly impossible, we would be unable to share common languages to any degree and it would be impossible for two separate cultures to communicate. At some level reality itself may be an illusion and we can never be sure of time and space. However, if we concede that point, then we concede that potentially nothing exists then we cannot debate it because we don't exist either. So even by discussing a matter we are taking an assumption that we exist and that something exists for us to talk about, even if the precise meaning of the words isn't nailed down by anyone. At this point, postmodernism starts to look a bit weak, because to communicate we must assume some shared reality between two parties which is quite possibly going to be objective by both parties standards. And in the framework of human endevour, there are a huge number of hypothetical realities we have ruled out by scientific experiment. It is overwhelmingly likely at this point that something objective exists and we've narrowed in on it quite a bit from, say, 10,000 BC.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  We can define things to a good enough degree that its useful but its still a reduction of reality.
cirgue 8y ago
Really, it all comes back to “am I just a hallucinating brain in a vat?” But the answer to that question doesn’t much matter really. If that’s the case, why not just pack up all the books and go to the beach? Same thing with language. It’s one interesting line of inquiry, but it’s hardly the only one worth discussing.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  That depends on how deep your philosophical inquiry is.

goatlover 8y ago

I don't think any interesting questions boil down to agreeing on a dictionary definition. Say you could get everyone to agree on the same definition for free will or consciousness. You're still left with the same questions about to what extent do we have defined free will and subjective experiences, which people will still disagree and debate on. Unless you get people to agree on definitions that define the problem away, but then you're just going to be using a different definition to pose the question that came up, because it will keep coming up. Language is just a tool to express ourselves. It's not the fabric of existence.

ThomPete 8y ago
Besides personal experience of phenomena what other way do you express your philosphical inquiry in? The dictionary isnt the point here, postmodernism isnt concerned about that. Its actually a critique of exactly that.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
It's not about agreeing on some dictionary definition. The exercise is semantic in the sense that it seeks to describe and then connect sets of concepts to sets of beliefs in certain contexts. So in that sense, it's analytically deep. However what tends to happen is that most casual students get to a certain depth in PM, say undergraduate level, give up on the complexity and then throw their hands up and say "nothing is real so I can create my won world that you need to conform to." That's the problem.

moolcool 8y ago

That comes with the implication that everything in classical physics is a solved problem though. Just because you can distill anything to meta-questions doesn't mean you should, or that it's (necessarily) a productive exercise for your application. You can build an engine without pondering the nature of iron atoms

ThomPete 8y ago
You can but philosophically you cant without creating some sort of frame of reference. Scientific discoveries are not philosphical truths they are something else.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

But that's a dead end. In Francis Schaeffer's phrase, in postmodernism "language leads to language and nothing more" (emphasis added).

jacobush 8y ago
Any Turing machine can be described in any other?
ThomPete 8y ago
Language does lead to language and from a philosophical perspective, that's a valid observation that doesn't invalidate postmodernism though in fact, it supports that perspective.

roenxi 8y ago

But in practice we can clearly define some things objectively. If that were truly impossible, we would be unable to share common languages to any degree and it would be impossible for two separate cultures to communicate. At some level reality itself may be an illusion and we can never be sure of time and space. However, if we concede that point, then we concede that potentially nothing exists then we cannot debate it because we don't exist either. So even by discussing a matter we are taking an assumption that we exist and that something exists for us to talk about, even if the precise meaning of the words isn't nailed down by anyone. At this point, postmodernism starts to look a bit weak, because to communicate we must assume some shared reality between two parties which is quite possibly going to be objective by both parties standards. And in the framework of human endevour, there are a huge number of hypothetical realities we have ruled out by scientific experiment. It is overwhelmingly likely at this point that something objective exists and we've narrowed in on it quite a bit from, say, 10,000 BC.

ThomPete 8y ago
We can define things to a good enough degree that its useful but its still a reduction of reality.

cirgue 8y ago

Really, it all comes back to “am I just a hallucinating brain in a vat?” But the answer to that question doesn’t much matter really. If that’s the case, why not just pack up all the books and go to the beach? Same thing with language. It’s one interesting line of inquiry, but it’s hardly the only one worth discussing.

ThomPete 8y ago
That depends on how deep your philosophical inquiry is.