Daan wrote:Voltaire's Candide seems pre-postmodern, or what about Schopenhauer or Byron?

That's pre-postmodern, yes.

logical bob wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:That may be true, but PM as we know it came about when western philosophers gave up trying to produce any grand systematic theories and philosophy turned all relativist and language-based.

Not sure about your definition there. That would make Wittgenstein and J.L. Austin postmodernists.

Wittgenstein certainly had a hand in killing off modernism. I wouldn't quite count him as a postmodernist, but he certainly influenced postmodernism.

As for Hegel...I'd argue that the first postmodernists were Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, both of whom saw Hegel as stereotypical of what philosophy could no longer be.

And I'd say that Nietzsche's Overman and the existentialism that drew on Kierkegaard are about as modernist as it gets.

But they have both given up on objective philosophy. They are both heralding "the end of philosophy" or "the end of metaphysics" and a descent into relativism.

UndercoverElephant wrote:There can be no post-postmodernism. It is the end of the process of philosophising. It leaves you nowhere to go. Post-modernism is the end of the sequence of ideas which started with Kant.

But before we announce the end of philosophy, did you read the article linked to in the OP? It makes the rather more modest claim that PM as a method of cultural criticism fails to describe contemporary culture, mainly because of technological changes and new media, and that contemporary cultural studies has already left PM behind.

I didn't read the article, no....

As a method of cultural criticism? That's not what I see postmodernism as. I see postmodernism as what remained after modern philosophy self-destructed. The term has several different meanings.

UndercoverElephant wrote:There can be no post-postmodernism. It is the end of the process of philosophising. It leaves you nowhere to go. Post-modernism is the end of the sequence of ideas which started with Kant.

If your anti-materialism is based on reason then you're carrying on the process of philosophising. You're arguably doing metaphysics, at the very least you're criticising philosophies of immanence, and you're doing so on the basis of appeals to both Kantian transcendentalism (reason, philosophy) and subjective authority (religion, Truth). PM might be the end of philosophy, but you're not postmodern, UE.

The only place you can go forwards to is an anti-philosophical Rorty-esque pragmatism, or to an ultimate sort of cynical nihilism as displayed by CDP.

I find this particularly silly. You are absolutely nothing like Rorty. He openly ridiculed the kinds of questions you are interested in.

Also, CDP is an instrumental positivist. The PM aspect is just a side show...

Krull wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:There can be no post-postmodernism. It is the end of the process of philosophising. It leaves you nowhere to go. Post-modernism is the end of the sequence of ideas which started with Kant.

If your anti-materialism is based on reason then you're carrying on the process of philosophising. You're arguably doing metaphysics, at the very least you're criticising philosophies of immanence, and you're doing so on the basis of appeals to both Kantian transcendentalism (reason, philosophy) and subjective authority (religion, Truth). PM might be the end of philosophy, but you're not postmodern, UE.

That depends on who I am talking to.

The only place you can go forwards to is an anti-philosophical Rorty-esque pragmatism, or to an ultimate sort of cynical nihilism as displayed by CDP.

I find this particularly silly. You are absolutely nothing like Rorty. He openly ridiculed the kinds of questions you are interested in.

Yes, but he did so from a post-modern standpoint, not a pre-Kantian one.

I don't mind people ridiculing those questions provided they are ridiculing them for the right reasons.

Also, CDP is an instrumental positivist. The PM aspect is just a side show...

Aha!

Krull,

If your anti-materialism is based on reason then you're carrying on the process of philosophising. You're arguably doing metaphysics, at the very least you're criticising philosophies of immanence, and you're doing so on the basis of appeals to both Kantian transcendentalism (reason, philosophy) and subjective authority (religion, Truth).

My anti-materialism is based on reason, but it is aimed only at materialists. Some of the other stuff I believe is based on subjective authority, which is epistemically indistinguishable from revelation (i.e. religion), but I make no attempt to impose those beliefs on anybody else. Am I post-modernist? I am if I'm doing philosophy (rather than expressing my religious beliefs) and I'm talking to another person who is post-modern. That is why I don't generally end up arguing with people like Jerome Serpenti (or Comte de whatever he is here...). In fact I don't generally bother arguing with anybody I think has understood the relevance of Kant, let alone all the stuff that came later.

So, what is the difference between pre-postmodern and postmodern? Does it have something to do with perspectivism?

Daan wrote:So, what is the difference between pre-postmodern and postmodern? Does it have something to do with perspectivism?

Yes. Nietzsche's "perspectivism" and deliberate ambiguous usage of words is where it starts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Truth_a ... oral_Sense

These ideas about truth and its relation to human language have been particularly influential among postmodern theorists,[4] and "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" is one of the works most responsible for Nietzsche's reputation (albeit a contentious one) as "the godfather of postmodernism."[6]

Is the Matrix post modern?

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Daan wrote:So, what is the difference between pre-postmodern and postmodern? Does it have something to do with perspectivism?

Yes. Nietzsche's "perspectivism" and deliberate ambiguous usage of words is where it starts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Truth_a ... oral_Sense

These ideas about truth and its relation to human language have been particularly influential among postmodern theorists,[4] and "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" is one of the works most responsible for Nietzsche's reputation (albeit a contentious one) as "the godfather of postmodernism."[6]

I like the article Elephant. The English translation is pretty awful. Aussermoralischen Sinn means outside a moral sense, so it isn't non-moral, but it hasn't got to do anything with moralism (though maybe my German isn't that good).

So, to make a distinction: pre-postmodernism is about the meaninglessness of life or life-experiences, and postmodernism about the meaninglessness of words, because they don't fit into their contexts. So, words aren't appropriate enough to be able to describe life.

I don't think postmodern philosphy will completely dissapear. Because the message is strong, and everything from the past has its left-overs somewhere in society, especially since all kinds of texts from the past are still being read. I don't think the obsessive demand for easy entertainment in the internet age will change that.

Clive Durdle wrote:Is the Matrix post modern?

I think it is more of a modern dystopia.

Daan wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Daan wrote:So, what is the difference between pre-postmodern and postmodern? Does it have something to do with perspectivism?

Yes. Nietzsche's "perspectivism" and deliberate ambiguous usage of words is where it starts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Truth_a ... oral_Sense

These ideas about truth and its relation to human language have been particularly influential among postmodern theorists,[4] and "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" is one of the works most responsible for Nietzsche's reputation (albeit a contentious one) as "the godfather of postmodernism."[6]

I like the article Elephant. The English translation is pretty awful. Aussermoralischen Sinn means outside a moral sense, so it isn't non-moral, but it hasn't got to do anything with moralism (though maybe my German isn't that good).

The title is sometimes translated as "On Truth and Lies in an extra-moral sense". "Non-moral" doesn't mean "immoral" or even "amoral" but "nothing to do with morality." It's not to do with honesty/dishonesty but with the general (im)possibilty of expressing "truth" in language.

So, to make a distinction: pre-postmodernism is about the meaninglessness of life or life-experiences, and postmodernism about the meaninglessness of words, because they don't fit into their contexts. So, words aren't appropriate enough to be able to describe life.

"Modernism" (i.e. pre-postmodern) isn't really about meaninglessness IMO, although I think I know what you mean. Postmodernism has given up hope that words can ever deliver "truth." There is nothing left but relativism. Even science is just one narrative amongst many.

There are texts from before postmodernism that do express a certain meaninglesness.

Here for instance:

Ecclesiastes, Bible

http://www.bartleby.com/108/21/2.html
16 For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.
17 Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
18 Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
19 And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.

http://www.bartleby.com/108/21/5.html
12 The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
13 There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
14 But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
15 As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labor, which he may carry away in his hand.

I think the guy who wrote this was influenced by buddhism or stoicism.