Postmodern Philosophy
What is postmodern philosophy? Has it a clear meaning? Apparently not, since postmodern philosophers claim that there is no absolute truth in anything. Hence, nothing can be clearly defined.
From Wikipedia:
“Some writers and theorists fear Kalle Lasn’s description of our contemporary society” (Kalle Lasn & Bruce Grierson, A Malignant Sadness, ADBUSTERS #30, June/July 2000):
“Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history. That the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of the frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can never escape.”
So, what is all the fuzz about? One might argue about whether there is truth in many statements about philosophy, religion, ethics, among others, not to mention politics, but is there really no truth in science? . Anyway, what is truth?
June 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Sorry for the delay in responding to your comment- I just found it today, forwarded to me by blogger amongst the porridge of spam I was cleaning out. There are of course much better alternatives than nihilism to utilitarian ethics. I proffer for your consideration my own definitions of good. (Scroll down, after the Weinberg quote).
For a definition of truth, you can’t go past Peirce, the one American philosopher who could sing outdoors:
“Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#cite_note-16]
June 16th, 2008 at 11:58 am
“Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief,”
Since this implies an infinite (”endless”) time necessary to arrive at truth, we are still in limbo, because we cannot be sure that we actually are on the right pass. (On the other hand, of course, one might argue that one approaches truth along a certain path and at each stage scientific tests are possible, but that these tests become more and more accurate, the closer to the absolute truth we get: see classical and quantum physics). Furthermore, the statement above refers to “scientific” beliefs. What about beliefs which cannot be scientifically investigated, such as beliefs about political systems, moral questions, etc.? If my impressions are correct (and they are not more than impressions), postmodern philosophers mainly address such “non-scientific” questions. Or are you of the opinion that everything can be scientifically investigated?
About good and evil later (I assume you are familiar with Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Beyond Good and Evil, where Good is essentially defined as what is good for survival, in other words, there is no absolute “Good”).
June 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I am of the opinion that political systems and moral beliefs can be scientifically investigated. The notion of scientific investigation presupposes particular answers to philosophical questions, however, which we need to feel for in other ways.
I disagree that we are still in limbo: knowing that ‘north’ is vaguely to the left is much better than disputing whether or not the concept ‘north’ has any meaning, when we are lost in the woods.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Here are my comments on your definitions of good. My apologies for not commenting in your blog, but as you know – I am having problems with logging into it under a name.
“Good1 is the ability of an entity to play the game. The more freedom an entity has, the greater capacity it has to act and influence its environment, the better.”
However, science does not permit genuine “freedom†of entities, everything has causes, and I believe this statement is not invalidated by quantum physics. In other words, if we assume the existence of a God, we would really be only puppets for her amusement.
“Good2 is the aggregate ability of all entities in the universe to play the game. We should not trample on Good2 to increase Good1. “Maybe we need to strive towards a Loftingesque universe where everything is a player, where everything is sentient, and somehow come up with an ethics that will work in this universe.
The same objection as for 1.
“Good3 is whatever contributes to the point which the players and God eventually come up with.”
The same objection as for 1 and 2.
My comments mean that in the final analysis – in a world created by God – we cannot be responsible for our actions, since all our actions are predetermined and we are thus merely puppets for her amusement.
BUT IS THIS REALLY SO?
June 16th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
“I disagree that we are still in limbo: knowing that ‘north’ is vaguely to the left is much better than disputing whether or not the concept ‘north’ has any meaning, when we are lost in the woods.”
Yes, I agree with you here (”As I said: On the other hand, of course, one might argue that one approaches truth along a certain path and at each stage scientific tests are possible, but that these tests become more and more accurate, the closer to the absolute truth we get: see classical and quantum physics), at least with regard to strictly scientific questions. However, I have my doubts about the scientific investigability of everything (morality, etc.), unless of course you reduce such questions to their evolutionary advantages and thus agree with Nietzsche.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Peirce, as cited by you, defines Truth as follows:
“Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.â€
This is an example of the correspondence theory of truth, which is circular, as shown by Immanuel Kant in his Introduction to Logic (1800).
“Truth is said to consist in the agreement of knowledge with the object. According to this mere verbal definition, then, my knowledge, in order to be true, must agree with the object. Now, I can only compare the object with my knowledge by this means, namely, by taking knowledge of it. My knowledge, then, is to be verified by itself, which is far from being sufficient for truth. For as the object is external to me, and the knowledge is in me, I can only judge whether my knowledge of the object agrees with my knowledge of the object. Such a circle in explanation was called by the ancients Diallelos. And the logicians were accused of this fallacy by the sceptics, who remarked that this account of truth was as if a man before a judicial tribunal should make a statement, and appeal in support of it to a witness whom no one knows, but who defends his own credibility by saying that the man who had called him as a witness is an honourable man.†(cited in Wikipedia: Truth)
June 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Speaking of Good:
“However, science does not permit genuine “freedom†of entities, everything has causes, and I believe this statement is not invalidated by quantum physics. In other words, if we assume the existence of a God, we would really be only puppets for her amusement.”
Not so.
In a nutshell, science *is* the study of things that have causes. You cannot say ‘this is an instrument for detecting green things’ and then say ‘green things do not exist because they are not detected by this instrument.’
The existence of God does not presuppose determinism any more than it presupposes indeterminism.
Curiously, I had a discussion with another retired Professor some years ago who was adamant that the distinguishing and pernicious feature of religion was its insistence on free will.
My question is this:
In a deterministic universe, is any definition of good possible?
Speaking of Truth:
Let me try to give another pragmatic definition of truth in the spirit of Peirce.
“Given a sufficiently large ensemble of entities predicting the behaviour of a system according to model A, and a sufficiently large ensemble of entities predicting the behaviour of a system according to model B, that ensemble which is more successful in getting the system to behave how it wants posseses the model which is more true.”
June 16th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Oops, I must be more careful to close tags. My apologies.
June 17th, 2008 at 11:40 am
“The existence of God does not presuppose determinism any more than it presupposes indeterminism.”
Of course not, in Christian theology, some believe in predestination (Luther, if I remember correctly), others don’t or are at least more ambivalent. Thus, the Catholic theologian Eberhard Schockenhoff writes that “Gott weiss um unsere Zukunft, aber nicht so, als ob sie schon geschehen wäre, sondern so, dass sie wirklich offene Zukunft bleibt, die von unserer freien Entscheidung mitbestimmt wird”. (God knows about our future, but not in such a way, as if it has happened already, but as if it remains an open future, which is co-determined by our decision).
June 17th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Your discussion with the retired professor is quite interesting, although I find it a bit sophistic (on both sides). Just one point (which of course is of secondary importance to the essential point of the discussion), about the impossibility of the evolution of wheels on Earth.
“It is physical limitations, based on the historical development of life on Earth, that prohibit wheels: it is possible to envision different biologies that do not have these physical limitations.”
Sorry to disappoint you, but the wheel has actually been invented in the organismic realm, i.e., among very low organisms (unfortunately I have forgotten the reference and the group where it occurs).
June 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I am not disappointed at all! It was Prof Holliday’s point after all that the absence of wheels in biology was somehow evidence against God.
I am concerned that you may have found my arguments “plausible but misleading” or “apparently sound but really fallacious” (to pick two definitions of sophistic from dictionary.com). I would be most appreciative if you had the time to point out the flaws in my logic.
And, if you are now prepared (with a nod to Schockenhoff and the other learned doctors of the Church) to allow that the existence of God would not *necessarily* make us all puppets for her amusement, can you make any comment about my possible definitions of Good vis-a-vis the utilitarian one?
I feel somehow that I ought to sign off more formally today, so…. Thank you very much, and best regards. (Dr Clam)
June 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
SOPHISM. I read your discussion with Professor Holliday again twice and more carefully. Here is a quote from Professor Holliday:
“One thing you seem to invoke is a non-material “consciousness.” Now I am aware that many have referred to and discussed the “problem” of consciousness. To me the problem is that we simply do not yet understand brain function, and I would add that many animals appear to have an awareness of the world around them and therefore consciousness. I cannot envisage any conceivable reason why consciousness is not part of sensory perception and brain function. Brains consist largely of neurones, and neurones are made up of molecules. What else can there be?â€
This, although superficially convincing, is in reality a fallacy. Professor Holliday gives the impression that, once we know more about the function of neurones etc., we understand consciousness, as a better understanding of the kidneys will make us understand the formation of urine better. However, this is not necessarily the case. According to psycho-physical parallelism, consciousness is not part of a causal chain of physiological processes, but “accompanies†them. In other words, it is part of the processes themselves and there is no “gap†in the chain which is filled by consciousness. Now, one does not necessarily have to believe in parallelism, but it is at least a possibility (and in my opinion a very likely one). If this hypothesis is correct, it is in principle impossible to uncover a “link†between physiological processes and consciousness. All we can do is to clarify with which physiological processes consciousness is “correlatedâ€. And we can do this, to a degree, already. Future studies will simply pinpoint the kind and complexity of such processes with a greater degree of accuracy.
The reply to Professor Holliday’s question “What else can there be?†therefore could be: “consciousness which accompanies physiological processes but can only be experienced by a person or an animal which has it, without further explanation.â€
You argue repeatedly that religion is not incompatible with science. This may well be correct, but it depends of course on how religion is defined. A religion which assumes miracles and witchcraft (and, as we all know, this was and is part of many religions) obviously is not compatible with science. So, what I miss in your argument is a clear definition of the kind of religion which you think is compatible with science.
DEFINITION OF “GOODâ€. I have commented on this earlier. It seems to me that there are probably as many definitions of what is good as there are people (at least those people who have given the problem some thought). Can the problem be scientifically examined? It can, if we agree with Nietzsche and his followers, that “good†is behaviour that strengthens our positive attitude to life, in other words, that helps in survival (although Nietzsche did not phrase this in Darwinian terminology). It amounts to a biological definition of goodness and, as such, can be examined as any biological problem can. However, this definition of course implies that there is no absolute goodness. What is good for a cat is not good for a mouse, what is good for Israel is not good for Iran.
I can think of one other way of how goodness could be examined scientifically. Let us suppose that the Universe is indeed not a freak accident and has some meaning, aiming at something. If we could know or at least guess what that aim is, everything that helps in approaching that aim could be defined as “goodâ€, and scientific studies could perhaps help in clarifying the aims. However, this of course involves a belief and, at least at this point in history, is merely wishful thinking.
June 17th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
“You argue repeatedly that religion is not incompatible with science. This may well be correct, but it depends of course on how religion is defined. A religion which assumes miracles and witchcraft (and, as we all know, this was and is part of many religions) obviously is not compatible with science. So, what I miss in your argument is a clear definition of the kind of religion which you think is compatible with science.”
Certainly, here is the definition requested:
Any religion, which does not rely on an assertion that reproducible features of the universe are other than they have been experimentally demonstrated to be, is compatible with science.
Thus I assert that a religion which assumes miracles may well be compatible with science. Science cannot prove or disprove miracles- that is the point of my ‘machine for detecting green things’ analogy. A religion that assumes the existence of witchcraft may also be compatible with science. Witches may gain their powers through commerce with beings perfectly explicable by our current state of scientific knowledge whose superior technology allows them to hide from us, or beings whose nature will become explicable in the future.
I would argue that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the majority of Protestant denominations, the main streams of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, and the Baha’i faith, are all compatible with science.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
“Let us suppose that the Universe is indeed not a freak accident and has some meaning, aiming at something. If we could know or at least guess what that aim is, everything that helps in approaching that aim could be defined as “goodâ€, and scientific studies could perhaps help in clarifying the aims. However, this of course involves a belief and, at least at this point in history, is merely wishful thinking.”
This is what my Good^1 consists of:
(1) Let us assume there is an unknown point, or a potential point, to the universe.
(2) Then, *without knowing* what this actual or potential point is, we can say that something is ‘good’ to the degree in which it:
(3) Increases our knowledge of the universe, so that we might someday know what this point is.
(4) Increases the range of actions open to us, so that we will be able to act towards this point more effectively should we ever figure it out.
Thus, our moral calculus ought to strive for the greatest freedom and the greatest knowledge of the greatest number, rather than trying to maximise ‘happiness’ with the Lotus-Eaters.
I hope this makes my point a little clearer.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I am a bit puzzled here. I had thought that miracles and witchcraft involve, almost by definition, actions which do not conform to the laws of nature, as discovered by science. So, again - as for religion - all depends on the definition of miracles and witchcraft. Of course, the fact that miracles (and actions of witches) have not yet been demonstrated by science, does not mean that they will not be discovered in the future. But the longer it takes, the less likely it becomes. It seems to me that your approach relies on a Yes or No logic, and does not consider probabilities.
“I would argue that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the majority of Protestant denominations, the main streams of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, and the Baha’i faith, are all compatible with science.”
Would you accept the following “doctrines” as compatible with science?
The Flying Spaghetti Monster, The Great Teapot (a Muslim sect in Malaysia recently declared to be heretic), The convoluted Tapeworm, The Fizzlebud Wizzard, etc. etc. After all, the fact that we do not have evidence for any of these schemes, does not mean that we will not find it in the future?
If not, why not?
June 18th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
If a thing is worth saying once, it is worth saying a thousand times!
Science considers the reproducible features of the universe. It does not and cannot say that these are the only features of the universe. In science, when we get irreproducible results, we throw them away. We look under the lamp-post, where we can get reproducible results.
We can have a faith (as I do) that these reproducible features of the universe will indeed explain everything we observe in the universe.
But, this does not mean our method of investigating the reproducible features of the universe is *incompatible* with other faiths that claim there are irreproducible features of the universe- i.e., miracles. It is valid for a person to hold those faiths if they wish, and our method does not disprove them.
Probabilities are not relevant to this. We cannot say ‘Such a thing is incompatible with another thing’ on the basis of probabilities. We can only say that if we are using Yes and No logic.
I do not have enough knowledge of most of the obscure sects to which you refer to be able to venture an opinion as to whether or not they are compatible with science. If there were honest believers in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I understand that there are experimentally verifiable facts about the universe which contradict core parts of their theology. Thus I would class them with the Mormons and Young Earth Creationist Christians as examples of religions which are, due to the particulars of their beliefs, incompatible with science.
June 18th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“Science considers the reproducible features of the universe. It does not and cannot say that these are the only features of the universe. In science, when we get irreproducible results, we throw them away. We look under the lamp-post, where we can get reproducible results.”
AND
“But, this does not mean our method of investigating the reproducible features of the universe is *incompatible* with other faiths that claim there are irreproducible features of the universe- i.e., miracles.”
This is important and I disagree with you. There are many observations in biology on “unique” events, which can never be reproduced. This does not make them miracles, and we do not throw these observations away (I must correct myself, certainly many people do throw them away, others don’t). In fact, one could argue that - since many aspects of biology are historical - they must be unique (similar to events in human history). They can be used to gradually compose a picture of the living world, without attempting to “reproduce” anything.
Your view that
“Any religion, which does not rely on an assertion that reproducible features of the universe are other than they have been experimentally demonstrated to be, is compatible with science.”
opens the way to any crackpot. The number of “religions” in your definition compatible with science must be infinite. On the other hand: why not? Everybody should have the right to dream, imagine and believe whatever he/she wishes. In other words, we really agree, and it is all only a play with words.
June 18th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Yes, I am quite sure that we really agree!
I know that a more nuanced definition is required for the historical sciences, where we interpret those irreproducible historical events in terms of ‘laws’ derived from our observations of reproducible events.
Yes, the number of possible religions compatible with science must be infinite! I assert, however, that this does not open the door to *any* crackpot. I have made a few tentative stabs at delimiting what I think is a real and important distinction in the examples of religions I have picked above.
Yes, everyone has the right to dream, imagine, and believe as they wish! Given worlds enough and time, natural selection will winnow out those ideas which are prejudicial to our survival. In the meantime we can build our philosophical castles in the sky.