[ThomPete]

Just saying they exist doesn't make them exist. Good art vs. bad art isn't an argument against postmodernism.

Whenever I meet people who claim there is an objective truth I always ask them to give any examples. So far I have not met anyone who can come up with an objective claim that isn't merely basing that on a frame of reference which can be deconstructed or shown to be based on a set of apriori assumptions itself.

[zxcmx]

I am reminded of the “brick in the face” argument against solopsism.

Tell me whack more about your whack frame of reference...

I see postmodernism and extreme relativism as a sort of awesome stage of society where we get to make up reality because we are freed from mundane concerns like knowing where our water comes from or where our sh%t gets flushed to. It is quite wonderful that many many people get the luxury of never even being curious about these things.

Meanwhile, the engineers, doctors, carers, labourers (I am missing a lot out here) who ultimately keep people alive tend to have quite definite opinions about critical aspects of reality.

Granted these are still not objective truths because all experience is subjective. All I can say is that a sophist who believes that rent is not an objective truth is nonetheless likely to find themselves (subjectively) on the streets if they don’t pay it.

[ThomPete]

Buddhist philosophy reached some of the same conclusions as postmodernism have.

But don't forget that the fact most of our early engineering advanced were done by philosophers who had the time to ponder and tinker.

[zxcmx]

Yeah I tried to argue over several edits that people seem less objective about their own pain or hunger but realised I backed myself into a corner :)

[ThomPete]

With regards to rent. That's a human construct not something that exist out there that I cannot ignore. I could ignore it and if I am strong enough I can take it away from you.

So rent is in fact highly subjective. Not the definition but the reality of it.

[RikNieu]

> So far I have not met anyone who can come up with an objective claim that isn't merely basing that on a frame of reference which can be deconstructed or shown to be based on a set of apriori assumptions itself.

I'm not too familiar with postmodern theory, would you explain this please?

Say I state that you posted the above sentence, and that that is an objective truth.

How would you break that down to assumptions?

[zxcmx]

You just keep asking “why” until you hit axioms.

In a dictionary, all the words are defined by other words.

Observe that all experience is subjective, anyone can have any set of axioms they like and “voila”, there can be no “objective” truth.

It’s true in this kind of tautological way, and kind of interesting.

On the other hand no one I know truly acts as though this is true. Also I think the world is a lot more interesting and frankly simpler to think about if you assume objective truths exist.

[RikNieu]

> In a dictionary, all the words are defined by other words.

> Observe that all experience is subjective, anyone can have any set of axioms they like and “voila”, there can be no “objective” truth.

Hmmm,ok. So does this mean it's a critique on how language models the world instead of the world itself?

My axioms doesn't affect yours. Or a rat's, or a cats. Yet we'll all interact. Where does the interaction happen if not in an objective overlap, that which the subjectivity attempts to describe?

The words we use can described by other words, but other words do describe them.

[ThomPete]

You and I both know what an apple is conceptually. We do however not refer to exactly the same apple. We refer to something that similar enough that we can get away with calling it an apple because we reduce reality to categorize things around us. (our brains are wired to be economical about how we understand the world otherwise we wouldn't be able to think a single thought)

[RikNieu]

Yet eating the apple will nourish, regardless of how we refer to it.

The cells in our digestive tract do not care if we think the apple poisoned or not. They will respond to the amount of arsenic present in the fruit though. Is that response subjective?

[ThomPete]

Yes, that is subjective.

That's one narrative, there are many others (in fact an infinite amount of other perspectives). You are just choosing one way by reducing the reality of the interaction of the apple, the cells, atoms, time, how it gets in your body how that suddenly help you burn energy and run faster which then means your footsteps are a little deeper in the soild you run which kills a few ants which then turn into soil and goes back into the ecosystem.

There isn't an objective perspective on this only reductions into narratives.

[ringbugger]

> I know truly acts as though this is true.

Because how true could that be by defintion?

I do believe in objective truth, even if not realistically achievable and perhaps not philosophical mainstream. But if it is also simpler and more interesting, that is an additional plus and probably more correct.

I also admit to having premises and no problem to reflect upon them. Only to some of them I keep a sentimental relationship. A frame of reference might always be needed. But why should the frame be special?

Subjective to me is the relevance of the assumption about truth. The same can be said about a lot of discussions about conscience and general perception.

[ThomPete]

They don't have to be objective to be useful though.

The flat earthers don't fall off the planet just because they think the world is flat and believing it flat still allow them to find the way from village A to B if close enough.

It's just not a good enough model to build ex. a GPS satellites.

So I agree that we will, of course, assume a lot of things are "objective" even though they aren't from a philosophical point of view and that's all good. Philosophically though you can't really get around the postmodern philosophy if you want to discuss reality to it's full extent we can.

[ThomPete]

Well, first of all, how do you know I posted it? What does it mean to post something? How does what I posted manifest itself in reality if you aren't there to interpret my post.

Those are the kind of questions you would ask to start pulling it all apart. Those questions would be absurd in a normal discussion but in philosophy, they are important questions because they help us unravel our assumptions about the reality we often take for granted.

[Vaskivo]

> Well, first of all, how do you know I posted it? What does it mean to post something? How does what I posted manifest itself in reality if you aren't there to interpret my post.

I feel like you are not questioning the message but the way and the "tools" used to convey it. ("what are words?" "what does it really mean when you say X?"). You want to start the discussion by questioning the (supposed) common middle ground of understanding that will be used for it. This way, I think, you kind of refused to try to give an answer to your parent.

I don't claim the anyone can "know truth totally and completely". But, conceptually I think there is. In a particular point of the universe at a particular time there was a specific particle there. Or wasn't. It couldn't be and not be. Subjectively it may seem one thing or the other. O even both. But it was either there or not.

And how do you deny the truism "The Universe IS"[0]? If you deny it you face a paradox because how can you call it false if false doesn't exist?

[0] By "Universe" I mean everything that exists, existed and will exist. Concrete and abstract.

[ThomPete]

"the universe is" is just another version of Ayn Rands "Existence exists" (A = A).

But "the universe is" is just tautological I.e it doesn't help you understand the universe any better and you still have to define what you mean with universe even your [0] will run into all sorts of problems (like what is time, what does it mean something exists etc)

It's it's own axiom and conclusion in the same sentence.

Gödel proved that mathematically and logically with his "incompleteness theorem" but you can also as I did above show it in different ways.

And you are right I am not questioning the message I am questioning the assumptions of the message. As I have said other places.

You obviously can't have a normal everyday discussion like that i.e. we normally speak with a lot of assumptions many of them completely unfounded and still manage to get productive results.

But philosophically this is a different discussion where you are forced to question the assumptions of your axioms.

[Vaskivo]

> But "the universe is" is just tautological I.e it doesn't help you understand the universe any better...

So what matters is not what something _is_ but what something _means_?

And I used that tautology because a tautology eliminates the "everything is subjective". (Unless everybody's opinion is the same. But that makes still a subjective opinion?)

[ThomPete]

Saying "The universe is" doesn't say what something Objectively is or what it means.

Tautologies are semantic and thus bound by the axiom of language itself. I.e. "universe" is an assumption, an axiom.

So no it doesn't really eliminate "everything is subjective" it fits perfectly into the postmodern critique of language itself.

[RikNieu]

So postmodernism is to ignore conventional context?

If it's absurd in regular situations, of what use is it in daily life?

[ThomPete]

That's not the job of philosophy.

I think you referring to the more popularized life-philosophy which is quite different.

Postmodernism doesn't ignore conventional context it inquires about the solidity of it. The job of philosophy is to ask questions not find answers.

[RikNieu]

> The job of philosophy is to ask questions not find answers

But the purpose of a question is to seek an answer. It's very definition implies this...

I dunno, on the surface this just appears like formalised intentional abstruseness to me. A formalised method to intentional miss the point.

But thanks for the replies, I appreciate it! This is rather interesting. Do you have some recommended links or books? I want to delve into this a bit more.

[resu_nimda]

Philosophy at its extremes often does become paradoxical or nonsensical. If you believe in materialism, you can't really believe in free will, yet you still have to go about your day "making decisions." But holding that philosophy still does have practical implications on those decisions, e.g. you probably won't be going to church or praying.

So, with postmodernism, you can go all the way down the rabbit hole as a philosophical exercise, and when you come back up and resume daily life, perhaps there are things you took for granted that you now begin to question. For example, a comment way up this chain asserted that "good art is better than bad art in ways that aren't purely relative." I used to believe that (Rembrandt must be better than a 3-year-old's scribble, right?), but now I don't believe that any art (music, film, etc) can be objectively argued to be better than any other, there is no good and bad art, only art that an individual likes or doesn't like.

Postmodernism to me actually leads toward a greater tolerance of other people and the state of the world. When you tear down the concepts of "right" and "wrong" - in the context of morals, ethics, human behavior - you realize they're as shaky and subjective as anything else. If you can't prove that your way is the right way, how can you tell someone else they're wrong?

[ThomPete]

Philosophical inquiry leads you wherever it leads you. We started looking for truth but the more we dug in we realized that that's not a very useful way to think about it and you can see how each successful and popular philosopher at least in the west basically keeps peeling off layers of their predecessor showing that what had previously been thought of as an objective foundation wasn't that objective when it came down to it.

Postmodernism was the philosophy that peeled of kind of the last layer which is the language itself and showed that the very tool we were using to express objective truths itself was in fact highly subjective and ridden with assumptions.

I can assure you the point is not to miss the point. Philosophy is for the most part not useful for everyday discussions as it tends to deal with things that often sound absurd (is it ok to kill babies if they cry) but it's important to understand that philosophy is informing other areas such as scientific methodology and to inform how to think about scientific discoveries. Falsification is a product of philosophical pondering. So is Kuhns Paradigm Shift.

With regards to books.

I would say that "Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations" is a pretty good place to start.

https://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Theory-Interrogations-Stev...

Although he isn't considered a postmodernist per se as such I would also say that Kuhns "The structure of scientific revolution" gets you an interesting view into postmodernism without gunning for it. And it's about science which in itself is always interesting.

You should probably also read some Derrida or maybe start by watching the documentary about him he is pretty hard to read unless you are motivated. But you could start with "Speech and Phenomena" or of course Focult (but try and ignore the many political nuances)

And keep in mind postmodernism doesn't lead you to a conclusion it just shows you the limit of language. It's from that limit we must build structures while knowing they can always be broken down again.

Personally, it's helped me analyze the world differently and see past assumptions which allowed me to come up with better solutions for my clients. But it can also just be something that opens up your eyes for a different way to think about the world.