[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?

[RikNieu]

> 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?

Not sure I'm understanding you correctly. Are you saying we should be tolerate everyones behaviour because there's no right and wrong?

[resu_nimda]

Well if I adhere to what I just said, then I can't really speak to what people should be doing. I'm only describing my personal philosophy.

Do I completely tolerate, with no misgivings, every action taken by another human being, or every circumstance the world places me in? Not exactly. Somewhere there is a clash between abstract intellectual ideals and the reality of flesh and bones and animal brains. But, going back to your original question, I do think this line of thinking has had a real and practical impact on my daily life and the way I view things and interact with people.

[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.