Help! My information search - teacher is a post-modernist!

[NecroCommie]

Title says it all. It's like talking to a brick wall. And now he teaches to everyone that all views are equally valid! This is not the case!

[NecroCommie]

Fuck! It's like an epistemological equivalent of a creationist: "LALALALAL!!! Not hearing! That is just what you think! All views are equal!"

[JazzRemington]

If he thinks you're wrong because all views are valid or equal, then he's contradicting himself.

[Dean]

Bullshit liberalism.

[NecroCommie]

If he thinks you're wrong because all views are valid or equal, then he's contradicting himself.
No, he thinks I have my view and he has his, and we're therefore equal.

[Dean]

No, he thinks I have my view and he has his, and we're therefore equal.
That has nothing to do with the validity of the viewpoint in question.

Hes engaging in intellectual nihilism and it serves to do nothing but to devalue any further analysis or critical discussion. He's basically a childish fraud; a coward.

[JazzRemington]

Close your eyes and say the light in the classroom burnt out. If he tries to tell you that your statement is valid, he'd be using "validity" in a strange way that isn't exactly clear. If he says something to the effect of if you open your eyes you'd see the light isn't out, he contradicted himself because he's suggesting your wrong.

Basically, the issue is that he's using "validity" in a weird, vague way. It's almost like he means "true" when he uses the word, but that wouldn't solve everything because that means the idea that "1+1=2" and the idea that "1+1=11" are both true...

[Dean]

Close your eyes and say the light in the classroom burnt out. If he tries to tell you that your statement is valid, he'd be using "validity" in a strange way that isn't exactly clear. If he says something to the effect of if you open your eyes you'd see the light isn't out, he contradicted himself because he's suggesting your wrong.

Basically, the issue is that he's using "validity" in a weird, vague way. It's almost like he means "true" when he uses the word, but that wouldn't solve everything because that means the idea that "1+1=2" and the idea that "1+1=11" are both true...
I think hes trying to different validity from factuality. Its absurd, of course.

He could be trying to emphasize subjective viewpoints to "empower the individual." But it serves no point except to obfuscate any particular discussion to bring up these silly arguments of his.

[scarletghoul]

"And if you swear that there's no truth then who cares, how come you say it like you're right" - Bright Eyes

Seriously, fuck post-modernism. Dean is right, it's cowardly and silly. It's liberal philosophy turning in on itself, the serpent eating its own tail and transforming into bullshit..

Ask him why the fuck he's a teacher if all views are valid.

[bricolage]

And now he teaches to everyone that all views are equally valid!
This is more a caricature of 'post-modernism' than anything else to be honest. In the same way someone might say communism is 'everyone is equal' or 'everyone gets paid the same' and everyone on here would scream in uproar, 'all views are equally valid' gets paraded as the totality of 'post-modernism' yet is left to pass. There is no attempt to explore the heterogeneity of the discipline, the potential differences between post-modernism and post-structuralism, just 'bullshit liberalism' - despite the fact that many post-structuralists actually came from a socialist background (actually this is another point, noone attempts to address the fact that post-modernism was in many cases a theoretical backlash to the grotesque Stalinist projects of the 20th Century and the capitulation of 'radical' academics to them). And you know what lots of post-modernism/structuralism is shit, up its own arse, incomprehensible and irrelevant, a lot of it is bullshit liberalism and reactionary, but then I'd say most of what passes for 'Marxism'/'Communism'/'Socialism'/'Anarchism' is the same.

If your teacher is saying that then its pretty stupid, and as has been pointed out suffers from what most of post-modernism suffers from, the inability to turn its critique upon itself, like I said though I doubt Foucault or Deleuze would subscribe to that view. Lyotard probably would...

And more to the point what the hell is an 'information search - teacher' anyway?!


Ask him why the fuck he's a teacher if all views are valid.
Because he needs a job in order to survive?

I appreciate the Bright Eyes quote though :)

[Meridian]

I doubt I have ever fully understood the term "post-modernism". That said, I would guess I understand it as well as the previous posters in this topic.

Anyways. No, the title does not say it all. It isn't philosophical discussion to name something then for everyone exclaim how much we hate it, just because it happens to be unpopular for whatever bullshit reason of the month. That isn't any kind of discussion at all.

My main argument against post-modernism is that truth is a function of language, and as such a sentence is true or false without any metaphysical implications, as it is "simply" language-use. We use the words "right", "correct", "true", "wrong", "incorrect" and "false" (etc.) effectively. From what little I have picked up about post-modernist philosophy there seems to be an unclear way to use words like "truth", where it's taken out of connection to the way the word is used effectively, non-metaphysically.

[NecroCommie]

This is more a caricature of 'post-modernism' than anything else to be honest. In the same way someone might say communism is 'everyone is equal' or 'everyone gets paid the same' and everyone on here would scream in uproar, 'all views are equally valid' gets paraded as the totality of 'post-modernism' yet is left to pass. There is no attempt to explore the heterogeneity of the discipline, the potential differences between post-modernism and post-structuralism, just 'bullshit liberalism' - despite the fact that many post-structuralists actually came from a socialist background (actually this is another point, noone attempts to address the fact that post-modernism was in many cases a theoretical backlash to the grotesque Stalinist projects of the 20th Century and the capitulation of 'radical' academics to them). And you know what lots of post-modernism/structuralism is shit, up its own arse, incomprehensible and irrelevant, a lot of it is bullshit liberalism and reactionary, but then I'd say most of what passes for 'Marxism'/'Communism'/'Socialism'/'Anarchism' is the same.

If your teacher is saying that then its pretty stupid, and as has been pointed out suffers from what most of post-modernism suffers from, the inability to turn its critique upon itself, like I said though I doubt Foucault or Deleuze would subscribe to that view. Lyotard probably would...
This is all highly irrelevant. His own words: "I would claim there is no such thing as objective "truth"." This position is just batshit crazy and I refuse to even play with the idea. If someone questions the status of gravity as an objective truth, then he is clearly a philosophical illiterate and a stupid person.


And more to the point what the hell is an 'information search - teacher' anyway?!
I study library and information service. One of our subjects is "Information search". It consists of courses in which we learn to search and classify information, and judge their sources etc...

[NecroCommie]

My main argument against post-modernism is that truth is a function of language, and as such a sentence is true or false without any metaphysical implications, as it is "simply" language-use. We use the words "right", "correct", "true", "wrong", "incorrect" and "false" (etc.) effectively. From what little I have picked up about post-modernist philosophy there seems to be an unclear way to use words like "truth", where it's taken out of connection to the way the word is used effectively, non-metaphysically.
This actally sounds like some post-modernist thought. They often claim truth is just a word used to bestow one's will upon another. In reality truth is a word, but it is also much more. This is what the post-modernists completely fail to understand. They deconstruct the language, while at the same time serious philosophers are trying to communicate truth as a concept that is independent of language.

[JazzRemington]

This actally sounds like some post-modernist thought. They often claim truth is just a word used to bestow one's will upon another. In reality truth is a word, but it is also much more. This is what the post-modernists completely fail to understand. They deconstruct the language, while at the same time serious philosophers are trying to communicate truth as a concept that is independent of language.

This doesn't make sense. If "truth" is a word, then it's a part of a language, not independent of it. Unless you mean something different by "independent," in which case I'd be curious as to what you mean.

[NecroCommie]

This doesn't make sense. If "truth" is a word, then it's a part of a language, not independent of it. Unless you mean something different by "independent," in which case I'd be curious as to what you mean.
The concept of truth is independent of language. Much like time exists and is the same whether or not we call it "time" or "glxblt". Concept is something that you try to communicate via language. Language is the means of transaction, and the concept is the good that is being transacted. Post-modernists attack the means of transaction while honest people are trying to give you the concept.

Therefore all concepts are independent of language. Language can have an impact on the concept being transacted, but they are still two completely different things.

EDIT: Actually, just forget about the last one. It is not the concept that is being attempted to convey, but understanding about a concept. Still, it does not change the fact that post-modernism is a huge attack on the means of communication without ever trying to combat the thing that is communicated.

[manic expression]

This is all highly irrelevant. His own words: "I would claim there is no such thing as objective "truth".
My nice reaction: "Then what 'subjective truth' do you find to be most justified and/or desirable? What 'subjective ideas' do you stand for?"

My honest reaction: "Then your ideology is worthless and irrelevant, and your ideas will never amount to a hill of beans in this world. You lose, good day, sir."

I mean, really, postmodernists of this sort get exactly what they deserve: utter impotence. Tell them to stay out of our way while we're making the world a better place.

[JazzRemington]

Concept is something that you try to communicate via language.

Right about here is where you start to lose it. When you communicate "via language" you do so with words, which are a part of a language and not something independent of it. Unless you're using "concept", " communicate", "language", and "independent" in new ways that I'm unfamiliar with. Again, you aren't making any sense.


Language is the means of transaction, and the concept is the good that is being transacted. Post-modernists attack the means of transaction while honest people are trying to give you the concept.

You don't seem to understand the word "transaction," if you think these things that which are "independent of language" can be "transacted."

[bricolage]

This is all highly irrelevant. His own words: "I would claim there is no such thing as objective "truth"." This position is just batshit crazy and I refuse to even play with the idea. If someone questions the status of gravity as an objective truth, then he is clearly a philosophical illiterate and a stupid person.
But like I said this is not 'post-modernism/structuralism', it is just a lazy caricature of it, if this is what your teacher is saying and if he is saying that it is 'post-modernist' then he's wrong. I think its highly relevant when people throw around comments in this thread without having a clue what post-modernism/structuralism actually is.

I also don't think there is any harm in challenging pre-conceived notions of 'objectivity' in regards to politics/philosophy.


I study library and information service. One of our subjects is "Information search". It consists of courses in which we learn to search and classify information, and judge their sources etc...Thank you.

[NecroCommie]

Right about here is where you start to lose it. When you communicate "via language" you do so with words, which are a part of a language and not something independent of it. Unless you're using "concept", " communicate", "language", and "independent" in new ways that I'm unfamiliar with. Again, you aren't making any sense.
Understanding of concept, and concept itself can exist without ever being communicated through language. Or are you saying I cannot have an oppinion on you without speaking it first?

From wikipedia:
There are prevailing theories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_theory) in contemporary philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_philosophy) which attempt to explain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explain) the nature of concepts. The representational theory of mind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_theory_of_mind) proposes that concepts are mental representations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_representation), while the semantic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic) theory of concepts (originating with Frege (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottlob_Frege)'s distinction between concept and object (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_and_object)) holds that they are abstract objects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_objects)

Saying that concept is dependent on language, is like saying that the concept that is time is dependant on how people view it. This is obviously not the case, as time can be measured with inanimate objects. Other option would be to say that I use the word: "concept" in an incorrect way, but it still would not mean that objective reality and it's understanding can exist independent of the language it is communicated with. And here we once again come to the fact that post-modernism actually does not even attempt to attack truth as the concept (=as the abstract object) it is, but rather they choose to attack the usage of the word, the method it is communicated with.


You don't seem to understand the word "transaction," if you think these things that which are "independent of language" can be "transacted."
Clearly you do not understand in the slightest what I am talking about. If you say that our understanding automatically is warped by the methods we communicate it with, it is to say we cannot trust anything that comes outside our consciousness, save for what we sense directly ourselves.

Do I really need to point out why this is a reactionary idea?

[NecroCommie]

Besides, what is this "we cannot understand what post-modernism is really about"-thing? As far as I know, neither do the post-modernists themselves understand what exactly their idea is about. There really is no actual definition for post-modernism. I have actually heard self-identifying post-modernists say: "Post-modernism is whatever you want it to be". Which really tells something about the level of lunacy we are talking about.

[JazzRemington]

Understanding of concept, and concept itself can exist without ever being communicated through language.

I don't understand what you're saying. You'll have to explain it to me.


Or are you saying I cannot have an oppinion on you without speaking it first?

You can only form an opinion (whether good or ill) about something if you know it exists in any sense of the word. If you didn't know I existed, you wouldn't have any opinion of me. Actually meeting me is irrelevant.

From wikipedia:


Saying that concept is dependent on language, is like saying that the concept that is time is dependant on how people view it.

I don't understand what the writer means by "viewing", "dependent", and "time."


Clearly you do not understand in the slightest what I am talking about. If you say that our understanding automatically is warped by the methods we communicate it with, it is to say we cannot trust anything that comes outside our consciousness, save for what we sense directly ourselves.

Now you're just babbling.


Do I really need to point out why this is a reactionary idea?

What, your oddball ideas about how there's somethings that exist "outside" of the self and the language we use? How is that not a reactionary idea?

[NecroCommie]

What, your oddball ideas about how there's somethings that exist "outside" of the self and the language we use? How is that not a reactionary idea?
Because if we even question the idea that something exists outside an individual consciousness, we must simultaneously question all other consciousness'es as well (my english fails, pardon me). This is because we get the information about other individuals the same way we get information about the objective world: through our senses. Questioning objective reality is questioning one's senses.

If someone as much as hints that I should question my senses, I consider them ready for the asylum. Other option is to explain me why I should disbelieve my senses on the matter of objetive reality, but not disbelieve them when it comes to other individuals.

The rest of your post was not attacking my message, but the language I used to communicate it with.

...
It just occured to me. Are you trolling? Because if you are, I think you just reached some kind of trolling equivalent of a super-saiyan.

[bricolage]

There really is no actual definition for post-modernism.
This is true yes, it is very heterogeneous and most of the theorists placed under it probably wouldn't accept the label. As such some if it is terrible, some is very good.

[NecroCommie]

In any case, anyone who believes their senses will simply have to admit the existence of objective truth, and that we can learn about it through the scientific method. Any other position will sooner or later have to question their own senses, in which case I will stop talking to them. Hell! They might think I am imaginary!

[JazzRemington]

Because if we even question the idea that something exists outside an individual consciousness, we must simultaneously question all other consciousness'es as well (my english fails, pardon me). This is because we get the information about other individuals the same way we get information about the objective world: through our senses. Questioning objective reality is questioning one's senses.

I don't understand what you mean by "consciousness" and "objective reality". Further, if we can only trust our direct senses that would seriously hinder learning, if it doesn't make it impossible.


If someone as much as hints that I should question my senses, I consider them ready for the asylum. Other option is to explain me why I should disbelieve my senses on the matter of objetive reality, but not disbelieve them when it comes to other individuals.

This is based on the assumption that philosophical theories about the validity or invalidity of sense data have the capacity to be true (or have truth-values). Before something can be determined to be true or false, it has to make literal sense first. And odds are, none of them do.


The rest of your post was not attacking my message, but the language I used to communicate it with.

You would be right if there was a message.

...

It just occured to me. Are you trolling? Because if you are, I think you just reached some kind of trolling equivalent of a super-saiyan.

All I did was to ask you to explain what you mean by your vague use of certain words. Because I don't think even you understand what you're talking about.

[Meridian]

Understanding of concept, and concept itself can exist without ever being communicated through language. Or are you saying I cannot have an oppinion on you without speaking it first?
An opinion has linguistic form, or else you would never understand it, nor would anyone else. You think using words. Thoughts do not need to be said out loud, they still have linguistic form.


Saying that concept is dependent on language, is like saying that the concept that is time is dependant on how people view it.
"Time" is a word, subject to how that word is used. The fact that you know how to use the word makes you understand 'the concept' of time. It is not dependent on how people "view it", it is dependent on people knowing how to speak a language with the word in it. Post-modernists, as well as a range of other 'philosophers' (or hobby-philosophers) such as yourself, confuse themselves and everyone else when they try to appeal to "concepts" as independent of language... While themselves are using language doing it.


And here we once again come to the fact that post-modernism actually does not even attempt to attack truth as the concept (=as the abstract object) it is, but rather they choose to attack the usage of the word, the method it is communicated with.
But 'truth' is not at all any object. Truth is something we say of sentences. You appeal to spirits, abstract entities that can never be discovered in any way, simply because you mistake the role and use of language, communication, for description. That is the core of metaphysics. You can not successfully use language beyond its 'limits'.


Clearly you do not understand in the slightest what I am talking about. If you say that our understanding automatically is warped by the methods we communicate it with, it is to say we cannot trust anything that comes outside our consciousness, save for what we sense directly ourselves.
If post-modernists claim "our understanding" is warped by our communication, as a general metaphysical rule, then I obviously disagree with them. You use "understanding" in an odd manner, I will here assume you mean thinking instead. Our thinking and our communication has the same form, unless you communicate with a different language than the one with which you think (which I do at times).

Furthermore, you try to use two other words that are frequently misused by the philosophically inclined, "consciousness" and "sense". As I pointed out earlier, we think by the same form as we communicate. What we see, hear, smell, feel we either think about, or not. What we can trust, or not, depends on whether we have reason to believe we have been deceived in some way. Does it make sense to say "I don't trust my own language"?

[NecroCommie]

An opinion has linguistic form, or else you would never understand it, nor would anyone else. You think using words. Thoughts do not need to be said out loud, they still have linguistic form.
This is wildly untrue. People think in different ways. Some people think in words, most people think in a mixture of different ways. There are entire branches of psychology dedicated to find out in which ways the mind conceives things. Even the school that promotes so called: "Language of the mind" admits that we most certainly do not think in the language we speak. This clearly indicates that our spoken language, and all the words in it, are merely attempts to describe some other image we have in our minds, whether it be graphic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_image), abstract (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept) or word of an undefined, yet completely another language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_thought).

I am providing links to wikipedia because this really is some basic stuff. http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html This guy is just one of many with his mental condition. Notice how he is not psychologically abnormal because he thinks in images. He is abnormal because he thinks everything in images.

Because post-modernism is based on such a basic flawed assumption, I really don't see how they are different to creationists in relation to biology. Also, because the entire post-modernist thought relies on this error, I will not even bother myself with the rest of it's "content".

[cska]

Title says it all. It's like talking to a brick wall. And now he teaches to everyone that all views are equally valid! This is not the case!

Punch him. The view that you should be allowed to punch him is equally valid to the view that you shouldn't be allowed to punch him. :laugh:

[Meridian]

This is wildly untrue. People think in different ways. Some people think in words, most people think in a mixture of different ways. There are entire branches of psychology dedicated to find out in which ways the mind conceives things. Even the school that promotes so called: "Language of the mind" admits that we most certainly do not think in the language we speak. This clearly indicates that our spoken language, and all the words in it, are merely attempts to describe some other image we have in our minds, whether it be graphic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_image), abstract (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept) or word of an undefined, yet completely another language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_thought).

I am providing links to wikipedia because this really is some basic stuff. http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html This guy is just one of many with his mental condition. Notice how he is not psychologically abnormal because he thinks in images. He is abnormal because he thinks everything in images.

Because post-modernism is based on such a basic flawed assumption, I really don't see how they are different to creationists in relation to biology. Also, because the entire post-modernist thought relies on this error, I will not even bother myself with the rest of it's "content".
You are completely off in every way. First off, I am not a post-modernist, so post-modernism is not in any way based on any of my own "assumptions". (Actually, post-modernists make the same mistake you do.)

When someone say "I thought of something", then they are also able to say what they thought of. Picturing, imagining, etc., are different than thinking. People can say "I imagined you standing on the sofa" or something like that. That just means they've pictured something; the meaning is right there in ordinary language. Thinking, on the other hand, as the word is used ordinarily, is done with language.

To clear up some of your other confused ideas: 'The mind' can not 'conceive' things, people can. 'The mind' can not have a language, humans have languages. 'The mind' is a leftover idea philosophers have introduced as a substitute for the soul, and it fills the exact same role. Yet there is no such thing. People use language completely without "attempting to describe some other image in their mind". And now one I recommend you to read:

Wittgenstein:
"But if you say: "How am I to know what he means, when I see nothing but the signs he gives?" then I say: "How is he to know what he means, when he has nothing but the signs either?"

[NecroCommie]

Do you have anything else than claims? I know what you are trying to say, that there are no meanings beyond the linguistic definitions, but as I see it I have no reason to think that way. And I have myriad reasons to think otherwise.

Secondly, whether post-modernists believe what you say or not is irrelevant. Because their position is entirely negative (that is their only function is to attack language and the use of language) their position is dependant on denying any non-linguistic thinking.

[Hit The North]

'The mind' is a leftover idea philosophers have introduced as a substitute for the soul, and it fills the exact same role. Yet there is no such thing.


So people are mind-less like a stone or the weather?

And before you reply that, no, the difference is that we have brains, I'd like to point out that the brain performs a number of functions which are not coterminous with functions such as consciousness or intentionality which people often, in ordinary language-use, call the 'mind': "I've changed my mind," for instance. So just pointing to the existence of a brain, is not enough.

Moreover, I'd suggest you've got your causation the wrong way around. The 'soul' arises as a distorted and mystified concept on the basis of a recognition that consciousness and self-consciousness (or mind) are features of human experience.

[Thirsty Crow]

This is true yes, it is very heterogeneous and most of the theorists placed under it probably wouldn't accept the label. As such some if it is terrible, some is very good.

Once and for all: one cannot be a postmodernist. It is not an umbrella term for a loose group of theories, but rather an altogether different "paradigm" which finds expression in different areas of inquiry (literature, music, architecture, hell even economics - as in theories of economics). It is crucial to understand that the term itself rests on the conflict with "modernism".
If you're interested in a sound theory of postmodernism, check out Frederic Jameson's "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism".

And as far as the teacher is concerned, it seems to me that he's upholding the position of epistemological nihilism. Which is not practical at all, but hell, who am I to cast the stone, all views all equally valid...:D

[Thirsty Crow]

Do you have anything else than claims? I know what you are trying to say, that there are no meanings beyond the linguistic definitions, but as I see it I have no reason to think that way.
No, you've got it wrong.
There are no meanings beyond language and sign usage (and these are very much historical - in other words, they change).
Try to understand that every single "meaning" in our lives is determined by language and sign systems (it is a nice operational distinction , but in reality human language - as in spoken words - cannot be separated from other instances of human sign systems, such as commercials for instance). We think not with language, as Meridian's suggestion is somewhat imprecise, but IN language. In this instance, one of the more famous "post-modernists", Derrida, was right to assume that "there is nothing outside the text" (if we assume that "text" is an umbrella term for a network of human sign systems).

[Meridian]

So people are mind-less like a stone or the weather?

And before you reply that, no, the difference is that we have brains, I'd like to point out that the brain performs a number of functions which are not coterminous with functions such as consciousness or intentionality which people often, in ordinary language-use, call the 'mind': "I've changed my mind," for instance. So just pointing to the existence of a brain, is not enough.

Moreover, I'd suggest you've got your causation the wrong way around. The 'soul' arises as a distorted and mystified concept on the basis of a recognition that consciousness and self-consciousness (or mind) are features of human experience.
Well, let's take claim for claim. No, I did not say that people are "mindless". I would not respond with alluding to the existence of the brain, either.

I am not sure what you mean by "consciousness" and "intentionality".

I see no problems with sentences such as "I've changed my mind". I made a statement about 'the mind', as in the philosophical idea of such an entity.

I would say that it's the philosophical terms like "consciousness" and "the mind", themselves that have no sense when used metaphysically, distorted from their ordinary use. Most English-speaking people know what consciousness means medically, or when someone says "she is out of her mind". However, when used metaphysically these words describe everything. If there were such a thing as "consciousness", then it would refer to everything you have ever known, and the same is true of "mind". (So this view does not only lead to massive confusion, it also leads to latent solipsism.)

How can a word be used to successfully say something about anything, when the meaning of the word includes what it is supposed to describe? Using it consistently would just be to consistently say nothing. In other words, there is no use for these terms because they can not be used to say anything about the world.

[Hit The North]

I am not sure what you mean by "consciousness" and "intentionality".


I'm sitting at my desk and realise that I'm thirsty. I reach out for a glass of water, raise it to my lips and drink. I reached out for the glass on purpose, to satisfy a purpose (to drink) because I became aware that I was thirsty. This and a class of behaviour similar to this is called 'intentionality'. In order to be aware that I was thirsty, I needed to be conscious - I'm unaware of everything when I'm asleep. In order for the glass of water to be on my desk in the first place, I had to anticipate before I entered my office, that I would be thirsty in the near future. More than that, I had to have some awareness of which beverage I'd prefer to satisfy this potential thirst. My choice may be the result of taste, necessity, time of day, or many other factors, all of which I would need to weigh up. This along with a zillion other similar combinations of wants, needs and other determinations which guide our behaviour is 'consciousness'.

So 'intentionality' is a generalised concept which embraces a class of actions which are intended by sentient agents.

'Consciousness' is a generalised concept which embraces a class of sensations and determinations which can only be experienced by self-aware (that is, conscious) agents.

I have consciousness.
My dog has consciousness.
A rock does not.

When I throw a rock for my dog, I intend to throw it far, my dog intends to run after it, the rock does not intend to fly through the air.

So at the very least talking about the potential for consciousness and intentional acts, helps to distinguish man and dog from inanimate and insensate mud.

[Vanguard1917]

Your dog has consciousness, BTB?

[Dean]

Your dog has consciousness, BTB?
Sure does.

[Vanguard1917]

Sure does.

That's pretty cool. Must be a very rare breed like Brian Griffin.

[Dean]

That's pretty cool. Must be a very rare breed like Brian Griffin.

Nah, Griffin's breed - you know those pretentious types (who might automatically assume particular definitions in the furtherance of a specific agenda) - are pretty common.

[Hit The North]

Your dog has consciousness, BTB?

He has enough consciousness to know when he is thirsty and to remember where we keep the water bowl.

If you have a dog which has never demonstrated any consciousness of either its inner state or the state of things around it, I'd suggest you get it checked out by a vet. It may be dead.

[Hit The North]

I would say that it's the philosophical terms like "consciousness" and "the mind", themselves that have no sense when used metaphysically, distorted from their ordinary use.

Is that a standard use of the word 'metaphysically' - to refer to a word which is used in a non-ordinary sense?

What's the difference, therefore, between the metaphysical use of a word and the poetical use of the same word?


I see no problems with sentences such as "I've changed my mind".Why not? If you argue there's no such thing as 'mind' then surely it is beholden upon you to point out to the 'ordinary user' that they have no 'mind' and therefore are not in a position to change it.

Or is the extent of your critique this: that if a philosopher uses the term it is illegitimate but if an 'ordinary person' uses the same term it is legitimate?

[mikelepore]

Title says it all. It's like talking to a brick wall. And now he teaches to everyone that all views are equally valid! This is not the case!

There have been people who got killed because they walked across the road when they felt certain that no car was coming, but they were wrong, and a car was coming. There have been people who accidentally shot themselves because they felt certain that a gun was unloaded, but they were wrong, and it was loaded. There is only one possible way to explain such events. Reality is independent of what someone thinks about it. What some people think is true, and what other people think is false.

[Vanguard1917]

He has enough consciousness to know when he is thirsty and to remember where we keep the water bowl.

An insect also 'knows' when it's thirsty and from where it can get water. But it has no consciousness that a thing such as water exists and that it is essential for its survival. It finds and drinks water not as a result of a conscious thought process, but as a result of animal instinct. Consciousness is a uniquely human ability.

As one of our holy tomes points out,

'Men can be distinguished from animals by [among other things] consciousness ... '
- Marx and Engels, The German Ideology

[Hit The North]

An insect also 'knows' when it's thirsty and from where it can get water. But it has no consciousness that a thing such as water exists and that it is essential for its survival. It finds and drinks water not as a result of a conscious thought process, but as a result of animal instinct.


Yes, but not all animals are the same, are they? Otherwise humans would be as clueless as your proverbial insect. Moreover, while I concede that my dog has no opinion on this, and that his capacity for self-consciousness is extremely limited, I like to think that he is a more complex animal than an earwig, with the scope for more meaningful action. If my dog was only driven by instinct, then I would not be able to house train him - i.e. get him to act against his immediate physical need. I have less hope of being able to similarly train a wasp, whilst at the same time I accept that it would be a mistake to enrol my dog into college. But over time my dog has learned ways of behaving and he approaches some things on the basis of what they mean to him. For instance, he has a rubber chicken which he has always played with throughout his life, which he goes to again and again, whilst ignoring all the other rubber chickens and plastic pigs that we buy for him. When he feels anxious, like when we leave him alone or when he feels ill because his instincts have driven him to eat cat shit, he searches out the rubber chicken and gives it a right going over. I'm not sure what meaning this chicken has for him - it could be the smell, the texture, the familiarity, who knows? - but it obviously means something.

There's a reason that Pavlov used dogs and not cockroaches.


Consciousness is a uniquely human ability. Humans have a high degree of consciousness, which surpasses the levels found in other higher mammals, and this allows us a great deal of self-consciousness, the ability to abstract ourselves from our immediate surroundings, to assess and modify our behaviour, to interact with others on the basis of what G H Mead called the 'generalised other'.


As one of our holy tomes points out,

'Men can be distinguished from animals by [among other things] consciousness ... '
- Marx and Engels, The German Ideology
Firstly, this does not necessarily mean that Marx is claiming that animals have no consciousness. Secondly, it is not consciousness per se which separates us from animals, it is this:


Originally written by Karl Marx:
They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.

[Vanguard1917]

If my dog was only driven by instinct, then I would not be able to house train him - i.e. get him to act against his immediate physical need.


Surely your dog performing the tricks which you have taught it is a product of domestication, not of any canine consciousness. When dogs emerged as a subspecies of the wolf over 15,000 years ago, their biological evolution was strongly shaped by their closeness with humans. A tendency to obey its human 'pack leader' is part of a dog's genetic make-up. It does not obey you as a result of a conscious plan. As Cesar Millan would say, dogs react -- they don't rationalise.



There's a reason that Pavlov used dogs and not cockroaches.



And what Pavlov's discoveries regarding dogs showed was precisely that dogs' physical actions are essentially reflexive, not conscious.



While Ivan Pavlov worked to unveil the secrets of the digestive system, he also studied what signals triggered related phenomena, such as the secretion of saliva. When a dog encounters food, saliva starts to pour from the salivary glands located in the back of its oral cavity. This saliva is needed in order to make the food easier to swallow. The fluid also contains enzymes that break down certain compounds in the food. In humans, for example, saliva contains the enzyme amylase, an effective processor of starch.

Pavlov became interested in studying reflexes when he saw that the dogs drooled without the proper stimulus. Although no food was in sight, their saliva still dribbled. It turned out that the dogs were reacting to lab coats. Every time the dogs were served food, the person who served the food was wearing a lab coat. Therefore, the dogs reacted as if food was on its way whenever they saw a lab coat.

In a series of experiments, Pavlov then tried to figure out how these phenomena were linked. For example, he struck a bell when the dogs were fed. If the bell was sounded in close association with their meal, the dogs learnt to associate the sound of the bell with food. After a while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling.


http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/pavlov/readmore.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Necrocommie:


And now he teaches to everyone that all views are equally valid!

If so, then he must agree that the rejection of PoMo is valid too!

In that case, he must then agree that this is false:


all views are equally valid!

If so, he must reject your rejection of PoMo -- or he must reject (his version of) PoMo!

If, however, he rejects this line of argument as equally valid, then this cannot now be true:


all views are equally valid!

And he is now looped in a permanent rejection of his own 'theory'.

On the other hand, if he accepts this line of argument as equally valid, his 'theory' is screwed too.

Either way, therefore, his 'theory' is holed well below the waterline.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Is that a standard use of the word 'metaphysically' - to refer to a word which is used in a non-ordinary sense?

The theoretical and metaphysical use of such words depends on the Platonic/Christian/Cartesian tradition in 'western' thought.

For example, the ordinary use of 'consciousness' is typically medical, as you have been told before -- as in "Has the patient regained consciousness?"

When you mystics use this word, you use it outside such contexts, and it is there that you misuse it, as Marx noted:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life.

When you look at your own use of this word, to talk to ordinary people, in non-theoretical contexts, in "actual life", even you use 'consciousness' in the way I have indicated.

In other contexts, you are plainly using it in its Platonic/Christian/Cartesian sense, and in that sense this word is no different from their use of the word 'soul':


"Soc. But must not the mind, or thinking power, which misplaces them, have a conception either of both objects or of one of them?

"Theaet. Certainly.

"Soc. Either together or in succession?

"Theaet. Very good.

"Soc. And do you mean by conceiving, the same which I mean?

"Theaet. What is that?

"Soc. I mean the conversation which the soul holds with herself in considering of anything. I speak of what I scarcely understand; but the soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking -- asking questions of herself and answering them, affirming and denying. And when she has arrived at a decision, either gradually or by a sudden impulse, and has at last agreed, and does not doubt, this is called her opinion. I say, then, that to form an opinion is to speak, and opinion is a word spoken, -- I mean, to oneself and in silence, not aloud or to another: What think you?

"Theaet. I agree."

[Plato Theaetetus, p.210. Bold added.]


"Stranger. And therefore thought, opinion, and imagination are now proved to exist in our minds both as true and false.

"Theaet. How so?

"Str. You will know better if you first gain a knowledge of what they are, and in what they severally differ from one another.

"Theaet. Give me the knowledge which you would wish me to gain.

"Str. Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception, that what is called thought is the unuttered conversation of the soul with herself?

"Theaet. Quite true."

[Plato Sophist, pp.287-88. Bold emphasis added.]

As one expert in the history of psychology notes:


"Western conceptions of mind began in religion before moving first to philosophy, and then to science. However, for two reasons psychologists have underestimated the influence of religious ideas of the soul -- the ψυχή (psychē) of our science -- on conceptions of mind and self. First, psychology is an aggressively secular enterprise and psychologists like to think that they put religion behind them when they assume their role as scientists. A more subtle reason concerns the dominance of historical scholarship by Christian belief. When we as psychologists read about past thinkers such as Plato and Descartes, not only do we look at them as protopsychologists, we see them through the eyes of historians and classicists who until recently worked within a quietly but unequivocally held Christian framework. That framework rarely intrudes explicitly, but it filters out the rough splinters, odd conceptions, and obscure but vital disputes concerning mind and soul held from Greek times through to at least Descartes. Thus we psychologists inherit a conception of the mind subtly shaped by forces of which we know little, drain it of its specifically supernatural content (e.g., survival of bodily death), and fancy that what remains is somehow natural and therefore a proper object of science....

"Although there are differences in detail, religions around the world have a remarkably concordant picture of the mind, positing the existence of two immaterial souls for two distinct reasons.... The first, universal reason is to explain the difference between living and nonliving things. The second, less universal reason is to explain human personality....

"Greek religion and the concept of ψυχή underwent a profound change in the later fifth century BCE.... Traditional Greek religious thought had insisted on a great gulf between the human and divine worlds, downplaying the idea of personal immortality. However, in the wake of the Peloponnesian War, continuity between the human and divine worlds was the theme of various new cults, often imported from the non-Greek east. In their practices these new religions induced in worshippers ecstatic states through which they might for a time join the gods, perhaps even briefly becoming the god of their veneration. The ψυχή became a personal, immortal soul, taking after death its rightful place in the divine world of the gods. Plato was influenced by these new teachings, but steered them in a less ecstatic, more philosophical and cognitive direction.... For Plato, the proper object of the soul's attention was indeed something divine, but he taught that instead of seeking salvation through ecstatic communion with the gods, the soul should seek salvation through philosophical pursuit of eternal, transcendental Truth. In Plato's hands, the mind became identified with reason, the ability to formulate and know the universal Truths underwritten by the heavenly Forms." [Leahy (2005), pp.37-39. Bold added.]

Leahy, T. (2005), 'Mind As A Scientific Object: A Historical-Philosophical Exploration', in Erneling and Johnson (2005), pp.35-78.

Erneling, C., and Johnson, D. (2005) (eds.), The Mind As A Scientific Object. Between Brain And Culture (Oxford University Press).

And as another notes (this time of Plotinus, the leading Neo-Platonist in the Roman era):


"Plotinus anticipates Descartes in arguing both that the soul as subject of perception cannot be an extended substance, as well as in arguing that the mind necessarily knows itself. Like Descartes, Plotinus also invokes an introspective or subjective stance within his dialectical procedure." [Rappe (1999), p.250.]

Rappe, S. (1999), 'Self-Knowledge And Subjectivity In The Enneads', in Gerson (1999), pp.250-74.

Gerson, L., (1999) (ed.), The Cambridge Companion To Plotinus (Cambridge University Press).

Anthony Kenny neatly sums up this tradition (in its modern form):


"Descartes view of the nature of mind endured much longer than his view of matter. Indeed among educated people in the West who were not professional philosophers it is still the most widespread view of the mind. Most contemporary philosophers would disown Cartesian dualism but even those who explicitly renounce it are often profoundly influenced by it.

"Many people, for instance, go along with Descartes in identifying the mental realm as the realm of consciousness. They think of consciousness as an object of introspection; as something we see when we look within ourselves. They think of it as an inessential, contingent matter that consciousness has an expression in speech and behaviour. Consciousness, as they conceive it, is something to which each of us has direct access in our own case. Others, by contrast, can only infer to our conscious states by accepting our testimony or making causal inferences from our physical behaviour." [Kenny (1992), p.2.]

Kenny, A. (1992), The Metaphysics Of Mind (Oxford University Press).

This view of 'the mind' and 'consciousness' dominates modern theory, too:


"The notions of computation and representation are not just common currency in cognitive science modelling. To put it mildly, they are the building blocks of the discipline. Alternative voices from a number of subdisciplines that call into question these notions have periodically been raised. Unfortunately, after an initial, and usually short, excitement they remain quiet. Silence is due mainly to two reasons. On the one hand, the dominant paradigm overwhelms competitors (sometimes due to 'pragmatic' considerations) with data already accounted for and results to be accounted for, and on the other hand, alternative framings are repeatedly absorbed and made innocuous. Both reasons are interrelated. Alternatives raised, by default, carry the burden of proof in such a way that the dominant paradigm is the one that chooses what phenomena are in need of explanation.... Problems start when the what limits the range of options available when it comes to answering the how." [Garzón (2008), pp.259-60.]

Garzón, F. (2008), 'Towards A General Theory Of Antirepresentationalism', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59, 3, pp.259-92.

And this is how leading American philosopher, Hilary Putnam, puts things:


"...[V]irtually no philosopher doubted, from the time of Locke until roughly 1914, that, whatever concepts and ideas were, they were clearly mental objects of some kind. And no large-scale and comprehensive demolition job was done against this particularly wide-spread and influential philosophical misconception until Wittgenstein produced his Philosophical Investigations...." [Putnam (1975b), p.7.]

Putnam, H. (1975a), Mind Language And Reality. Philosophical Papers Volume Two (Cambridge University Press).

--------, (1975b), 'Language And Philosophy', in Putnam (1975a), pp.1-32.

Which explains why both I and Meridian agree with Marx (and Wittgenstein) when he said what he did about ordinary language (see above).

The following, of course, also explains why this Platonic/Christian/Cartesian use of 'psychological' language dominates 'western' (and, incidentally, 'eastern') thought, and has done so for nigh on two thousand five hundred years:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.

The German Ideology. Bold added.

It also explains why this metaphysical use of language has you in its thrall, too.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Why not? If you argue there's no such thing as 'mind' then surely it is beholden upon you to point out to the 'ordinary user' that they have no 'mind' and therefore are not in a position to change it.

Or is the extent of your critique this: that if a philosopher uses the term it is illegitimate but if an 'ordinary person' uses the same term it is legitimate?

This is no more a problem than if we use, say, the word 'influenza' in ordinary language. As you no doubt know from the etymology of this word, it was originally used to refer to the influence of cosmic forces on human beings, causing certain diseases:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=influenza

So, when we use 'influenza' (or 'flu') in ordinary language today we do not mean to refer to such cosmic influences. Same with 'mind'.

In that case, when someone says, "I have changed my mind", if read in the Platonic/Cartesian sense, that would mean they had swapped souls!

In ordinary language this is now a dead metaphor, and simply means that the one involved has changed their opinion of something, or someone.

[Dean]

An insect also 'knows' when it's thirsty and from where it can get water. But it has no consciousness that a thing such as water exists and that it is essential for its survival. It finds and drinks water not as a result of a conscious thought process, but as a result of animal instinct. Consciousness is a uniquely human ability.

As one of our holy tomes points out,

'Men can be distinguished from animals by [among other things] consciousness ... '
- Marx and Engels, The German Ideology
I'd be interested to know what term Marx originally used and how it translates directly, as well as the sense the translator has of consciousness.

The academic sense of the term consciousness often includes "sense of self," but the layman's sense never incorporated this notion. Indeed, I'd never heard of that qualifier until I argued with someone who had used the term.

It sounds like more mystification of human activity in the furtherance of creating a dichotomy between humans and other animals, to try and uplift their moral respect, as if that is necessary in the first place. The fact that you take this discussion - and only this discussion - seriously indicates a very strange, consistently dogmatic attitude on your part.

You seem obsessed with being the rhetorical defender of the human race, be they under attack or not. You also try to change scientific and economic issues into purely moral ones, with one unbending moral dictate.

[Vanguard1917]

Sorry, Dean, i'm not quite sure what you're saying to me.

[Meridian]

I'm sitting at my desk and realise that I'm thirsty. I reach out for a glass of water, raise it to my lips and drink. I reached out for the glass on purpose, to satisfy a purpose (to drink) because I became aware that I was thirsty. This and a class of behaviour similar to this is called 'intentionality'.
Is it really? I have never heard it classified as that before. I have heard about "doing something intentionally". Seems similar to what you are talking about.


In order to be aware that I was thirsty, I needed to be conscious - I'm unaware of everything when I'm asleep. In order for the glass of water to be on my desk in the first place, I had to anticipate before I entered my office, that I would be thirsty in the near future.
Though I am no medical expert, I do agree that you have to be conscious to know you're thirsty. However, the glass could have been on your desk because you forgot to clean up after some earlier drinking session, or for any other reason.


More than that, I had to have some awareness of which beverage I'd prefer to satisfy this potential thirst. My choice may be the result of taste, necessity, time of day, or many other factors, all of which I would need to weigh up. This along with a zillion other similar combinations of wants, needs and other determinations which guide our behaviour is 'consciousness'.
I have not heard wants and needs referred to as "consciousness" before. And I did not know that it guides human behaviour. How does it do that? I always thought humans were their own guides, so to speak, though of course usually not under circumstances of their choosing.

Anyways, if that is what consciousness is, then what happens when you become unconscious? You simply lose your wants, needs and other determinations which guide your behaviour? And regain them once you wake? Your definition seems inconsistent with the medical use of the word, which is demonstratively functional.

So why should this word, "consciousness", be used in the way you described? I have never heard it be used like that before. When someone wants something, they say or think something like "I want 'something'". They don't say "my consciousness is telling me that I want something", or even "my consciousness is such that I want something", because it is not.


'Consciousness' is a generalised concept which embraces a class of sensations and determinations which can only be experienced by self-aware (that is, conscious) agents.
Where did "self-aware" come into the picture? Do they have to be self-aware in the exact moment for them to have 'consciousness', or only capable of being self-aware (such as looking at themselves in the mirror)? And do they have to be agents?


When I throw a rock for my dog, I intend to throw it far, my dog intends to run after it, the rock does not intend to fly through the air.
Maybe so, but what does that have to do with 'consciousness'? Nothing follows from that.


So at the very least talking about the potential for consciousness and intentional acts, helps to distinguish man and dog from inanimate and insensate mud.
Actually, I think it muddies the issue. We are perfectly capable of distinguishing both humans and dogs from mud without appealing to such an entity, we do it every day.

[NecroCommie]

Heureka! I did it! I silenced him completely, defeated his petty arguments and mopped the floor with the rotting carcass of his position utterly! All this with one line:
"The claim that there is no objective truth, is a claim of objective truth in itself"

And in front of the entire class too! I felt like some verbal equivalent of a super-saiyan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2xdqznHC9o


"Crom laughs at your relativism! Laughs from his mountain!" :laugh:

[L.A.P.]

Postmodernist remind me of wannabe intellectual hippies who just have this outrageous view because it makes them feel smart. Although I do like Postmodern movies especially Barton Fink:thumbup1:.

[Hit The North]

Surely your dog performing the tricks which you have taught it is a product of domestication, not of any canine consciousness. When dogs emerged as a subspecies of the wolf over 15,000 years ago, their biological evolution was strongly shaped by their closeness with humans. A tendency to obey its human 'pack leader' is part of a dog's genetic make-up.


I agree, there is no ,canine consciousness' out there which my dog draws on.

I also agree that humans have changed dogs over time, certainly at the genetic level. The capacities of my dog are limited by his nature, but also enhanced by his domestication.


It does not obey you as a result of a conscious plan.
No, he is not capable of planning ahead. However, dogs can problem-solve in a limited manner and it seems to me this involves a limited ability to at least 'work something out'.


As Cesar Millan would say, dogs react -- they don't rationalise.
Anyone who has had a dog as a pet, or trained a dog, knows that they don't only react and the ability to rationalise might be a product of consciousness, but consciousness is not reducible to it.


And what Pavlov's discoveries regarding dogs showed was precisely that dogs' physical actions are essentially reflexive, not conscious.
Well they have to at least be conscious of the lab coats!

Basically I'd see it as a matter of degree, and would like to distinguish between consciousness and self-consciousness. Not all animals are conscious and not all conscious animals are self-conscious.

[Hit The North]

meridian,

I really don't have the time to entertain you in your pursuit of a GCSE in analytical philosophy, I'm using the word 'consciousness' as a collective noun for a class of mental phenomena and experiences. What these phenomena and experiences are is open to debate. But I try to follow Marx in his usage of the term when he, for instance writes:


It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

Presumably you think Marx is making a nonsensical statement here, even, perhaps, a mystical or religious statement?


Anyways, if that is what consciousness is, then what happens when you become unconscious? You simply lose your wants, needs and other determinations which guide your behaviour? And regain them once you wake?

Well, you already conceded that we cannot be aware of these things (thirst, in our example) when we are asleep. Meanwhile I don't see the great mystery in the regaining of these things once awake. Not only am I still hungry when I awake, if I fell asleep hungry, but I also find that I have the same values as before I fell into unconsciousness. I am still a socialist, the same memories, the same language, the same prejudices, the same abilities, all miraculously re-acquired! I'd be astonished if your experience was different from this.


Your definition seems inconsistent with the medical use of the word, which is demonstratively functional.

Oh dear, but why is the medical use the only valid use? And why is only a functional application the only valid application. What have you got against the speculative function?

[Meridian]

meridian,

I really don't have the time to entertain you in your pursuit of a GCSE in analytical philosophyI guess I'd prefer it over a GCSE (whatever that is) in metaphysics. But seriously, if you are short on time, I wouldn't dream of holding you up.


I'm using the word 'consciousness' as a collective noun for a class of mental phenomena and experiences. What these phenomena and experiences are is open to debate. But I try to follow Marx in his usage of the term when he, for instance writes:
So, you are explicitly not using "consciousness" to refer to every 'mental phenomena' and 'experience'. What falls outside of this class then, which would make you say "this is not part of my consciousness"?


(Marx)It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.(/Marx)

Presumably you think Marx is making a nonsensical statement here, even, perhaps, a mystical or religious statement?
No, but I think it would benefit from a rewording. I think some word like "perspective" could serve about as well without the confusion a word used prominently metaphysically would bring. What's wrong with using words that you would use in a regular situation? I don't normally speak English but I doubt people (at least, workers) would be talking about how someone needs to change their consciousness in order to overcome something. (Or that they need a different consciousness.)


Well, you already conceded that we cannot be aware of these things (thirst, in our example) when we are asleep. Meanwhile I don't see the great mystery in the regaining of these things once awake. Not only am I still hungry when I awake, if I fell asleep hungry, but I also find that I have the same values as before I fell into unconsciousness. I am still a socialist, the same memories, the same language, the same prejudices, the same abilities, all miraculously re-acquired! I'd be astonished if your experience was different from this.
I did not mean to imply this was a mystery. What I did mean to imply was that losing ones "wants, needs and other determinations" is not a good description of falling asleep. Thus, not enough to describe "consciousness" no matter how you want to use the word. As you pointed out, there are lots of other things you regain when you awake.


Oh dear, but why is the medical use the only valid use? And why is only a functional application the only valid application. What have you got against the speculative function?
Because "consciousness" is ordinarily used in the medical sense, and language is used for communication. Language is like a tool, to talk about its functional application is to talk about its valid application.

[Hit The North]

Meridian:

So, you are explicitly not using "consciousness" to refer to every 'mental phenomena' and 'experience'. What falls outside of this class then, which would make you say "this is not part of my consciousness"?
I guess I want to hold out for the idea that there may be unconscious processes.


No, but I think it would benefit from a rewording. I think some word like "perspective" could serve about as well without the confusion a word used prominently metaphysically would bring. Sure, if Marx was just referring to perspective. Perspective of what?


What's wrong with using words that you would use in a regular situation? I don't normally speak English but I doubt people (at least, workers) would be talking about how someone needs to change their consciousness in order to overcome something. (Or that they need a different consciousness.) Then you'd be surprised as many on the left talk this way and many of the left are working people. And why should working people talk differently than anyone else? And what if they did, does this make them some paragon of communicative humanity?


I did not mean to imply this was a mystery. What I did mean to imply was that losing ones "wants, needs and other determinations" is not a good description of falling asleep. Thus, not enough to describe "consciousness" no matter how you want to use the word. As you pointed out, there are lots of other things you regain when you awake. It works for me. Give me a better description without merely saying 'losing consciousness'. The reason you don't find it useful is because your only way of defining consciousness is by reference to returning from unconsciousness and vice-versa. I mean why bother saying that at all. Just use 'awake' and 'asleep'. The question of what constitutes and provides content for human consciousness is not a question you see as legitimate.


Because "consciousness" is ordinarily used in the medical sense, and language is used for communication. Language is like a tool, to talk about its functional application is to talk about its valid application. Yes, I understand what language is. You don't seem to appreciate that it is richer than mere pedantry and goes beyond mere functional description. But anyway, don't you think that the terms 'consciousness' and 'sub-consciousness' or 'unconsciousness' have functional application to the theories of certain psychologists?

[Thirsty Crow]

Because "consciousness" is ordinarily used in the medical sense, and language is used for communication. Language is like a tool, to talk about its functional application is to talk about its valid application.
But talking about linguistic application is not even remotely all that can be said about language and its use. For instance, your insistence on functional application cannot account for a linguistic phenomenon such as connotation, which is a highly important aspect of human beings which sets them apart from other mammals. If phenomena with similar effects occurred in, lets say a species of birds, the material, real basis for it would be a disease of sorts in bodily areas which are related to their communicative abilities.
In other words, you really cannot reduce language to a "tool" of communication. If you do, you lose sight of real, important phenomena which may very well account for certain aspects of a given social reality.

[kalu]

Which "postmodernism" is the OP referring to? The academic works of authors like Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, Butler, Spivak, etc. based on earlier traditions of philosophy like Hegel, Husserl, and Nietzsche, the artistic and aesthetic movement, or the term of generalized abuse used by everyone from theologians to atheists, conservatives to communists (similar to calling something "relativistic," "nihilistic," "fascistic," or just "icky")? As bricolage pointed out, we must make these sorts of distinctions, just like we would criticize a libertarian or conservative, for example, who uses "communism" as a synonym for dictatorship.

[NecroCommie]

Post-modernist philosophy has no real definition, even according to self-identifying post-modernists. It is simply a group of philosophies that challenge modernist philosophy, and which often challenges absolute truth, truth claims and attacks language.

[kalu]

Post-modernist philosophy has no real definition, even according to self-identifying post-modernists. It is simply a group of philosophies that challenge modernist philosophy, and which often challenges absolute truth, truth claims and attacks language.

You're absolutely right about postmodernist philosophy not having a "real definition," though it subsumes quite a few thinkers under its label, and has been attacked as such. I prefer to think of it as a group of "family resemblances." Either way, my point was to say that we ought to make distinctions between pomo as referring to this overarching category for philosophers, and to aesthetic movements, and as a term of abuse.

As for your second point, theorists frequently characterized as "pomo," though probably critical of scientific realism as an ontology (not the sciences and scientific practices themselves), actually don't refer to the concept of "truth" much in their arguments. Foucault, for example, does occasionally discuss "regimes of truth" in order to highlight the distinctions between different epistemes, but this term is linked with his project to historicize knowledge rather than a challenge to the notion of Truth itself. Derrida, on the other hand, doesn't even talk about "truth," but rather deconstructs the western metaphysics of presence, a project begun by Heidegger. Heidegger criticized Husserl's theory of intentionality for its reliance on the notion that objects "present" themselves, while Heidegger was keen to demonstrate how objects appear on our horizon through our being in the world, becoming covered or uncovered. The latter is a brutal summary of what is really a quite complex engagement with thinkers such as the scholastics, Kant, and Aristotle. So to reduce any of this to the remarkable nonsense claim that these thinkers were "relativists" with regard to science or Truth--rather than the more nuanced view that they pursued a complex metaphysical attack on the basic categories of western philosophy--is just a sign that those who use "pomo" as a general term of abuse linked to their caricature of theory really haven't done their homework.

To make a nice analogy, one could say the same about libertarians and conservatives who lambast Marxists as "totalitarians," without ever having studied seriously the political economic analysis of Marx or the critical theory he inspired.

[NecroCommie]

Still, even the attack on knowledge is a bit silly. "Knowledge" is a word, and as such has a very specific definition. It goes as follows: "A theory that is most propable of being true" The propability ofcourse being dependant on the information and observation available. As there exists an absolute truth, there really is nothing unclear about this.

BTW: the definition is translated from finnish. English philosophers might or might not use words with different tones, but i dunno.

[Meridian]

Still, even the attack on knowledge is a bit silly. "Knowledge" is a word, and as such has a very specific definition. It goes as follows: "A theory that is most propable of being true" The propability ofcourse being dependant on the information and observation available. As there exists an absolute truth, there really is nothing unclear about this.

BTW: the definition is translated from finnish. English philosophers might or might not use words with different tones, but i dunno.
You shouldn't look to definitions for the meaning of words, you should look at the ways we use the word in ordinary language.

For example, I could use the word "knowlege" in the following way: "I have very little knowledge of this subject". Now, if your definition held true, I would be saying "I have very little theory that is most probable of being true of this subject". Clearly, your definition is lacking here. In fact, we could probably find hundreds such ways where the word is used inconsistently with the way you defined it. Words have a myriad of different uses.

The point is actually that definitions can not offer us the 'true' meaning of words, because they only point to other words in order to explain the first one. So understanding the meaning of words through only their definitions would be a never ending process without any connection to the way language is actually used.

[NecroCommie]

You shouldn't look to definitions for the meaning of words, you should look at the ways we use the word in ordinary language.

For example, I could use the word "knowlege" in the following way: "I have very little knowledge of this subject". Now, if your definition held true, I would be saying "I have very little theory that is most probable of being true of this subject". Clearly, your definition is lacking here. In fact, we could probably find hundreds such ways where the word is used inconsistently with the way you defined it. Words have a myriad of different uses.
Your example is perfect, I don't see how the definition is lacking. That IS basically what the dude is saying. Now that you have "unpacked" the word knowledge it no longer fullfills all of the grammatical rules of a sentense, but the message, as far as I see it, remains unaltered. This is the kind of thing you run into when translating.

[Meridian]

Your example is perfect, I don't see how the definition is lacking. That IS basically what the dude is saying. Now that you have "unpacked" the word knowledge it no longer fullfills all of the grammatical rules of a sentense, but the message, as far as I see it, remains unaltered. This is the kind of thing you run into when translating.
Hm, no because when I say "I have very little knowledge of this subject", I don't mean "I have very little theory that is most probable of being true of this subject". Besides that not actually making sense, what I mean has nothing to do with any theories or probability at all. The meaning is right in the sentence:
"I have very little knowledge of this subject".

People may not know what "knowledge" means, but they may learn it from how it is used in life. This is how language is learned, otherwise (if language-learning was based on definitions) language would be impossible. Only in specific cases will a definition be helpful, basically when comparing how a word is used in a certain context with how other words (which use must already be known) are used in a certain context.

If you still wish to cling to your idea of a singular definition of the word, how about sentences like these, and here I could also add a gazillion others:
"When it came to carpentry, he had a lot of knowledge."
Here nothing is said about probability of theories of any sort, it simply states that some person was very good at carpentry. Applying your definition would render the sentence nonsensical.

"The knowledge he possesses of language-philosophy is very limited."
Again, "the knowledge" could not possibly refer to 'a theory most probable of being true of the subject', it would not make sense.

[kalu]

Still, even the attack on knowledge is a bit silly. "Knowledge" is a word, and as such has a very specific definition. It goes as follows: "A theory that is most propable of being true" The propability ofcourse being dependant on the information and observation available. As there exists an absolute truth, there really is nothing unclear about this.

BTW: the definition is translated from finnish. English philosophers might or might not use words with different tones, but i dunno.

I assume you're speaking about my Foucault example: he never "attacked" knowledge (I honestly don't know what you even mean by that phrase).

[NecroCommie]

I assume you're speaking about my Foucault example: he never "attacked" knowledge (I honestly don't know what you even mean by that phrase).
No I am not. I was speaking more generally about... say, my teacher for example.

But about your Foucault example, it is a prime example of why many people, including me, have hard time taking full-time philosophers seriously.

[kalu]

No I am not. I was speaking more generally about... say, my teacher for example.

But about your Foucault example, it is a prime example of why many people, including me, have hard time taking full-time philosophers seriously.

Antitheoreticism is not a position I can engage intellectually, because it refuses to enter into dialogue tout court, but I do hold people to account for it. Why is (my explanation of) Foucault so hard to swallow? And again, what does it mean to "attack" knowledge?

I wasn't talking about your teacher either, so why you responded to my first post on this page with your teacher in mind is beyond me. Otherwise, I've sufficiently outlined in this thread (and others) the "pomo" philosophers' projects as legitimate intellectual endeavors. If you want to dismiss them without critical argument, fine, but just know you will be called out when you make trite caricatures of theory and try to link them to asinine characters in your everyday life.:)

[NecroCommie]

Antitheoreticism is not a position I can engage intellectually, because it refuses to enter into dialogue tout court, but I do hold people to account for it. Why is (my explanation of) Foucault so hard to swallow?
Gee, I dunno, perhaps because it's the very physical manifestation of sophistry.


And again, what does it mean to "attack" knowledge?
Why don't you think about that while we english speakers continue our daily lives.


I wasn't talking about your teacher either, so why you responded to my first post on this page with your teacher in mind is beyond me.
I didn't. My response was only to the first paragraph of your post. I ignored the rest of your post as the unintelligible gibberish it is.

Otherwise, I've sufficiently outlined in this thread (and others) the "pomo" philosophers' projects as legitimate intellectual endeavors.
Nothing you have said has convinced me. This is simply because your claims are either a) contradicting each other b) in contradiction with material world c) just "clever" word games with concepts that are clearly defined and obvious to anyone above 5 years of age. This last bit is just plain madness because word games prove nothing. You have given me no real world examples of why I should believe anything you say, and you have completely failed to demonstrate why any of this has anything to do with the material world (in other words: what is useful).

If you want to dismiss them without critical argument, fine, but just know you will be called out when you make trite caricatures of theory and try to link them to asinine characters in your everyday life.:)
Yes I know, much like I am called out on my "heresy" when I promote evolutionary biology. I am very much aware of this, and very much not interested.

[NecroCommie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D5aqaEk6Xc&feature=related

[kalu]

Gee, I dunno, perhaps because it's the very physical manifestation of sophistry.


Why don't you think about that while we english speakers continue our daily lives.


I didn't. My response was only to the first paragraph of your post. I ignored the rest of your post as the unintelligible gibberish it is.

...



Explain to me how Foucault is "sophistry." With quotes and citations from relevant intellectual texts preferably. I do have to assume my interlocutors have read the texts they are so flippantly dismissing, right?

You still haven't explained what it means to "attack" knowledge, either (I'm gonna keep pressing you on this point and calling out your nonsense boy!:)).

You did assume your teacher when responding to me, let's quickly revisit that short dialogue:

Me: As for your second point...is just a sign that those who use "pomo" as a general term of abuse linked to their caricature of theory really haven't done their homework.
You: Still, even the attack on knowledge is a bit silly...there exists an absolute truth...
Me: I assume you're speaking about my Foucault example: he never "attacked" knowledge (I honestly don't know what you even mean by that phrase).
You: No I am not. I was speaking more generally about... say, my teacher for example.
Me: I wasn't talking about your teacher either, so why you responded to my first post on this page with your teacher in mind is beyond me.

And now...you: I didn't. My response was only to the first paragraph of your post.

You could see how this begins to get incredibly frustrating. Okay, let's say you were just responding to the very first part of my post (which you really should have specified in the first place). The second part of my post was directly linked to the first part, as I was explaining the mischaracterizations that are applied to the label "pomo." So you really don't have a good excuse claiming that you "simply" were writing with your teacher and other extremely vague characters in mind (I don't have telepathy, I honestly don't know who or what you're attacking, so I just referenced my own post since you were responding to it!), since obviously the discussion contained another dimension, these philosophers and my own example. Once again, you were implicitly emphasizing how your teacher is but a manifestation of this entire strain of thought, which I felt I needed to clarify, and which you have continued to dodge without a direct critical argument.

The rest of your post is essentially you plugging your ears and singing "la la la la," which I hope to others demonstrates the ignorance of these accusations. It's just hot air mixed with personal attacks. You don't even venture to dissect or examine or think about anything I'm saying. Why not quote me on something I've said that you think is "incoherent," and perhaps I could explain even that which seems so difficult to understand? That would seem a more mature way of holding a discussion. Unless, of course, you didn't actually come here to the, ahem, "Philosophy" forum to discuss anything.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

A pill against your house burning down.

[NecroCommie]

....
Yes I do see how this is going to be frustrating, yet the feeling is mutual. I don't really get how you can use words in order to argue a position according to which words are self-descriptive. If that would be the case, then you cannot fathom to explain post-structuralism because you would be trying to describe a word by using other words. The very idea that you could explain post-structuralism to me contains the assumption that words are merely used to describe concepts within our heads.

Defying structuralism with structured language is self-defeating, claiming the lack of objective truth as an objective truth is self-defeating. Why should I bother addressing ideas that cannot exist with themselves?

[RHIZOMES]

Besides, what is this "we cannot understand what post-modernism is really about"-thing? As far as I know, neither do the post-modernists themselves understand what exactly their idea is about. There really is no actual definition for post-modernism. I have actually heard self-identifying post-modernists say: "Post-modernism is whatever you want it to be". Which really tells something about the level of lunacy we are talking about.

That's because post-modernity is best described as a historical "epoch", and as such has a different application or definition depending on what the area is. There is post-modern philosophy, post-modern fiction, post-modern art, and so forth. I'd highly recommend "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" by Fredric Jameson, and "The Condition of Postmodernity" by David Harvey, both Marxists, if you want a clear idea of what it is and how the definition of post-modernism is not difficult to understand because it's arbitrary but rather because it's quite complex to get one's head around.

In fact, understanding post-modernity is essential for any serious revolutionary, since it explains why Western society is so profoundly politically timid nowadays since the collapse of trust in the "meta-narrative".

[NecroCommie]

That's because post-modernity is best described as a historical "epoch", and as such has a different application or definition depending on what the area is. There is post-modern philosophy, post-modern fiction, post-modern art, and so forth. I'd highly recommend "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" by Fredric Jameson, and "The Condition of Postmodernity" by David Harvey, both Marxists, if you want a clear idea of what it is and how the definition of post-modernism is not difficult to understand because it's arbitrary but rather because it's quite complex to get one's head around.
I know full well what different meanings post-modernism can have. And yes, I was talking about post-modern philosophy, and the incapability to understand what post-modernims means has nothing to do with the fact that there is a wide array of identical words meaningn different things. The futility of post-modernism is apparent on self-identifying post modernists, because they cannot define post-modernism due to their own post-modernism. When someone defends post-modernism, he himself is engaging in an attempt on meta-narrative. He presented a claim, and is attempting to prove it, and the prove the proves and so on and so on. What they fail to realize that this is not a problem for any claim based on material observation. That is unless you question your own senses that is. This is also the reason why materialism triumphs over meaningless philosophies based purely on thought, such as post-modernism and post-structuralism.

In fact, understanding post-modernity is essential for any serious revolutionary, since it explains why Western society is so profoundly politically timid nowadays since the collapse of trust in the "meta-narrative".
Politically timid? I am afraid I don't know what you are saying. Whatever problems there might be with the western political culture, materialism is more than capable of explaining them. And what do you mean by: "any serious revolutionary"? That the nepali maoists are not actually engaging in a revolution because they are not post-modernists? Come on! Post-modernism and post-structuralism is dangerous for any real revolutionary because both basically state that we need to acknowledge some relative truth of the reactionaries, whether it be religious or political.

[RHIZOMES]

I know full well what different meanings post-modernism can have. And yes, I was talking about post-modern philosophy, and the incapability to understand what post-modernims means has nothing to do with the fact that there is a wide array of identical words meaningn different things. The futility of post-modernism is apparent on self-identifying post modernists, because they cannot define post-modernism due to their own post-modernism. When someone defends post-modernism, he himself is engaging in an attempt on meta-narrative. He presented a claim, and is attempting to prove it, and the prove the proves and so on and so on. What they fail to realize that this is not a problem for any claim based on material observation. That is unless you question your own senses that is. This is also the reason why materialism triumphs over meaningless philosophies based purely on thought, such as post-modernism and post-structuralism.

Politically timid? I am afraid I don't know what you are saying. Whatever problems there might be with the western political culture, materialism is more than capable of explaining them. And what do you mean by: "any serious revolutionary"? That the nepali maoists are not actually engaging in a revolution because they are not post-modernists? Come on! Post-modernism and post-structuralism is dangerous for any real revolutionary because both basically state that we need to acknowledge some relative truth of the reactionaries, whether it be religious or political.

Yes I agree, it can be answered by materialism, hence my two book recommendations which are materialist analyses of post-modernity's economic roots... One of the biggest problems post-modernity as an epoch has is the emphasis on individualism and identity politics over class politics.

And post-structuralism doesn't argue for moral relativism... maybe some philosophers do (I think Derrida can be dangerously nihilistic at times from what I understand of his work), but the only unifying feature of these philosophers is that they're a theoretical response to the claims of structuralism (Lacan, Levi-Strauss, Althusser, etc). Foucault, for example, is a "historian of knowledge", and nowhere as kalu states did he ever argue for relativism. In fact Foucault has a lot to teach revolutionaries as he's basically a historian of different manifestations of ruling-class ideology.

[Summerspeaker]

The fear of relativism and nihilism - moral, cultural, or whatever - strikes me as misguided. Object truth claims primarily serve as rhetorical bludgeon against political opponents. They can win results initially but the strategy backfires once cracks appear in the edifice. Why not outline perspective and assumptions instead? While postmodernism certainly can stifle and confuse revolutionary action, this need not be the case. Materialism, for instance, does not have to be absolutely correct to inspire serious engagement and structural change. Useful is enough.

If they dismiss revolution, I suggest attempting to show your teacher the political implications of their brand of postmodern thought. Relativists typically enjoy exploring relationships. Stridently arguing for scientific socialism in the traditional Marxist fashion will fall on deaf ears.

[Ocean Seal]

Title says it all. It's like talking to a brick wall. And now he teaches to everyone that all views are equally valid! This is not the case!

Hey man its better than having a care-bear liberal as a teacher who will only show you his narrow minded viewpoint without letting you talk and use you as an example for public humiliation. And then when you strike back he'll call you a communist without substantiating any point.

Ok sorry back to your problem. Post-modernists are easy to get past with a bit of logic. Ask your teacher to look at history. It has constantly been evolving and not in a circular pattern, but things have always changed with no two moments in history ever being the same or being a rendition of something that has happened in the past. The fact that certain viewpoints were not successful at certain points in history and yet were important in others effectively shows that not all viewpoints are equal. Because in application, some work better than others and the material effect that they have is directly proportional to their validity at that point in history.