Has philosophy changed for the 21st century?

TPO said:
What the primary problem is with 'postmodern' philosophers (though, these philosophers write about postmodernism rather than exemplify it!) is that they have their own conceptual scheme that they've been working on for decades, and the sources they draw on tends to be outside of the current philosophy 101 canon in American and English-speaking universities. You usually have to be digging fairly deep into a degree before you hit that oil.

MortalMelancholy said:
No. Religion's grip is too strong on those who are shakeable.

TPO said:
From the top of my mind, especially for those of you interested in Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam is a good place to start.

Yudina said:
Which is kind of the point. Derrida is one of many philosophers where people's impressions fall on the extremes. One either believes that he's completely nonsensical, talking in concentric circles and constantly shifting goalposts (see Searle), or that that there's a very clear point that he's trying to delineate. I happen to fall somewhere closer to the latter, especially since Derrida mentioned multiple times that his writings were just as much philosophy as it was about performing it in his writings to evoke a sort of response from his reader. While reading his writings, that sort of attempt (despite the fact I have not read him in French) certainly comes through.

Then there are those who say they're not "Derridean," without realizing that that's precisely what Derrida would also say.

As far as readings, Pynchon is a bit heavy to start with. I think a more appropriate progression from 1930s American literature from writers like O'Conner -> Nabokov -> Faulkner would help to contextualize the literary tradition that Pynchon is coming into. Readings of Gaddis's The Recognitions is also recommended, but that's a near 1000 page book that requires both an adequate understanding of Goethe's Faust, TS Eliot's The Four Quartets, and more, so I guess that sort of speaks to the sort of traditional difficulty in approaching the postmoderns or immediate precursors to them.

Finally, it's important to understand that postmodern comes to form in different categories. The postmodern tradition in literature, while not completely separate, is at times seemingly dislocated from the postmodernism that surfaced in culture/philosophy/social thought, much of what is a response to the idea of late capitalism (see Jameson). That's why the poster I responded to appears to me an infant when it comes to discussing these ideologies, they are so wide in scope that it seems blatantly obvious his only conception of postmodernism is what he's seen on social media, attributing things in the mainstream to a larger state apparatus of postmodernism while throwing people like Butler, Baudrillard, and Derrida under the bus along with them in a completely and utterly moronic act of naivety.

For the user you're responding to, it's definitely #1. *shrug*

TheBrainintheJar said:
Merely saying 'we can't really know' is being stuck on Descartes' first meditation.

Mit5ukii said:
It changes in the way that society evolved. The philosophy, working with the sociology, automatically have new questions and realities to face. Like any social science, philosophy changes with time.

Mit5ukii said:


Thanks. My point is still the same thought.

TheBrainintheJar said:


The little roaming on the internet shows postmodern literature and postmodern philosophy work differently. I'll find common elements but I don't expect one to prepare me for the other.

I did read As I Lay Dying which was fantastic, and think of starting with Pynchon's easier works (Lot 49, V, Bleeding Edge) perhaps. Reading reviews, Pynchon is supposed to be fun, you're supposed to go along with the madness.

Merely saying 'we can't really know' is being stuck on Descartes' first meditation.

Saucy said:
There are also sociologists who would say we are living in hyper-modernity rather than post-modernity, which, at least from a political standpoint, seems to be rather compelling.

Saucy said:



Yeah, I'm not sure why postmodern lit was thrown into the mix as it is just a departure from the desires of classical lit to reach the pinnacle of the perfect epic. You could just as well throw in postmodern art and architecture, but it's not really that relevant.


From my limited exposure, postmodernists like Baudrillard and Butler aren't saying that there is no truth, but rather that we are not equipped to access it from our vantage points. Of course, on some topics, such as gender for Butler, the claim really is that there is no truth, but as far as epistemological orientation, I don't think any serious postmodernist would claim that we live in some sort of philosophical idealism where reality is whatever we want it to be or that truth is relative. Nor do I think they would go as far as saying there are no objective facts because depending on your views on science and probabilities, even postmodernists cannot change universal mathematical axioms.

There are also sociologists who would say we are living in hyper-modernity rather than post-modernity, which, at least from a political standpoint, seems to be rather compelling.

The claim that we can't really know isn't all that new. Historians have been facing that issue ever since humans began recording history. The postmodern extension of this worry just looks at the complexities of social life and questions whether our current modes of understanding our social reality are even capable of reaching "the social." Even Marx and Du Bois saw this problem in their terms of false consciousness and "the veil" respectively.

JustaBrer said:


It's not just that, it's mental illness...

TheBrainintheJar said:
Mental illness is one of the fuzziest ideas there are. The only reason postmodernists don't go after it is because mentally ill people don't have the privilege of dominating the internet.

TheBrainintheJar said:


I don't buy the whole 'biological sex doesn't exist'. I want to see a serious argument that actually deals with biology, and not just philosophy of language.

The thing is, Descartes already dealt with problems of knowing. As he shows, you need to do more than just crack. You need to build something. So do they offer alternatives, or do they just criticize?

Saucy said:


I don't quite buy the notion either and I'm not familiar enough with Butler's work to say whether she is making a claim that there is no biological difference between the male and female sex. The excerpts I've read from her works are mostly critical of gender and the ideal of a coherent women's movement when it's predicated on the concept of the female gender.

Butler certainly contributed a great deal to deconstructing assumptions about gender and I think she has a lot of interesting things to say, but, probably just like you, I do worry that she takes the pendulum too far if she claims that there is no such thing as "woman" or "man." Maybe not in a social sense, but definitely in a biological one.


As far critique for the sake of critique, that was always a problem with the critical school of sociology. You need not look farther than Adorno and Horkheimer for some of the worst offenders in this regard. Critique should be followed up with alternatives, though I don't think we should dismiss it completely since identifying the problem is the first step to finding a solution. Just because we don't have a solution now does not mean there isn't one.

Though I would not confuse critical sociology with postmodernism since they take quite different approaches to looking at the social world.

JustaBrer said:


Mentally ill people are the ones always trying to "dominate" the internet. Postmodernists are also quite mentally ill.

TheBrainintheJar said:
Mentally ill people don't dominate the internet, not as a concentrated identity. Notice how intersectional feminism generally writes little about involuntary hospitalization but thinks lack of women in STEM is horrible.

JustaBrer said:


I've never before observed such insanity and wrongness in a philosophy.

xrockxz89 said:
If you want to see a great example of how philosophy has adapted for the new millenium, look up some Advaita Vedanta talks on youtube. Great explanations of Buddhism/no self for the modern age.

Azurblau said:


I always find it weird when people unironically say that Sen. Armstrong (the dude in the suit if you don't know the series) is right. Maybe there is some tiny truth in his words, but his methods make it all wrong again.

TheBrainintheJar said:


I can mostly comment on the influence of Butler's ideas, rather than what she says. It seems followers of her blur the line between biological sex and gender roles.

Biological sex is neutral, devoid of value judgment and empirical: Women are defined by having organs like vulva and the womb

Gender roles is when we give meanings to these things. A woman is a person who raises children, because (empirically) only women birth children.

Now, some would tell me I can't separate biological sex and gender - but this is just refusing to think and refusing to truly dismantle gender. I do agree gender roles are crap, but you're still a woman - that's because you got the organs of a woman, and that's all it really means.

I guess that if you go with social constructivism, you have to believe society is a Grand Structure - and must reject the Existensialist for whom the world is chaotic.

The excerpts I read from her about the Israeli-Palestine conflict also shows a person stuck in crappy 'weak=good, strong=bad'.

I won't dismiss critics who only criticize and offer no alternative, especially when they critique something very specific that's hard to offer an alternative to. The thing is, I need to be given some kind of thought system that goes against what you critic.

The pessimists like Perry and Ligotti are against living. Yet they do offer alternatives to 'life is all bad', even if the conclusion is either living just to die (Perry) or killing yourself (Ligotti). Does Derrida offer any alternative except showing us language is a fuzzy thing?

JustaBrer said:
With the way the internet and social media is, has the style by which philosophy is shared in society changed to one where we can't expect any more single philosophical greats for an era? Is it because of the public embrace of the idea that everyone has their own valid opinion and that the truth is ultimately subjective? Do we live in an age where personality and eloquence characterises good philosophy, before we look at their language and consider what premises we can see that are true from accurate definitions designating only a coherent set of objects?

Can we expect to see the next Tractatus? In this day and age, where social media and publicity enlightens any great work, is it still possible to shake the world with a philosophical work, shaking all of academia with it?

What are your thoughts, folks?

Saucy said:




That's probably fair, although I wouldn't put too much emphasis on how her ideas were taken by others because that tends to distort them. Famously, the same could be said for Marx's ideas which have been radically interpreted by many people throughout history, some of who in modern times use Marx's dynamic of the working class versus the owners of the means of production as a dynamic between identities, which is not what Marx was writing about.

Gender can clearly de-couple from sex, but I cannot say that gender is 100% constructed. The biological and chemical makeup of men and women has influenced much of what we consider to be gendered behavior. Testosterone is a large player in male aggression and competitiveness. That's why across all different cultures and times, men have been at the top of the social hierarchy and have consistently dominated the criminal population. You'd be hard-pressed to find a society in history where women committed more crime than men or where the prison population of women outnumbered men.

Stripping away gender and gender roles will still leave the biological differences between men and women. I don't think anyone would claim that men and women are functionally the same.



I don't know if I take existential pessimism seriously. Sure, on average we probably live uncomfortable lives. We feel discomfort when we're hungry, when we need to pee, when we get the occasional cold or flu, when we get a blister, so on and so forth. It's possible that we might feel even greater pains like getting seriously injured, feeling psychological anxiety or stress, being mentally distressed, losing loved ones, etc etc. But on balance, life has to be worth living. To say we'd be better off dead is a logical problem in the sense that we can't compare being dead to anything since there is nobody there to compare with, but also because we just cannot know the future. There are few instances where you'd be quite certain that you'd be better off dead, I don't think most people reach that point.

JustaBrer said:


Yeah, they don't get listened to too much. Just always in your face.

lucjan said:
Philosophy is dead. jjjjjjjjjjjjjj

TheBrainintheJar said:


Notice how your definition of mentally ill is not shared by the medical community. Mentally ill includes borderline, depressives, schizoids and so forth. How much do you see them on the internet voicing their concerns?

JustaBrer said:


The more severely ill do not have too much opportunity sometimes, no. My views are shared by the medical community.

TheBrainintheJar said:


Can you elaborate on your views and how they're shared by the medical community?

TheBrainintheJar said:


That's why it's important to assign ideas either to the originator or its followers. I hope I can tell this distinction.

I agree with what you said about gender. To elaborate on my point. I don't object to the fact men are in average stronger than women. Yet gender roles would tell me that because of this fact, no women should ever do construction work. This is misunderstanding biology. It means that if I choose workers based solely on physical strength, I'll have more men than women.

My problem with gender roles is that they take a biological fact and turn it into a custom. A biological fact is only a biological fact, it doesn't what tell us what ought to be.

I'm not going to defend pessimism here since it's off-topic. Those who can best explain these ideas, if you're interested, are Sarah Perry and Thomas Ligotti. They're fantastic writers who have serious philosophies we must consider.

Saucy said:


100% agree.

"Is" does not lead to an "ought." A job requires qualities, that is all. If being a firefighter requires the ability to lift and carry 200 pounds, any person that is able to do so is qualified, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.

If male biology predisposes them to being able to attain muscle mass required to lift 200 pounds much easier than a woman, then that is just a simple biological fact. Hence, expecting to have a natural 50/50 distribution among firefighters is just delusional, much like it is for many sports like boxing.

JustaBrer said:


I've already elaborated, and the mental health community know that mood disturbance is mental illness.

TheBrainintheJar said:


The problem is I don't see anyone advocating this simple idea. One side often complains that society is the reason we don't see 50/50. The other side says that telling women they can do anything makes them less happy therefore worse off (Of course they are less happy with more choices! Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom ~ Kierkagaard!)

I'm still not buying the view that biological sex doesn't exist. For some reason, these constructivist can't explain why I can't stop being hetero.

JustaBrer said:


I've already elaborated, and the mental health community know that mood disturbance is mental illness.

JustaBrer said:
@TheBrainintheJar

Objective knowledge is absolute. Sense is absolute. There's no two ways about it.

JustaBrer said:
@TheBrainintheJar

Objective knowledge is absolute. Sense is absolute. There's no two ways about it.

Saucy said:



The more social equality men and women have, the more these biological differences begin to emerge, or at least it seems to be the case in more egalitarian Scandinavian societies.


I don't think we would ever see a 50/50 every type of social activity unless we force people, but that's just wrong.


I tend to think that we're more bi than we like to admit, but that's just my own theory. I don't feel attracted to men in general, but it's possible that there is someone out there so magnetic that we can fall in love with them regardless of their gender. There are a few studies that support my view, but I wouldn't put much stock into that.

TheBrainintheJar said:


And how do you prove harmony is built into everything already?

JustaBrer said:


Or the golden age. We can only make that happen by working together.

Zuggy said:

Maybe you could help me by pointing to the signs of a coming golden age? I don't see a virile, synergic, intellectual movement on the horizon I would associate with that. What I see in art/music/architecture/thinking comes across as impotent and symptomatic of exhaust, I doubt any of it will survive the fire of reactionary romanticism.

JustaBrer said:
All is fine. Just walk forward into your life with hope and joy. The world is becoming a better place, and that isn't changing.

JustaBrer said:


It's self-evident. You just open your eyes and see.

TheBrainintheJar said:


I'm always skeptical of self-evident truths. This can be said about anything, so it ends up being useless.

JustaBrer said:


Except when something absolutely proves itself regardless you have to believe it or you're a fool and mentally ill.

TheBrainintheJar said:


This line of reasoning can be used on anything, so it's meaningless. I can also tell you that the chaotic nature of existence is self-evident and leave it there.

JustaBrer said:


And so you should. That's sense. If you want to delve into any metaphysics then you must be mentally healthy.

TheBrainintheJar said:


Don't metaphysics rely on logic, laws and argumentation? So far in my class about the Enlightenment, no one uses 'self-evident' as an argument.

JustaBrer said:


Indeed, and that's because they're not smart enough.

TheBrainintheJar said:


You're entering a loop here, the same one used by silly SJW's who got through the whole 'I'm a victim therefore I must not be questioned'. Discussions can't move on with this.