Thread by @UbaidM97

Postmodernism is an oft-critiqued but largely misunderstood intellectual "movement", hence the following is an attempt to clarify some misconceptions with regards to it.

Disclaimer: This will be quite a lengthy thread.  1/

1). "Postmodernists deny objective truth"

This isn't strictly speaking true depending on what is means by "objective". For starters, it's important to understand in what context they're talking about "truth".  2/

The issue for postmodernists isn't what exists, but what we can say exists, in other words, it's not about the ontology of truth, but about truth-claims.  3/

Truth exists at the level of signification (language) i.e. it's a matter of what we can say, write, indicate etc (Truths are told in language). Hence when we talk about truth, we're talking about truth-claims.  4/

So the notion that they reject isn't "objective" truth, it's "absolute" truth(-claims), namely, context-independent truth. This doesn't mean nothing exists outside of a context (mind independently),  5/

it just means we can't talk/say anything about what exists outside of any context. This is because truth-claims (like all claims) are always made within a context (always context-dependent).  6/

The reason why truth-claims always occur within a context is because our access to "reality", both outer (external world) and inner (our thoughts, beliefs, desires) is mediated by a wide array of factors,  7/

most important of which is language, and claims are made within language games in accordance with their rules. This is in line with the postmodernists' anti-foundationalist stance - we have to immediate (unmediated) access to "reality".  8/

All discourse presupposes a background of intersubjectively shared convictions, including a reliance on "self evident", indemonstrable axioms, the authority of which is grounded in intersubjective agreement by the community.  9/

Since such axioms are indemonstrable, if another community of inquirers didn't perceive them as self evident or valid, there'd be no way to resolve the conflict between the two incommensurable language games since resolution requires common ground.  10/

(set of axioms agreed upon by both parties). There's no way to transcend language games (and language in general).  11/

Evidence is brought to bear in contexts of justification so there's no "transcendent/objective" way to decide between two competing incommensurable language games, no common,  12/

neutral epistemological framework within which we can rationally evaluate competing paradigms,
since if there was, it would constitute its own language game and would only be authoritative if it was accepted by the competing parties.  13/

In short, there are no context independent relations of epistemological priority - what grounds the authority of one paradigm over another is intersubjective agreement.  14/

"objectivity" takes it place (is defined, and serves a normative purpose) within a language game (context of justification), it doesn't exist context-independently.  15/

"what is called objectivity, scientific for instance (in which I firmly believe, in a given situation), imposes itself only within a context which is extremely vast, old, powerfully established, stabilised or rooted in a network of conventions  16/

(for instance, those of language) and yet which still remains a context. And the emergence of the value of objectivity (and hence of so many others) also belongs to a context... That does not in the slightest discredit them" - Jacques Derrida, "Limited Inc", pg 136.  17/

So objectivity-as-intersubjecticity is substituted for objectivity-as-accurate representation (correspondence) - there's nothing to objectivity except intersubjecticity.  18/

That's not a denial of objectivity, since we have standards of objectivity in language games, for instance amongst the community of scientists, as exemplfied by the scientific method.  19/

But the consolidations of these standards is the result of intersubjective agreement between inquirers, and these standards change over time, along with understandings of objectivity and validity,  20/

and these are only authoritative in a discourse (language game) in so far as they are agreed upon by the community of inquirers. What is being denied is the notion of "Reality as It Is", a contextless "view from Nowhere".  21/

"what we say is that you gain nothing for the pursuit of such truth by talking about the mind dependence or independence of reality. All there is to talk about are the procedures we use for bringing about agreements among inquirers" -Richard Rorty, "Truth and Progress", p72.  22/

It's important to keep in mind that it's not the incommensurability of conclusions that's being referred to i.e. that any difference of conclusions between inquirers can't be evaluated (is incommensurable).  23/

Inquirers can reach differing conclusions within a single paradigm (language game), and these can be evaluated according to the rules and standards of that paradigm.  24/

The incommensurability here pertains to paradigms (language games) as identified with their set of fundamental axioms, being as they are "indemonstrable".  25/

2). "Postmodernists contradict themselves by saying there's no objective truth since that itself is a truth-claim".  26/

As discussed above, postmodernists don't deny "objective" truth, and only insist that all truth-claims (and their acceptance as such) take place within a context (language game).  27/

And accordingly, they also understand themselves to be making the claims that they do, within the context of a language game. They work within the language game of those who claim absolute truths and attempt to show why they are mistaken in doing so. 28/

3). "Postmodernists are relativists"

This misunderstanding is a product of the first misunderstanding (that they deny objective truth) i.e. Since there's no objective truth, all truth must be relative and anything goes.  29/

As mentioned, we have no criterion of truth except for justification, so its conditions of application will always be relative to contexts of justification (language games), but it doesn't follow that "anything goes".  30/

"this way of thinking context does not, as such, amount to relativism, with everything that is sometimes associated with it (skepticism... Nihilism).  31/

First of all because... relativism, like all its derivatives, remains a philosophical position in contradiction with itself." - Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc, pg 137.  32/

"..this 'deconstructive' way of thinking context...does not renounce (it neither can nor ought do so) the 'values' that are dominant in this context (for example that of truth etc.) " - Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc, pg 137.  33/

Disciplines like science, history etc have their standards of justification (objectivity) as agreed upon by the community of practitioners, and the latter are subject to those standards in their inquiries,  34/

they are judged in accordance with the rules of the language game of which they partake. Just because someone claims not to belong to a language game (or accept one of its tenets) doesn't mean they actually don't.  35/

For instance, someone may claim that they don't consider classical logic authoritative and give their "subjective experience" greater epistemic authority, but their argument (or some of their other beliefs) presuppose the laws of classical logic.  36/

In this case, they're not operating in a language game seperate from those who adhere to classical logic, they're operating in the same one and since its invalid by the standards of that language game, it can be discredited.  37/

In fact, one of the aims of "deconstruction" is to show how the argument of the text under analysis is undermined by its presuppositions.  38/

4). "Postmodernists say only subjective experiences matter"

By now it should become clear that postmodernists do value "objectivity", hence the above claim doesn't hold much weight, but it betrays a particular lack of familiarity with postmodernism.  39/

Postmodernists, far from privileging the "subjective", reject the conventional antithesis between the subjective and the objective since the subject is, so to speak, "produced outside itself".  40/

There is no isolated subject. As mentioned earlier, even access to our thoughts, beliefs, desires etc. is mediated by language. To that extent, what we believe is no longer purely personal.  41/

We ourselves (including our "subjective" experience) are a product of our culture's "symbolic order".  42/

"by being born into, and moving about in the world of language, the self participates in something greater than itself, ruling out subjectivism from the start" - Hermeneutics: A very short introduction, pg 42.  43/

"what is outside the subject constitutes subjectivity; the subject invades the objectivity of what it knows" - Poststructuralism: A very short introduction, pg 73. 

End.

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