Arlo, You mentioned:
> There are many "post-" philosophies out there. "Post-technological", > "post-consumerism", "post-industrial" (of course)... I've been reading some > articles lately on "post-postmodernism" (which has its own Wikipedia page: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism). Overall, I think the > use of "post-" to demonstrate an initial cleave with a dominant ideology is > an appropriate first-step, but its a definition by negation; defining > "this" as "not that". It provides a point of departure, but not a point of > destination. > > Jc: Well said. It demonstrates how culture is reactionary with time. I think there is something in the psychology of generational change, that makes the young want something different than their parents. Incidentally, I didn't like the wiki article much. I preferred the SEP's description of post-modern. They go to the originator of the term, for one thing (always a good idea!) - Jean-François Lyotard. "Lyotard points out that while science has sought to distinguish itself from narrative knowledge in the form of tribal wisdom communicated through myths and legends, modern philosophy has sought to provide legitimating narratives for science in the form of “the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth,” (Lyotard 1984, xxiii). Science, however, plays the language game of denotation to the exclusion of all others, and in this respect it displaces narrative knowledge, including the meta-narratives of philosophy. This is due, in part, to what Lyotard characterizes as the rapid growth of technologies and techniques in the second half of the twentieth century, where the emphasis of knowledge has shifted from the ends of human action to its means (Lyotard 1984, 37). This has eroded the speculative game of philosophy and set each science free to develop independently of philosophical grounding or systematic organization. “I define *postmodern* as incredulity toward meta-narratives,” says Lyotard (Lyotard 1984, xxiv). As a result, new, hybrid disciplines develop without connection to old epistemic traditions, especially philosophy, and this means science only plays its own game and cannot legitimate others, such as moral prescription. The compartmentalization of knowledge and the dissolution of epistemic coherence is a concern for researchers and philosophers alike. As Lyotard notes, “Lamenting the ‘loss of meaning’ in postmodernity boils down to mourning the fact that knowledge is no longer principally narrative” (Lyotard 1984, 26). It's interesting to note that the scientific attitude - "metaphysics is dead" is a postmodern attitude. I didn't realize that. John Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
