No it doesn't. That's exactly wrong. It posits that objective reality cannot be known.
That's a distinction without a difference.
There are only interpretations. It posits that our subjective experience is always filtered through layers of biases and power dynamics. This is pretty uncontroversial.
To the extent that it is uncontroversial it is also trivial. Sure. We can't know objective reality fully because our models built by our brains with inputs from our senses. Ok. But that does not mean that "there are only interpretations" (or metanarratives). And it certainly does not mean we should give up trying to understand reality better and instead care how models of reality serve political interests (even if that leads to us understanding reality less). PoMo is a regression relative to modernism. PoMo also in this point bears a striking similarity to Alvin Plantiga's argument against naturalism (except PoMo has no
deus ex machina).
This is the underpinning realization of science and the scientific method. The whole point of the scientific method is to minimize the influence of power politics upon the research.
Not just power politics and other cultural detritus but also limitation of our cognitive apparatus, yes.
But PoMo is not about this at all. It does not seek to minimize influence of power politics at all. Quite the contrary! If all metanarratives or "ways of knowing" are postulated to be equivalent, then there is no reason not to chose one that best fits your political views.
The way postmodernist critical analysis works is that we reverse the narrative.
Exactly. And that means they don't really care about getting a better understanding of reality but to serve a particular political point of view such as Marxism or radical feminism.
Instead of seeing the world from the perspective of the powerful, we see it from another perspective.
But that is a rotten way to try to understand reality. It only works if you assume that the predominant model of reality has no correlation with the actual reality, so you might as well flip it.
But is that at all a realistic assumption? It obviously isn't. "Perspective of the powerful" is not an arbitrary perspective. It could be accepted by the "powerful" because it proves a better model than the previous one. Even the Catholic Church had to accept the heliocentric model pretty quickly (for the times) because of the evidence for it. It could also be that the powerful become powerful because they have a better model. Having a better understanding how reality works means a competitive advantage. That's why scientific models became dominant and other so-called "ways of knowing" (like making shit up by the campfire) fell by the wayside. Pretending that science is just dominant because it is an arbitrary "perspective of the powerful" and that therefore we might as well reverse it is idiotic. As is stuff like saying that math is racist because there is a right and wrong answer and that the use of math by Western societies is inherently imperialistic but Babylonian Empire using math is not because they were not European or white.
It's only pseudo intellectual in the hands of somebody who doesn't realize what they're doing.
Are there any PoMos who know they are doing though? The whole PoMo enterprise is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
If the normal narrative is biased towards the view of the powerful, the critical analysis view will be similarly biased towards whatever group we are focusing. If we're studying victims of racism we will necessarily see more racism than what's really there. It's just how the method works.
And if the "normal narrative" says that 2+2=4 or that E=mc
2 then surely we get that 2+2=5 and E=mv
2 ∀ v≠c. That's just how the method works. Reversing for the sake of being contrarian is stupid.
And what we absolutely should NOT do is take the results from CRT as objective truth. Which is something done very often on forums like this
So what's the point of teaching it is schools. I will tell you. It is the same as point of all PoMo - leftist politics.
Yes, I agree there is a lot of PoMo pseudointellectual nonsense out there. You won't get any argument from me. But that's not how we read philosophy. In philosophy we ignore the dumb shit. We only focus on the greatest hits. The fact that any of it is useful at all is a point in it's favour.
What do you consider some of the "greatest hits" of PoMo?
I don't think that's an original sin. I think that's it's virtue.
I do not think it is a virtue at all.
If we don't we risk only seeing things from the perspective of the powerful or educated. Ie, the way history has been written since the dawn of writing. Historically we have a huge blind spot when it comes to the life of normal people. You know... the ones that really matter in society.
Well considering lives of "normal people" has some utility if your subject is history. But not to the extent of reversing everything and declaring that only the common uneducated masses matter. Even in history it should be about expanding the focus to improve the models, not kneejerk dismissal of anything in the present models.
This also does not translate well into areas other than history, ethnography and similar. How is focusing on uneducated masses or say indigenous hunters and gathers of Papua New Guinea going to give us any insight on physics or chemistry? It can't.
The people who actually make the world work and who give the powerful the power with which they have been able to do all their cool things. The point of Marxist analysis is to fix this.
I have not seen Marxist analysis fix anything. Or do you have any examples? And by Marxist I mean the economic/political system advocated by Marx and Engels, not just any random notion Karl Marx wrote anywhere.
It's easy to forget just how warped and fucked the way we used to read history was. Today we're so schooled in Marxist analysis of history that we take it for granted as true and aren't even aware of that it is Marxist analysis that we're doing. He introduced the mind blowing newfangled idea that we are more likely to believe things if there's monetary gain from believing it. Today it's blindingly obvious to anyone who has ever seen advertising.
I do not know if Marx originated that idea (note that while most PoMos are political Marxists, Marx himself lived well before postmodernism) but it does seem obvious to an extent. The mistake one may be tempted to make is then to assume that belief in a proposition, or even likelihood that a proposition will lead to profit, has no bearing to reality, that it's just "metanarratives".
But of course, having a better understanding of reality tends to be profitable in that it allows one to develop better products or processes. Understanding of reality is the difference, in the extreme, between real planes and airfields on one side and cargo cults on the other! PoMo is a latter day cargo cult.
I think it's a cultural historical artifact. A trend. Patriarchal oppression and racism was a serious problem for women and blacks half a century ago and we lacked philosophical tools with which to see things from their perspective. Enter PoMo. And the world changed. That's undeniable. So postmodern critical analysis hasn't been worthless.
I think it has been worse than worthless. It has been harmful, as it has led to radicalization of academia. CRT or notions that "math is racist" are the result.
Sure, discrimination against women and blacks had to be tackled but it was done in the worst possible way.
The problem now is that the success of Marxist analysis has gone overboard. The success of the feminist and civil rights movements have now gone to the heads of some of its defenders and it's too often become stupid. But that's not the problem of the foundational theory. That's a problem of the people using it.
The foundational theory is deeply flawed in that it assumes that all "metanarratives" are just mental masturbation and that narratives should be reversed to benefit the "oppressed". Well, a reversal is what they got! It is the flaw of the "foundational theory".
