William G. Scott wrote:
On Oct 6, 2009, at 1:32 AM, Morten Kjeldgaard wrote:
teleports the students across the hermeneutic circle ;-)
(As a consequence, I recommended the postmodernism generator website to
the students: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ )
It is easy to mock postmodernism, but it needs to be treated seriously.
It is based on a valid set of critiques of the modern paradigm, some of
which have arisen from within science (notably the cognitive sciences,
complex systems and QM).
While pomo reacts against the problems in the modern worldview, and in
doing so overreacts going off into fantasy land, any useful 21st century
philosophy of science needs to take the critiques of the modern
worldview - which itself has been significantly shaped by the scientific
revolution - very seriously indeed, otherwise it will end up being
irrelevant. If scientists remain entrenched in the broken modern
paradigm, they will be increasingly unable to communicate with the
outside world, and the pomo paradigm shift may become more deeply
anti-science.
The failure of many scientists and scientific communicators to take an
interest in philosophy of science and sociology have been a significant
handicap in the countering of arguments from the creationists, IDers,
and climate change deniers, who have (ironically and unwittingly in some
cases) tapped into pomo rather more successfully. The pomo suspicion of
arguments-from-authority threatens scientific funding and evidence-based
policy making at a more general level.
However, the modern worldview is broken, and the pomo paradigm shift may
well be a juggernaught. We cannot stop it, we need to both understand it
and respond constructively if we are going to advocate and communicate
science.
The hermenutic circle is one starting point in understanding where pomo
comes from. The idea that a text has a meaning is highly problematic and
may well be dualistic.
