Tyler Durden

My sarcasm does not require your gratitude, methinks. I apologize for mistaking your status in this forum.

At the most, I agree that one should not opionate on matters ina scholarly fashion one is not rigorously trained on. That is, both a sociologist and a physicist should be well-versed in each other's field of discourse before they reach their conclusions about one another. Are you willing to do the same for other fields?

Yes, which means... ?

Don't be so presumptuous. Nothing in the link is quite novel, albeit a lil' johnny-come-lately.

Here's an excerpt that echoes one of Vork's points:"It proves only that the editors of one rather marginal journal were derelict in their intellectual duty, by publishing an article on quantum physics that they admit they could not understand, without bothering to get an opinion from anyone knowledgeable in quantum physics, solely because it came from a ``conveniently credentialed ally'' (as Social Text co-editor Bruce Robbins later candidly admitted[12]), flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions, and attacked their ``enemies''.[13] "

Which makes me wonder why you proffed the earlier link in the first place.

Re-read my previous post for an answer, and hopefully you will read the rest of the essay by Rorty: World Well Lost, which was published in his book, Consequences of Pragmatism in order to draw your own conclusions free from the quick n' dirty and compartmentalized polemics of the web.

Instead of positing reality as another form of Transcendental signifier, i look at language as a mechanism for our thought process, our social practices and how we reach agreements between one another about anything. Knowledge by any name is not ascertained between an isolated human being and his external evironment, because private language is an impossibility, but rather between people and their intersubjective agreements about anything.

So, my question for you, Celsus, is this: If you think objective reality exists, then please list an argument for its existence - complete with premises and conclusions - for the hell of it!

Celsus

No problems.
Agreed, but what constitutes "well-versed"?
Which means it's not the final word you made it out to be in your post.
Well, then perhaps you could poit out what I'm doing wrong, and how citing the Sokal affair deems me "ignorant" about philosophy (although I readily admit that I am, if you'd ask nicely).
To show that I'm not trying to score cheap points, only to ask what you esteemed philosophers here think.
Was a yes/no answer too difficult? And how does language have any bearing on whether or not objective reality exists or not? And once a vocabulary has been established, is it not possible to determine whether a statement within that vocabulary is true or false?
It's much easier to read a book than to write a book.

Joel

Edited to ask: How does a "need" for a belief in the external have any bearing on whether external reality exists or not?

Hugo Holbling

No. Part of the dispute between realists and their critics is the question of whether or not science can arrive at such an understanding. Statements about said reality only have a truth value if they are meaningful, which is very doubtful without the positing of metaphysical realist assumptions in the first place; indeed, i am skeptical as to whether talking about reality is meaningful at all.

I wasn't aware that i had made any such critique, as i have been at pains to point out (repeatedly).

To clarify: if you want to ask whether or not objective reality (whatever that is) exists, you ought perhaps first to show that the question is meaningful. More importantly, i am struggling to see how this has anything to do with Dr. Gill's essay or my response thereto.

Luiseach

Golly...I'm feeling the pressure now...

I'm not sure if Hugo actually wants to mix up the conversation regarding Gill's article with a discussion of the arguments for and against postmodernism.

As for 'objective reality,' I glean from Hugo's posts an aversion to talking about this issue, and perhaps (?) a reluctance to acknowledge its existence as relevant to his critque of Gill's essay, and Gill's response to the critique. Let me know if I'm right, Hugo...

As for Joel's question, which meshes gears with my own:

'Does objective reality exist?'

Of course it does. It can be measured, and so it exists (does this statement sound naive? It does to me...someone set me straight on the issue, please, unless I am correct, in which case let me know).

Of course, there may be disagreements as to what it is we are measuring, observing, perceiving, representing, etc...here both philosophy and science step in to argue about which discipline has dibs on the 'best' descriptions of reality. Philosophy speculates and demonstrates; science speculates and demonstrates. Back and forth. (as for Literature, well that's a whole other story). Well, actually it isn't.

Literary critics often see language as a construction, a system of representation...study-able in and of itself, divorced from 'reality'. It's relation to 'objective realities' beyond the text (and by text I mean any text, scientific, literary, philosophical) is not necessarily meant to be a true reflection of objective realities. Indeed, objective realities are unreachable...they are there, as I asserted, but they are perceivable/understandable only through representation. And representation assumes someone controlling the representation...who is him/herself the intersecting point for ideologies, personal history, belief systems, bias, etc. In other words, the objectivity of reality is to a certain extent obscured by the subjectivity of the individual who is 'doing' philosophy, or science, or literary criticism.

BTW, this is just a wee contribution...I still want to discuss Gill's response to Hugo in more depth.

Keep us all on track, Mr. Holbling. :-D

John Page

As a relativist, I'm not saying anybody's right or wrong... ...but

"Reality, or anything else for that matter, can be intersubjectively agreed to exist."

For intersubjective agreement to take place, there must be a medium through which this occurs. That medium is generally accepted to be reality.

Did I make it worse or better?

Cheers, John

Luiseach

Eeek, a relativist...

'intersubjectively'

I see this as meaning that we use consensus to determine the nature of reality, truth, knowledge, etc. Am I right?

Have you been reading Rorty again?


As for the 'medium through which this [the agreement about reality, truth, knowledge, etc.] occurs,' yes it makes sense to me that this medium is 'reality.'

It's just up to us all to determine by the dialectic what the nature of this reality is.

You made it better. Thank ye kindly.

John Page

Agreed (intersubjectively, by implication) with one small change -

"....meaning that we use consensus to determine what we think is the nature of reality, truth, knowledge, etc. "

The added condition is necessary to allow for some of us to be mistaken.

Cheers, John

Luiseach

Amendment to the definition agreed upon...is a consensus of two enough to make it so? ;-)

Amazing how a subtle change to a sentence (i.e. adding 'what we think is...') can have such important implications for the construction of knowledge. Philsophy has its uses, after all, doesn't it? :-D

Hugo Holbling

I've done no such thing and i'm trying to avoid it. Joel asked about Sokal, not i.

I'm still waiting for you to show how it's relevant.

Yes.

No kidding.

Too late for that already, it seems.

John Page

I think so.