I’m writing this because I wanted to internalize a quick argument that I picked up from reading Myron Penner’s Christianity and the Postmodern Turn. Penner edited the work, which hosts interactions between Merold Westphal, John Franke, James KA Smith, R Scott Smith, Doug Geivett, and Kevin Vanhoozer on the relationship between postmodernism and Christianity.
James KA Smith asserts that we can’t get outside of language and know an objective extra-linguistic world. Everything is mediated through language, so we can’t know the world in and of itself. One of the respondents to Smith asks this question: Now, are pomos making this sort of claim about reality’s essence or just from within their particular community’s language games? If they’re making the claim about reality’s essence then they’re assuming what they’re claiming can’t be known: knowledge of an objective extra-linguistic world. If they’re not making a claim about reality’s essence then they’re just making claims from within their own community’s phantom theatre of language parlour tricks. So, why should I accept their view? They’re just making a claim from within their own community’s world, and I’m most likely not a part of said community. And if I’m part of a different linguistic community, then I talk a different language and inhabit a different world. So, who cares?
Obviously, Jamie Smith and others want to say much more than the banal observation that their particular communities talk in certain ways. After all, they’ve written so much to get those of other linguistic communities to see as they do! But, their methodology ( = we can’t go out and observe the world as it really is due to linguistic barriers) betrays what they’re trying to say: Pomo philosophers see the world the right way, and other don’t.
Here’s an analogous situation that this made me think about: what we can see is limited (obviously) to the spectrum of visible light, no one can see ultraviolet light. Yet in spite of these limitations we can construct mechanism that detect ultraviolet. We have a pretty good understand of a spectrum of radiation that no one can actually see. Describing a limit on a human faculty does not a priori require us to have a knowledge of what is beyond it.
@Dan Thanks for a brilliant argument in favor of Keith’s post. We are not limited to our five senses when discovering truth. We have means, through optics, electron microscopes, etc. to measure phenomena beyond our senses. Hence, the linguistic argument is wrong, because it is indeed possible to discern truth that is extra-linguistic, i.e., beyond our linguistically defined universe.
Err, yes, but we still filter all of them through our available sense, just like all of this is filtered through language.
Yes, that this argument is being made using language is significant.
One way in which the analogy might break down is this:
We know that there are parts of light beyond the spectrum we can see with the naked eye based on noting various effects in reality and inferring from those that there is more than what we see. But postmodernism is not just claiming that there’s a limit to what we can “see” (know), without making a claim of what’s beyond it. It’s at the very least making a stronger claim that reality does not have the capacity to break through our linguistic barriers to our minds. That’s a claim about the nature of all extra-linguistic reality.
I think you are wrong about that claim… or at least about some of those who are identified with “postmodernism.” I would need you to point me to which philosopher(s) you are thinking of. From much of what I’ve read this is the conclusion that seems stronger: there may be an extra-linguistic “reality” which we can experience but we cannot “know” it or “describe it” or “talk about it” extra-linguistically. This is not a denial of “reality” as a recognition of limits on our access to or certitude about it (Baudrillard being a notable exception here).
This is part of my problem with all this talk about “postmodernism.” A lot of thinkers are arguing against each other within that tradition (Baudrillard against Foucault, Zizek against Negri, etc. etc.), a lot of them are saying different and contradictory things, so you would have to point me which thinkers and which arguments you are thinking of in making such assertions.
It’s not entirely clear what that claim means. It is pretty banal to say “there may be an extra-linguistic “reality” which we can experience but we cannot… “talk about it” extra-linguistically.” Well, duh? LOL. Joking aside, it’s not clear to me that any philosopher ever has said anything differently than that. Or if the point is just that when we experience things we interpret them, again, fine. But who says differently?
It seems to me that point is stronger; it’s not just that we interpret our experiences, but that those experiences do not have the power to force us to modify our interpretations. We are forever trapped within our preconceptions (individual or communal).
Again, I’ll ask you for a source.
I’m not sure why I need a source when I’m addressing your own definition? What is your source? I’m taking it for granted, true, that postmodernism is actually distinct from modernism.
dan,
Your definition of postmodernism has them saying nothing interesting. I really don’t know of any philosopher that would disagree with this. If this is what postmodern philosophers say, why should we care?
Andrew,
You’re actually arguing against my definition. I said nothing about being “forever trapped within our preconceptions.” I don’t know why you all are asking me for source material since I wasn’t the one who brought this up or made the original assertions (both in the post and affirmed in your prior comment).
I’m just asking who you are referring to — if you can’t give me a passage then give me a text, if you can’t give me a text then give me an author — so I can understand how you think this. Like I said, the so-called “postmodern” authors have spent a lot of time arguing against each other so I don’t always know who people have mind when they talk about “postmodernism,” especially when they make assertions that go against my own understanding of most of the texts I have read in that area (here’s some sample source material on those divisions: Baudrillard’s book Forget Foucault)… Baudrillard also argues against Debord in Simulacra and Simulation… and Zizek argues against Negri, and a whole host of others, in In Search of Lost Causes, so those were the texts that immediately came to mind when I made that assertion in my prior comment).
If you don’t know the primary material, just say so. It wouldn’t surprise me since a lot of Christians seem to have a lot to say about “postmodernism” without actually reading anything that has been identified with that movement (mostly, I think, because a lot of it is hard to read so it’s easier to just base what you think about it on what somebody else says about it). Still, I do find that odd. It’s like talking about what people have said about the New Testament without actually spending any time reading or studying the New Testament.
dan,
To be honest, I cannot remember what I have read on this subject. I am going from a general memory of all that I have read and all the conversations I’ve had about it.
If postmodernism does indeed allow that our experience with reality can correct our linguistic schemes, then I don’t have a problem with postmodernism, at least on that issue. But then I also don’t see how it is saying anything distinct from premodern or modern philosophy. My assumption is that postmodern philosophers are intelligent, and thus when they say they are doing something different than what came before them, they really are doing that. My charity in that regard could be my mistake here. But then at least one person has indeed affirmed that the opposite of my assumption is correct:
Well I cited R. Scott Smith from one of those 4 Views On Pomo books. He’s interacting with James KA Smith. I’m assuming that he’s a good interpreter or pomo peeps, no?
Dan, as I read a bit online, I remember that I have read parts of Kristeva, Gadamer, Rorty, Fish (if he counts), and Ricoeur, and probably others.
Oh, right, Stanley Fish. I’ve only read bits and pieces of his primary material but perhaps you all have a basis for your argument in his writings.
But, I would be quick to add, I don’t think Fish is a good representative of “postmodernism” (or, for that matter, of the other people named by Andrew, although I can’t speak to Rorty since I haven’t read him — but that’s part of my original point about the need to recognize that the individual thinkers have a lot to say on their own over against the other thinkers… rejecting “postmodernism” in the way that you all seem to do would be like having a hate-on for “modernism” and so thinking that Kant, Nietzche, Hobbes, and Marx were all saying the same thing and should all be rejected because of their association with that term!). Back to Fish… it seems to me that Fish gets (or got) a lot of play in select North American circles — mostly the “I want to be provocative and rebellious and smart” literary or cultural theory graduate student circles? — and then gets (or got) a disproportionate amount of attention from Conservative Christians in North America… but he never struck me as all that significant. But, hey, I could be wrong about that.
FWIW, Umberto Eco seems to formulate a better form of reader response criticism (although, again, I should note that I’m far from being an expert on Fish).
dan,
Point taken about the variety within what is called postmodernism. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say Keith’s post and my comments are focused on that kind of postmodernism that would deny the correspondence view of truth and a view that denies people can know real extra-mental objects.
Pomo author: James KA Smith. See above.
Keith,
Jamie Smith does not count as a primary source. He is not a “pomo author” but an author who has written about postmodernism.
Andrew,
Fair enough, and I guess I should also add that my own position is different than that of Fish — the one you criticize (I feel that you all are lumping me into that camp) — but it is also different than the one you embrace. But it’s difficult to briefly explain how this is the case because the language and concepts we bring to the table are so very different. For example, take this sentence from your prior comment: “If postmodernism does indeed allow that our experience with reality can correct our linguistic schemes, then I don’t have a problem with postmodernism, at least on that issue.”
One cannot really give an easy yes/no kind of answer to this question. Because postmodernism (at least the stuff I know) isn’t really saying this or the opposite to this. So this helps to highlight the different language-games and conceptions we are employing as we try to communicate. For example you use the word “correct” but it would be more accurate to use the word “change” (this would fit better with the continental stuff I know). More problematical, however, is your use of the word “reality” but, of course, for you and I to get into the crux of the problem here and the nuances of the differences of what you and I and others are talking about, would probably require us to write a thesis-length exchange!
So, that’s why I point back to the sources. You all are suggesting that “postmodernism” would be boring if it wasn’t saying what you all say it is saying (which you also reject as incorrect). But I don’t think it is saying what you say it is saying — this does not make it “boring” (well, not to me, anyway) because it is saying something other than you have said thus far — which means you have not really been able to say if it is incorrect since you have not yet really engaged it (at least the bulk of it, as far as I can tell). How’s that for a clear and concise paragraph? Yikes!