@togglesbloggle asked:
Where on that loop would you put postmodernism? In the obligate humanities courses I took in college, the professors were more likely to critique logic as a colonialist form of knowing than they were to affirm it as core to their academic life. Deconstructionism and Hegelian dialectic were the methods of inquiry, not analytic reasoning.
There is a false dichotomy embedded in here. An understandable one, since thinkers on both sides of the humanities/STEM culture-war are actively trying to exacerbate it, but…still false.
Look, I’ll be honest: I have very little patience for the kind of critical theory professors who like to talk about how everything is colonialist and colonialism is the worst of all sins. I have no patience whatsoever for the kind of critical theory professors who attack the concept of reason itself by calling it “colonialist” or “patriarchal” or whatever (anyone remember “phallocentric?”).
BUT
1)
Even people like that can have worthwhile points to make. (Occasionally worthwhile points about colonialism!) And they make those points by writing argumentative essays, not by throwing rocks or speaking in made-up languages – they are participating in the discourse of reason, same as you and me. The fact that they are immersed in a singularly stupid bit of hypocrisy, that they’ve decided to make words like “logic” and “reason” and “science” into hated totems of the Enemy Tribe, does not mean that you can always assume that they’re wrong or Not-Even-Wrong. Sometimes they’re right and you’re not paying attention.
(It doesn’t help that they tend to speak in impenetrable jargon, and not to be very good at explaining the basics of their methodology. But this is a problem shared by most quantitative-types. The difference is that we give the quantitative-types the benefit of the doubt, and assume that a failure to communicate reflects our lack of understanding rather than theirs.)
AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY,
2)
That kind of stupidity is not inherent to the practice of critical theory. An analytic philosopher and a postmodernist/structuralist/deconstructionist/Lacanian can have a perfectly productive conversation, explicitly dedicated to the mutual pursuit of truth, if they’re all acting in good faith and free from local forms of ideological insanity.
See, e.g., @bambamramfan‘s Tumblr for a pretty good illustration of what this looks like.
(There are a whole lot of critical theorists who are not free from local forms of ideological insanity. There is plenty of irredeemably bad work. But then, tons of social scientists have given their careers and their passion to obviously-pointless experiments that demonstrate nothing, and while this is a problem it doesn’t invalidate the concept of social science.)
I agree that these people usually use logic.
My concern is, you can’t hold them to it. You can’t force them to be consistent. You can’t say “I think doing things this way is a little more logical than doing them that way, can we switch to that method instead?” They can use logic right up until the point where it becomes inconvenient, at which time they can get off the boat. “What, huh, we weren’t doing logic, why do you think we were doing logic, I thought everyone here agreed that logic was phallocentric”.
My philosophy/impression is that to do anything halfway logically, you need to be constantly watching yourself, criticizing your own rationality, trying to figure out which logical manuevers are acceptable and which ones aren’t. If you can’t even admit to yourself that you’re doing logic, what are your chances of making that work?
This is entirely true.
I’m not sure how far it gets you, though. You can’t hold anyone to anything…which sounds like a pointless frippery of a statement but is actually important, in the sense of “you can’t Officially Demonstrate that anyone is wrong regardless of how wrong he’s being, you can only present your counterclaims and hope that most of the audience recognizes the virtue of your arguments.” And in the sense of “most people who are being wrong, even Epistemically Virtuous LessWrongers, are very bad at ceding defeat, especially in the moment.”
When the postmodernist makes his argument, you should listen. If he has something useful to say, you’ve learned something. If he’s wrong, you should rebut. And if his counter-rebuttal is “logic is phallocentric, there is no correct or incorrect, get rekt scrub” – well, that’s frustrating, but you can take comfort in the knowledge that no one is going to find that remotely convincing, and in the knowledge that he’s not actually doing more violence to the truth than most of your allies are, he’s just expressing his stubbornness in a more stupid and offensive way.