/lit/ - Literature

[name No.3858561]

So I'm reading The Postmodern Condition, and is it just me or did Lyotard 100% anticipate the "New Atheist" movement decades before it came into existence?

Specifically, he's pointed out the idiocy of Sam Harris when the dude was just 12. Not just in a general sense, either.

http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/22/science_can_ans/

Sam Harris must save science from its attackers by reviving the narrative freedom given by science, which is its form of legitimization. In order to do this, he must deal with a couple of problems. First, he grapple with the fact that scientific statements are essentially denotative but its legitimization is based entirely on prescriptive statements, he must "close the gap." Similarly, even if the gap is closed between denotative statements and prescriptive statements, the denotative statements are ultimately ambiguous. This is all clearly outlined by Lyotard in discussing the legitimization process.

And Sam Harris, the utter fool, does all of it.

Sam Harris suggests in his Ted Talk that he's solved the is-ought problem, that he can derive an ought from an is. This is already predicted by Lyotard. Of course, he ends up looking like a buffoon precisely because he doesn't seem to understand that he's only making hypothetical imperatives, which were already critiqued as NOT solving this problem by perhaps the most important moral philosopher of all time, Kant. Then, of course, following EXACTLY the trajectory established by Lyotard, he argues that there is a moral landscape: science is ambiguous and there are several ways of doing things the "right" way.

Of course, not only is his argument entirely unoriginal, having been one of the narrative myths legitimizing science for centuries, but it is in particularly poor form considering (1) he doesn't seriously consider any of the philosophical tradition on the topic and (2) because Lyotard makes him look like a complete pawn.

[Anonymous No.3858577]

bump

[Anonymous No.3858602]

So Lyotard anticipated it, but did he rebut it? Or is Kant the only one to do that? And if so, is the rebuttal legitimate? Does Sam Harris himself have a counter-rebuttal?
Essentially, prediction of a movement, while impressive, doesn't give rise to a proper criticism of it, you have to meet it head on.

[Anonymous No.3858617]

>>3858602

Well, Lyotard did provide a rebuttal. Scientific discourse takes the form of language games, and one of the principle features of scientific discourse is precisely a rejection of narrative knowledge. Science under this model must reject its own foundations. Moreover, Lyotard gestures in such a way as to imply that the gap cannot be overcome precisely because those types of statements (denotative, prescriptive) never overlap into one another.

Kant's also not the only one to refute the ideas of Sam Harris in his Ted Talk. I cannot say for certain since I haven't read much Hume (only the Inquiry on Human Understanding), but I think he did, too. I think their responses, along with Lyotard's, are basically legitimate.

Sam Harris has essentially no retort that I know of. I've talked to some of his retarded fans, and what they typically say is "we have to assume some moral facts" which means precisely that he hasn't closed any damn gap at all. He's just unjustifiably asserting a straight-white-Western-male value system with suspicious allusions to Buddhism (oh Zizek loves it, I bet).

I guess the point of my point wasn't so much that "Wow, guys, this is a great refutation of Sam Harris!" so much as pointing out how shocked I am that Lyotard had the guy pegged before he got into adolescence. It just makes Sam Harris seem like somehow more of a tool than he already is.

[Anonymous No.3858643]

>>3858617
>and one of the principle features of scientific discourse is precisely a rejection of narrative knowledge.
Feyerabend says no.

[Anonymous No.3858650]

>>3858643

Well, I think Lyotard agrees. Explicitly scientific discourse requires a rejection of narrative knowledge, but it tacitly relies on narrative justification for its own legitimacy. I haven't read Feyerabend, but he and Kuhn made it possible for Lyotard to write what he did.

/shrug

[Anonymous No.3858675]

>>3858650
I think the point that I'm making by noting Feyerabend, is that a genuine sociology of actual scientific philosophy beats some French cunt setting up scientist straw men to burn them.

All of the empirical sciences are aware of their narrative contingency to the extent that they accept Hume's critique of induction's capacity to produce knowledge. Only mathematics might choose to hold itself outside, and that is because as a self-referential semantic system it is pure narrative.

[Anonymous No.3858684]

>>3858675

You're a fiery one.

I'm not defending all of Lyotard's thesis or whatever, I just thought that it's very interesting how precise his prediction was in regards to a very public figure. I'm not going to pretend that I know enough about Lyotard or Feyerabend to compare the two.

I also think, like Nietzsche, that more often than not that the truths in science are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions. Most scientists, I think, would unproblematically assert that they have objective knowledge through verified empirical observation, etc.

Cunt.

[Anonymous No.3858687]

yeah, the postmodern condition is amazing like that. the style is terrible and almost impenetrable (so its fortunate that it is only short), but the observations are so prescient and relevant to today its worth going through it slowly.in an essay i argued he resolved the conflict between the narratives of science and culture:

>despite their frequent characterisation as natural enemies, Habermas’ vision may also be seen as strikingly reminiscent of Lyotard’s notion of the “resubordination of economic production to cultural knowledge” whereby “[t]he result would be, once again, a culturally based capability of self-management, one at least partially freed from external coercion. The source would be a recovered relation between scientific and cultural knowledge”.

>In other words, this is the championing of the emancipation narrative (Kant, Habermas), albeit a modified one that accounts for multiplicity as well as its necessary coexistence with the optimisation narrative (sciencefags, fedoracore), rather than the declaration of its final obsolescence.

[Anonymous No.3858693]

>>3858687

Interesting. I haven't quite got far enough to give a detailed response, but the preface also made a lot of comparisons/references to Habermas.

[Anonymous No.3858789]

Interesting thread, but could you explain some things to me? I'm not well read in epistemology or contemporary philosophy so I'm not sure about some concepts.

1)What exactly are denotative statements and prescriptive statements? I know the names are supposed to be self-explanatory, but I don't understand the relationship between the two regarding the scientific method.

2)Does Kant distinguish between hypothetical and categorical imperatives?

3)What exactly is narrative knowledge and how does it relate to denotative and prescriptive statements?

[Anonymous No.3858834]

>>3858789

1.
>denotative
to say something IS one way or the other
>prescriptive
to say something SHOULD BE one way or the other

2. what do you mean? he distinguishes personal maxims from the categorical imperative

3. someone else please do this i have a headache

[Anonymous No.3858841]

>>3858617

Do you mean Hume's Law? Its pretty much "just" the statement that normative sentences cant be logically derived from descriptive sentences. This has no meaning anyways because there is no such thing as a strictly descriptive sentence since everything can be cut down to an assumption.

[Anonymous No.3858863]

>>3858834
what's the difference between a descriptive statement and a denotative statement?

[Anonymous No.3858864]

>>3858834
1. Well I understood that, but I'm not sure about the context the two are used in.

2. Well maybe I should have asked why the categorical imperative isn't a personal maxim (I was hoping on a quick summary of his arguments if they're relevant here, I'm not asking anyone else to do the reading for me). I haven't read that part of Kant yet, even though everyone assumes that everyone else already knows what they're talking about when they mention the categorical imperative. This is probably the first time I actually payed attention to the term "categorical" here... For some reason. And just to be clear, I know what the categorical imperative is, I just don't know anything else about it.

[NIGGERS TONGUE MY ANUS No.3858867]

>>3858863
NIGGERS TONGUE MY ANUS can either be a description of what is occurring, or a commandment or injunction that all NIGGERS ought to TONGUE MY ANUS

p.s.: NIGGERS TONGUE MY ANUS

[Anonymous No.3858870]

>>3858863
Sorry, I misunderstood what you were on about. They both effectively claim that there is ANUS TONGUEing going on.

[Anonymous No.3858975]

>>3858864
I wish there existed a woman who would ask me to take off my pants so she could play with my peepee.

[Anonymous No.3858986]

>>3858617
Really enjoying this thread, OP.
All except for this:
>with suspicious allusions to Buddhism (oh Zizek loves it, I bet).

You seem to imply that Zizek is a fan of Harris' (because of the connection to Buddhism). TBH I don't know what Zizek has to do with Buddhism.
Anyway, if this is what you mean then watch the video. If this is not what you meant then watch the video since it will still entertain you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifpIw3EK7-A

[Anonymous No.3858989]

>>3858986
Me again,

posting this link because it makes me want to either commit suicide or turn into a full-time troll.

http://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/9587/

[Anonymous No.3859014]

>>3858986
Not that anon, but I think that he implied the opposite. Zizek always pokes fun at people going into buddhism and than explain how it's the most conservative religion there is.

Also Zizek criticizes Harris in several of his EGS classes on Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.3859022]

>>3859014
This. I think the remark was sarcastic since Zizek's latest project includes a criticism of Buddhism. Also, Western Buddhism was criticized by Zizek since forever.

[Anonymous No.3859096]

>>3858870
so you're saying that they're the same? there must be a difference otherwise i will begin actually believing the people who say philosophy is willfully obfuscating.

[Anonymous No.3859098]

>>3859014
>>3859022
thanks for the clarification, philosophy bros.
Like I said, I wasn't sure and it's still an amazing clip of Zizek worth the watch.

I like the anti-Buddhism sentiment. Is there any clip or article where Zizek explicitly mentions this?

[Anonymous No.3859133]

>>3859098
Just search "Zizek Buddhism" on Youtube, there are plenty of clips.

[married oldfag !VqaXcWQC4Q No.3859142]

>>3858561
While not diminishing Lyotard's work, the movement of scientism in the modern age has been predictable and woefully self-destructive. Sam Harris is really just a symptom of the illiteracy of the literate.

[Anonymous No.3859144]

>>3859143
(cont.)

The dynamic between Senders and Receivers is also different: here, Receivers try to repeate the experience or disprove the Sender’s theory; they have to either refute or agree with the Sender.

For the scientific discourse, narrative knowledge is only composed of fables without any “truth” value. Narrative discourses are backward, and we should “rationalize” them, they should be “scientified”. On the other hand, scientific discourses are tolerated by the narrative discourse.

What Lyotard points out is that scientific knowledge uses the narrative discourse all the time as a source of legitimation! A scientific will share his new evidence, theory or argument by narrating himself in a quest for knowledge and truth, motivated by a sort of scientific rigor, absolute knowledge of nature, rightness... It is so blatant even today when you read a newspaper article about a new theory or discovery: it’s like nature had unveiled itself, that we are a step closer to Truth or absolute knowledge of our universe. Lyotard also analyses the political consequences of this, but I won’t go there now.

[Anonymous No.3859143]

>>3858834
>>3858789
3) A good example of "narrative knowledge", and one that Lyotard uses frequently and develop, would be myths/traditional narratives of a group of people (eg. the Cashinahuas).

To understand this, you have to keep in mind the contributions of Saussure and Jakobson to linguistics/semantics (Lyotard analyses discourses with the scheme: sender, receiver, message, meaning, referent). Since the problem is legitimation (what makes a statement true), we have to look at how narrative knowledge is legitimized.

It's the same pattern for myths and traditionnal stories: the Sender(s) share a story that legitimize their people, their identities (refering to their predecessors, and heard from ancestors as well), and this simple fact gives the Receivers the authority to become Senders themselves and perpetuate their narratives. Theses stories can offer moral prescriptions, models, in a word: lessons. Narrative knowledge is founded in its perpatuation, while scientific knowledge has other criteria of truth.

It's important to understand that every type of knowledge (narrative, scientific, etc.) depends on a type of discourse (academic, poetic, religious, journalistic, scientific, you name it...). Those types of discourse fix criteria that influence what can be said, what kind of statements can be used, etc. and thus structure the kind of "truth" they can provide.

You always have heroes in narratives, and their attitude, ideas, acts, quests are what legitimize the institutions of a group of people. This is why denotative statements ("X did this and that") mix with prescriptive and deontic statements ("we should do as X" or "what X defines our conditions of the good action", etc.).

Why does scientific knowledge depreciates narrative knowledge? Because it doesn't meet its criteria of truth (falsification, proof obtained by a repetition of a certain procedure, which always leads to the same results, etc.).

(cont.)

[Anonymous No.3859189]

>>3858986

op here

didn't mean to imply that ziz likes harris, instead that harris' admission of loving buddhism is indicative of the ideology of late capitalism.

[Anonymous No.3859194]

>>3859143
>>3859144

op again

You explained this much better than I could have.

[Anonymous No.3859198]

>>3859194
Thanks. I don't pretend there's no other reading, but I spent a lot of time working of this book before diving in Le Différend, which is even more interesting but insanely hard to grasp. Have you read it?

[Anonymous No.3859204]

>>3859198
>>3859198
No; this is my first work of Lyotard's I'm diving into. I'm more of a D&G sort of dude, I don't even know much about Lyotard's positions. And despite it being pretty damn dry (everything is in comparison to D&G), it's really insightful and I'll probably read more Lyotard at some point. It's worth it, I bet?

[Anonymous No.3859439]

>>3859204
Yes it is. Just be prepared for something different.

[Anonymous No.3861200]

> Most scientists, I think, would unproblematically assert that they have objective knowledge through verified empirical observation, etc.

If our knowledge wasn't close to the truth of things none of this technology would work. Just saying.

Also, fuck solipsistic arguments

[Anonymous No.3861204]

>>3861200

Are you really this painfully uncritical?

[Anonymous No.3861984]

>>3861200
>he doesn't know about scientific paradigma and changes of truth criteria

[Anonymous No.3862008]

>>3859143
>>3859144

thank you thank you

[Anonymous No.3862027]

>>3861200
No one is saying that scientists aren't insanely, obsessively accurate and precise in their studies and observations of events and conditions in the real world, or that they're not sticklers for restricting the definitions and limits of what they state and what they assume and infer from their observations. No one is saying that science doesn't work, or even that it doesn't do exactly what it says it does reliably and consistently. The point is about philosophic validity and truth. Scientific validity, and truth, is NEVER in question, and really can't be, because of the scientific methods obsession with precisely defining limits, and the famous "get out of jail free" card in the scientific method. If it doesn't fit, you're allowed to change it and run it again. over and over and over again.

[Anonymous No.3862042]

>>3861200

the success of technology shows that science is very adept at predicting the course of experience. whether it's close to the truth is an entirely different matter

[Anonymous No.3862051]

>>3862042
exactly: science does what it says it does, and is very very specific as to what it says it does. It increases the knowledge and understanding of the functioning of the observable universe. That's it, and that's all. For deep eternal verities, please seek the services of another establishment. There's a Church down the street, for example. Caveat Emptor.

[Anonymous No.3862064]

>>3862051
You make it sound like there's only scirentific truths and some kind of absolute truth.

[Anonymous No.3862073]

>>3862064
scientific theories and 'truths' :)

[Anonymous No.3862082]

>>3862064
the point is that scientific truth is really, really rigorous special case truth. Very little of scientific truth can be generalized outside the things scientists directly address. How things work, and how they made be able to be made to work faster, more efficiently or more accurately are clearly questions for scientists. The kind of truth a scientist deals with is "If you do this, then this will result, 95 percent of the time, with 99% confidence, and two degrees of freedom." That's not waht a lot of people mean by "truth".

[Anonymous No.3862083]

>>3862073
But that's what Lyotard talks about. There's a lot of types of knowledge, and different types of discourse involve different criteria of truth, legitimation and validity. Scientific "theories and truths" are just one of them. The problem is, it pretends to be the only one (or the only valid one) - except maybe "postmodern science", as Lyotard say, which is a lot less totalising.

[Anonymous No.3862096]

>>3862083
Scientists are prejudiced because they're the only ones that hold themselves to the objective standard of always testing their ideas against observable reality. Their theories have to be constantly adjusted to fit newly observed facts. They tend to turned a jaundiced eye on anyone with less rigorous requirements, and, alas, less precisely defined language. The most ethical simply withdraw into the topics they can address authoritatively and unequivocally from personal knowledge (don't tell them "carbon is a gas") And a lot of them are more tolerant than you think. When one of my friends was told that the earth was six thousand years old he simply responded. "At least".

[Anonymous No.3862113]

>>3862082
Correct, and Lyotard talks a lot about efficiency and its impact on the transmission of knowledge in chap. 12.
Scientific knowledge excludes every language game but the denotative. Of course its statements could be interrogative, but it has to end up with denotative statements. The problem he sees is when it pretends to deduce deontic of prescriptive statements from its conclusions, and then deligitimizes or validates any kind of knowledge based on its specific criteria.

[Anonymous No.3862129]

Thanks for the clarification. I dont really dabble in philosophic knowledge because it all seems so subjective. I'm not a fan of metaphysics.

I get where the arguments lie. Science is a narrow tool but it's subjectively enjoyable as my golden hammer

[Anonymous No.3862137]

>>3862096
I wasn't refering to "scientists", but to the "scientific knowledge" or discourse from Lyotard's point of view. What you're describing are criteria and methods specific to sciences. The existence of scientific knowledge isn't more or less necessary and valuable than non-scientific knowledge.They're both involved in language games following different "rules". That's why we can't judge the value of narrative knowledge with scientific criteria, and vice versa. BUT, language games aren't hermetic, they interact with each other and they're not always harmonious interactions. That's why I said earlier that the scientific discourse will question the validity narrative statements because they're never submitted to argumentation or backed up by evidences.

[Anonymous No.3862139]

>>3862129
You say "subjective" like it's a bad thing...
What's objective? And why would it have more value than something "less objective"?

[Anonymous No.3862148]

And i agree that harris is a tool. Science isn't prescriptive. However ethics may have origins that science can explain. If harris had simply stopped at that point we wouldn't be having this thread.

[Anonymous No.3862156]

>>3862139
Because subjectivity is audience limiting so i don't try to tell people what they ought to do, its intrusive, but i am comfortable telling people what electrons do most of the time. My perception of reality is intimate and vulnerable, and while i enjoy that experience i find communicating it to be frustrating since so few grok with me. Pragmatism sets up my dichotomy.

[Anonymous No.3862252]

>>3862148

Lyotard's point is precisely that he couldn't have possibly stopped at this point, because then science wouldn't have any legitimization process other than the postmodern one that he rejects or the German Idealist model that he also rejects.

[Anonymous No.3862292]

>>3858975
If it happened I bet you'd be too shocked to do anything about it.

[Anonymous No.3862317]

>>3862148
>However ethics may have origins that science can explain

For instance, one of my pet theories is that the tabooing of pig consumption in some monotheisms (Islam, Judaism) is because pigs are actually genetically closer to humans than most other livestock, and as such, are a vector of zoonoses (diseases that jump from species to species).

This is a good thread. I agree that Harris is an ass. I couldn't watch his whole talk because he was calling everything a fact.

[Anonymous No.3862321]

>>3862317

Mind you, I guess the genetic proximity isn't necessarily a factor in zoonoses. Still, swine flu.

[Anonymous No.3863346]

good thread

[Anonymous No.3863635]

>>3863346
bumping because it is just so :)

[Anonymous No.3863855]

>>3859096
To denote is to describe

[Anonymous No.3863884]

>>3858864
Is this stil a question?

If so, the reason that the categorical imperative is categorical, is that it is based on logic, and as such (in Kants mind) can't be questioned.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

The keywords are "can" and "will". Even though it might sound as a highbrow version of "Do onto others..." it isnt. What it says is that you should only act so that if everyone actet the same way, the world would still be a logical coherent place. Don't steal, because if everyone stole, there could be no actual ownership (since everything was stolen) and then you can't steal anything. Don't kill, because if everyone did, nobody would be around for killing anyone else in the end. etc.

[Anonymous No.3863991]

>>3863884
Thanks for the answer, but I was hoping on understanding how it fits into this thread.

[Anonymous No.3864091]

>>3858617
>He's just unjustifiably asserting a straight-white-Western-male value system with suspicious allusions to Buddhism
Harris calls it The Moral Landscape. The "well-being" system he's advocating for is not rigid, so I don't see where this straight-white-Western-male impression is coming from.

[Anonymous No.3864105]

>>3862317
>implying back then they have genetics and germ theory of disease

[Anonymous No.3864615]

>>3863991
because it's supposed to be a denotative ethical system i suppose.

[Anonymous No.3865405]

Bumping for OP since he's actually not a fajita.

[Anonymous No.3866484]

>>3865405
bump for racism