truth and evidence

Thanks, Scott, for the nutritious read over cornflakes. I read it twice but i’m still not sure if Ophelia thinks there are many versions of truth or if she likes her scientific, “evidence"-based version the best. Further confusion ensues when we consider that methodologies and “evidence” vary by discipline/paradigm, making it difficult to know what Ophelia classifies as “evidence.” I’m just glad she didn’t use the word “fact.”

The humanities and the sciences certainly offer different approaches to what is or can be true, and some of us find comfort in that. It is unfortunate that here such different approaches are cast as a some sort of struggle between “unhappy” or “emotional” minorities/women and the rational, scientific, white men, who are just trying to show us the “evidence.” I think that was unintended, but the discursive evidence is there.

Finally, I wonder what Ophelia means in this last sentence:

["At a time when there are so many theocrats and refugees from the reality-based community on the loose, epistemic relativism doesn’t seem to need more encouragement than it already has."]

Does she mean that even if there is good “evidence” for epistemic relativism that we should choose not to believe it lest we “encourage” it? Hmm. ... ..

Violet, Associate Professor at Midwestern U, at 6:55 am EDT on June 7, 2006

“...maybe we all are, without realizing it, Keanu Reeves...”

Woah.

Charles Hackney, Psychology Professor at Redeemer University College, at 9:50 am EDT on June 7, 2006

Feeling a bit tipsy

Given I haven’t read the book I can only infer so much from this interview, but, having worked first as an analyst at large, federally funded research and development centers, and now as a cultural historian of science, Benson’s perspective seems reasonably heavy on the logic, but fatally light on the empiricism.

It seems especially worthwhile in this discussion to keep the distinction between the ideals of how science (perhaps) *should* operate, and what the evidence shows about the *actual* practices of working scientists. My experience is that too often those taking a critical stance on the latter get lumped in (even by logical empiricists!) with those arguing the former.

Lane DeNicola, doctoral candidate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at 12:15 pm EDT on June 7, 2006

Sophism and Truth

Possibly Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom have had sufficient run-ins* with modern-day, formalist Sophists, to avoid inviting further obfuscation?

(*let us not elevate the title of those hackney, picayune encounters to the level of culture wars)

In these times, when out-of-fashion, infinitely intricate, overly complex theorists attempt to paint themselves as post-modern, sophism shows its true value. (irony intended of course, because what use is sophism except to obfuscate “the truth"?)

When sophistic argumentation fails to sufficiently bluster scientists and other logical positivistic/empiricist thinkers, the sophists have often shown they can sharpen their tongues against those who question or doubt the latest silly social theory. Modernist sophists have generally shown they know how to use* the popular media to damage their enemies.

(*while thick and indirect in explaining the latest social criticism or way of knowing, they can be razor shart at dissecting any doubters)

Benson and Stangroom could just be giving benefit of any doubts regarding the motivation of formal modernists, but they could also be trying to avoid sharp retribution by any modern sophists with any spark of energy remaining (to slash back at naive truth-seekers).

Dr. F. Gump, at 1:25 pm EDT on June 7, 2006

Truth?

Two comments:

(1) We have one word for love, while the Greeks had three: eros (passionate love),philia (dispassionate virtuous love: love of mankind), and storge (affection: parents’ feelings for their childred). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love] Perhaps this made life less confusing for them.

We have one word for truth. It covers poetic truth, political truth, empirical truth, logical truth and probably much more. We might be less confused if we did not confound these. If we did have distinct words for distinct types of truth, perhaps postmoderm ideas from literary theory would have never been applied to the scientific arena. (I suppose you could say I am making an argument that language effects truth!) (2) Ophelia Benson is quoted as saying:

* There are social constructionists in sociology and philosophy of science who view social context as fully explanatory of the formation of scientific belief and knowledge, while excluding the role of evidence.*

I think of it this way, both the social world and the natural world are part of our environment and both effect all areas of human endeavor. Does a certain style of painting have emotional resonance with the times? The answer will of course depend on the social context; indeed even the existence of the question will depend on the social context. However, if we lived in a universe where light did not exist, this question could not be asked. I read a dissertation someone did on Goethe’s critique of Newton’s theory of color; at bottom they were asking different questions.

Aristotelian physics asks why a rock falls to ground. Galileo wanted to know when it will hit the ground. Galileo’s impetus was figuring out how to aim canons. Aristotle could not have cared when a rock would hit the ground. The answer Aristotle gave likely depended on what would be appealing to the people of his time. Galileo’s answer depended rather heavily of properties of the natural world. The number of significant digits his formals needed to give to be of any use depended of the technological limits of time measurements, which is both social and natural. In fact his canon predictions were not very useful in the field! Yet, something about the ideas current in his time still allowed many of his contemporaries to value his work on motion.

(I wrote something on the Sokal Affair about ten years ago. [http://galileo.math.siu.edu/~msulliva/Preprints/socialtext.html] Would I have the same response today?

Mike

PS: Don’t send your children to Wesley; the environment does not seem to be conducive to finding truth.

Mike, Math Prof, at 4:40 pm EDT on June 7, 2006

Violet,

RK’s grievance is that a whole course of study was bent around postmodernism. If what he claims is true, the sociology department in question has done a disservice to its students. I can see a course on the philosophy or history of the field having a unit on postmordernism; a sociology program would be remiss not to include this. However, any useful sociology program should be centered around empirical methods, but not uncritically — the role of the observer is nontrivial.

You claim that postmodermism “dominated the latter half of the twentieth century.” I cannot agree. It was important in some fields in the last quarter of the 1900’s. It had no impact on science, engineering or business curricula. It had little impact on the arts or popular culture although it was an attempt to understand or at least classify trends in these areas. I doubt many writers (of books, films or TV shows) sat down and said “how can I create a postmodern classic?” — as was the case with Marxism, existentialism and surrealism in their time. However, I will acknowledge that postmodern and feminist’s critiques of anthropology helped to dislodge “masculinic” theories that had scant empirical evidence. That is not much to gloat over.

I agree that not all educational goals should be vocational and I find statements like “professors who promote a postmodern intellectual orientation to students are among the most careless, hypocritical and selfish people inside higher ed” [RK] to be objectively rude.

Mike, Math Prof, at 9:20 pm EDT on June 7, 2006

Clarifications?

Thanks to Brian for on-target clarifications.

“The New Criticism” for literature started up in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s.

Many theories have been used in various Humanities and Social Sciences up to the present.

All these various discipline-specific interpretations of various fad theories have generally been criticized by empiricists for ignoring “context” and common proofs.

Postmodernism is generally noted as starting after formal theories of a discipline’s reality or approach to studying reality.

Femmunists have been the worst, but other modernists or theorists (any which require a thick, uninterpretable make-believe code or paradigm) have attempted to paint themselves as post-modern throughout the 1990s.

Most true postmoderns, those who believe that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” have retreated as of late.

Sophists were politicians in Greek and Roman times. Wealthy families paid sophists to teach their kids to be politicians. The alternate (theory) reality of early politicians dictated that Socrates would have to die for exploring truth.

Some postmodernists in-hiding have reported sightings of Socrates and Elvis.

Dr. F. Gump, at 1:25 pm EDT on June 8, 2006

Remember Raymond Aron

As I said, I have only myself to blame for forsaking volumes of solid, practical knowledge and getting mired down in the pomo trap- not my department, my university or sociology as a discipline. While on the surface, many find pomo theory more compelling than most; taken to its conclusion it is also nihilistic, disfunctional and therefore more dangerous than any other (if one values integrating into today’s society, that is. For those who don’t, I am happy to recommend PM as the ideal basis from which to make appropriate life choices).

This is why I am suspect of professors who, if not directly in class, then indirectly through their published work, encourage students to take a pomo approach to learning and research when they already must know full well that PM is an anti-theory, which, in the end, can neither be fairly negotiated or applied in reality. To be fair, I recognize the obvious possibility that these professors too are mired down in the PM abyss and thus cannot see the forest for the trees when it comes to keeping it real. Additionally, they are under the complex burden of having to publish more and related research while trying to maintain some semblance of continuity in their work. Attempts to escape the abyss by taking only convenient parts of PM theory is to simultaneously undermine and betray it; yet the impossible challenge to “apply” PM theory fully will eventually cause a mental breakdown in any serious student and even in thinkers with the deepest of mental capacities.

I apologize and stand corrected for being rude. I do, however, continue find it remarkable how much mind power and resources are wasted on a subject that has absolutely no basis in reality beyond the isolation, financial security and comfort of the ivory tower. I find the disconnect astounding, and all the more so at public universities where salaries are paid using taxpayer dollars. While I don’t think universities should resemble vocational schools either, it’s clear to me that the most successful and socially productive graduates are most likely be those with strong backgrounds in areas like math, science and business (the same areas, per Mike’s comment, where the PM distraction is much less likely to be encountered). Finally, as for the attempt to get me to better define a “postmodern theoretical agenda,” that’s funny:)

rk, advisor, at 6:25 pm EDT on June 8, 2006

supposed nonscientific persuasive claim really isn’t ...

“An example of a persuasive unscientific claim: there is more to life than material gain. This says something about the human condition and it means more than its literal rendering gives.”

It certainly hints at (controversial) claims about the human condition, but I’m not pursuaded.

How would we persuade the Wall Street hedonist driving a kickass car that there’s more to life than money and positional goods?

Well, we might appeal to evidence: many people, even very rich and powerful people, find that there is more to life than material gain. Ergo ...

But that anecdotal claim alone cannot be persuasive, because I’m willing to bet that a carefully designed and sufficiently representative survey of a great many people will find at least a few reasonable folks who, after due consideration, think that material gain really is all they need to live a satisfying life. Are these people simply wrong? Are they morally deficient?

We might then ask penetrating questions about whether there are systematic variations with respect to what sorts of respondents claim to be satisfied with merely material gain. Perhaps younger people raised in certain sorts of households are more likely to be content with material gain than people raised by hippies in near poverty under the shadow of Mount Shasta? Or perhaps these are exactly the people who will eventually emphasize material gain?

No doubt, once we had a better idea of the correlates of variation in claims about life satisfaction in our sample, we’d be tempted to make a moral argument about character and virtue, to the effect that some sorts of life really are better than others, and these more worthy ways of life feature more than simply material gain. We might then be tempted to use this moral framework to explain the variations in our survey data.

But notice that, if we followed this path in turning your pithy aphorism into a persuasive claim, we’d end up making precise philosophical arguments and sociological hypotheses in light of careful empirical research.

That sounds a lot like a scientific approach to me ...

we’re all scientists now ..., assistant professor at a small research university, at 5:30 am EDT on June 9, 2006

Proof!

‘we’re all scientists now’ writes: “How would we persuade the Wall Street hedonist driving a kickass car that there’s more to life than money and positional goods?”

How to convince him/her about the dangers of global warning? How to convince all Americans that creationism, ESP and astrology are have been thoroughly debunked? In no domain does “persuasive” mean that you have to convince every single person. Indeed your view of scientific truth is so narrow that is gives leeway to the more extreme postmodernists.

‘we’re all scientists now’ writes: “Well, we might appeal to evidence: many people, even very rich and powerful people, find that there is more to life than material gain. Ergo ...”

You are reading the claim too literally.

Here is a more intriguing truth (form Allen Bloom’s – no postmodernist! – essay on “Gulliver’s Travels” in the collection “Giants and Dwarfs”): “Modern science cannot understand poetry, and hence can never be a science of man. […] Science, in freeing men, destroys the natural conditions which make them human.”

These two lines are a bit too strong for my taste (never say never), but they contain truths that are of great value. To appreciate them you’d need to read Swift and I’d recommend Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot”.

Is my telling you that you need to read long hard works of literature to find certain truths any different from telling a creationist that if he really wants to understand the evidence for the theory that natural selection is a sound model for evolutionary change and the diversity of life, that he must take some courses in biology, geology and should even learn some physics (radioactive dating)?

To answer your first question: we could make your tycoon read Plato’s Republic or just wait until he/she has a serious car crash. Nobody said truth was easy.

Mike, Mathematician and amateur reader, at 10:40 am EDT on June 9, 2006

persuasion and the ubiquity of evidence and argument

Mike: “In no domain does “persuasive” mean that you have to convince every single person.”

Who said that? Not me. But there’s an obvious difference between uttering a clever aphorism and making a validly persuasive claim, which is the standard Adam invoked.

Mike: “Indeed your view of scientific truth is so narrow that is gives leeway to the more extreme postmodernists.”

Not at all. In fact, that’s just a silly claim. To be clear: I’m not disputing that there are a variety of valid sorts of experience, and I’d even call these valid forms of knowledge. But persuading others of the truth or utility of your claim requires argument and, often, evidence. At least, I’d claim that morally and epistemically valid forms of persuasion must be grounded in publicly accessible evidence and argument. And that sounds a lot like a scientific outlook.

I mean, of course it’s possible to persuade people with pithy aphorisms that hint at supposedly deep “truths” about the human spirit or what have you. And of course we can persuade others with clever and misleading rhetoric, or selective and emotional appeals to partial evidence (which is what a lot of great literature really amounts to, and is no less beautiful and moving for that fact).

But do you, or anyone else, really want to call these valid forms of persuasion?

Mike: “You are reading the claim too literally.”

And you are deliberately ignoring the rest of my post and the force of my argument.

If you think merely quoting Alan Bloom at me is going to persuade me, then I’m sorry but you really aren’t seeing my point here. I’ll simply note that argument by mere appeal to (dubious) authority is not a valid form of persuasion in my, or any other thinking person’s books.

I mean, I’ll buy that there are deep and distinctive aesthetic values associated with (good) poetry. I’ll even go so far as to call those values “truths about poetry.” But why do we imagine, with Bloom and countless others (including, apparently, you, Mike), that those sorts of truths count, on their own, as valid forms of persuasion?

Do you really think that, once revealed in a great sonnet, the truths stand alone, persuading others of their status simply by virtue of having been expressed?

If so, then what’s the point of literary analysis and criticism? What’s the point of teaching poetry? or talking about it at all? You simply read it, and either you get the profound truth or you don’t ... is that a satisfying story about why poetry has such enduring appeal?

Of course it isn’t.

And if you tried to persuade anyone outside of the circle of poetic initiates of the deep truths that you have imbibed, then you’ll end up appealing to — you guessed it — publicly accessible arguments and evidence, which is, really, the heart of the scientific enterprise.

And anyone who fights through Dostoevsky will find plenty of beautiflly crafted emotive appeals masquerading as, for example, generalizable critiques of utilitarianism and half-baked Nietzschean ideas about great men standing beyond good and evil. But this is a novelist’s passionate illustration of a deep unease with some popular moral views. Why treat that illustration as itself a validly persuasive claim? That’s either intellectual laziness, muddleheadedness, or — quite possibly — both.

Mike: “Is my telling you that you need to read long hard works of literature to find certain truths any different from telling a creationist that if he really wants to understand the evidence for the theory that natural selection is a sound model for evolutionary change and the diversity of life, that he must take some courses in biology, geology and should even learn some physics (radioactive dating)?”

Yes, it is very different (and believe me when I tell you, amateur reader and professional mathematician, that I am a professional reader and amateur mathematician, so please don’t lecture me on my assumed lack of exposure to great and not-so-great works of literature).

Look, the idea that we take some literary canon as the font of persuasive truths is just silly.

We can, I think, reasonably treat a canon as a valid source of important intuitions and concerns, but valid persuasion is not a matter of simply sifting through data (qualitative or quantitative) and somehow imbibing deep truths simply by exposure. We need to think carefully, and analyse and argue about the data, and so far no one has shown me that there is a valid way of making persuasive interpretations and arguments about the world of our experience that doesn’t ultimately look a lot like a scientific approach.

Mike: “To answer your first question: we could make your tycoon read Plato’s Republic ...”

Your glib tone aside, I’d respectfully suggest that you read the Republic more carefully. It makes numerous philosophical arguments that respect the spirit of a scientific outlook.

I suspect, however (based on your giddy acceptance of Bloom’s conceits) that you hold something like a Straussian view of that great text — which is, of course, entirely defensible, but to persuade me of it’s veracity or utility you’ll need to make cogent arguments that appeal to the (texual) evidence ...

... we’re all scientists now (at least, if we’re not muddleheaded romantics or closet cynics).

we’re all scientists now ..., assistant professor at a small research university, at 1:45 pm EDT on June 9, 2006

Dear WAASN,

I’ll be brief as classes are starting Monday.

The word persuasive is an adjective that means “tending to persuade.”

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=persuasive

No field of knowledge is “persuasive” in your absolutist sense.

Humanists do use textual evidence. But that is not the scientific method.If I wanted to convince students that the inverse squared law is a good model for gravity, I would not quote Newton; I’d show them how observations of the planets and experiments here on Earth are consistent with the model. Humanists do not do this, nor should they.

Plato made many good arguments. But, Plato’s world view was that our perceptions are at best gross distortions of the true really of the world of Forms. That is not modern science. Logical argument predates modern science by many centuries. BTW: In the 1600’s the goal of science (in Europe) was to demonstrate the glory of God by studying His creation.

The goal of modern science is to find good models for observed phenomena. To be “a good model” in this sense means that it is testable, has not failed any major tests and that it accounts for a major portion of the data observed. Scientists use reason and evidence. But that is not what distinguishes science from other fields.

I did not claim that my quoting someone proves the quote is true. My initial goal was just to give a simple example. I cannot present the case to win over an extreme hedonist here any more then I could win over an ardent creationist in a few paragraphs. However, I think you agree with my first claim. As to the Bloom reference, the point is not that science is bad. Bloom is not anti-science and neither am I. The point is that in adopting modern science we made a tradeoff. The rise of modern science was associated with a deep spiritual crisis that is still being worked out. Recognizing this tradeoff – which you likely do — is not equivalent to wanting to roll back the clock (which you did not accuse me of, but I just wanted to be clearer here). Although, Bloom may have been more concerned with the higher level of funding given to the sciences.

WAASN, you do not present any evidence. Statements like, “Who said that? Not me,” “that’s just a silly claim,” and my favorite “Yes, it is very different (and believe me when I tell you …that I am a professional reader…so please don’t lecture me…)” are not acceptable means of establishing the veracity of one’s claims in any corner of academia. What field are you in?

Take care; I will be tuning out for awhile,

Mike, Math Prof, at 10:05 am EDT on June 10, 2006

Epistemic relativism and moral relativism not identical

Violet — Sorry, I wasn’t clear; I should have used quotation marks on that sentence that started “I’m suspicious of metanarratives” — but I thought it would be clear from the absurdity of the conclusion that the whole sentence was a (somewhat mocking) attribution (to a generalized hypothetical “postmodernist,") not a literal statement.

I didn’t say anything about postmodernism as “a blueprint for moral relativism,” I described it as an enabler of epistemic relativism, which is a different thing.

‘Indeed, I take it as an imperative to choose my truths very carefully, knowing they are choices and not inherently “true.”’

There you go: epistemic relativism, big as life and twice as — alarming.

O Benson, Editor at Butterflies and Wheels, at 1:15 pm EDT on June 10, 2006

I’m still thinking, Mike.

Hi Mike,

I have been trying to come up with a response to your question. The answer has something to do with your point that only one “truth” can be the right one, and that all will be revealed at some future, unknowable, moment. I feel uncomfortable with such a notion of truth, which is founded on a belief in some extra-textual, absolute “truth” out there that will someday be available to us, making some of us “right” and some of us (most?) “wrong” in the end (whenver THAT is!). So black and white. So absolutist, even. And so theologically structured, really. It just makes me uncomfortable—I’m wary of aligning myself with such paradigms, probably because I’ve studied too much human history (I say that humbly, not authoritatively) to forget what happens when large groups of people think they are “right” about what it “true!” It can create a false sense of moral authority that results in stunningly immoral actions.

We probably are not that far off in our understanding of “truth.” I’m just hyper-vigilant about modifying my “truths” as doubtful, even tenous, because of this.

Best regards,

Violet, Associate Professor of Spanish at Midwestern U, at 3:15 pm EDT on June 10, 2006

Can We Talk About Sex?

I agree with Mike that concrete examples could go a long way toward clarifying how we should think about “truth,” and these examples can point to what’s gained by postmodern analysis (broadly conceived). Can we agree, just for the sake of argument, that Foucault is a postmodernist or, at the very least, that he exemplifies a certain body of postmodern or poststructuralist thought? I was fortunate to read The History of Sexuality as an undergraduate and it was definitely one of my postmodern gateway drugs. One of his mind blowing and truly innovative arguments centers on the creation of homosexuality as a social category. Foucault contends that the articulation of homosexuals as a distinct and scientifically identifiable group occurred in the late 19th century; “homosexuals” were “created” in 1870s. This doesn’t challenge the “truth” of same-sex attraction or its pre-1870s history. BUT, it suggests that the scientific way of understanding same-sex eros is history-bound and culture-bound. The sexologists in the late 19th century didn’t suddenly just “get it right” by turning sexuality into an object of scientific inquiry. As I see it, that’s the “post” of the “postmodern” part; after reading Foucault, we don’t have to slavishly buy into a modernist/scientific reading of sexuality – a reading that’s likely to be reductionist, determinist, essentialist, and some other bad word.

So, Foucault blew up the ontology of homosexuality in broad strokes, but the work that’s taken off from his basic argument in History of Sexuality has really sold me on his original premise (while forcing me & everyone else to rethink some of the finer points). Here’s one example: George Chauncey’s Gay New York (1994). Chauncey shows that men who had sex with other men in late 19th & early 20th century NYC didn’t classify themselves along the hetero/homosexual binary. They had their own sexual classification system and the police, courts, and scientists had theirs. Postmodern thinking – coupled with hours of careful archival work – shows us the power dynamics at work in the battle over the “truth” about homosexuality, same-sex desire, gayness, etc. Now, this might seem like a lot of definitional splicing, but if you read the footnotes of the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision (overturning state sodomy laws) you’ll find Foucault’s & Chauncey’s claims about the historically contingent condition of “sexuality.” Kennedy’s decision criticized the Bowers v. Hardwick decision because it rested on the assertion that laws against “homosexual sodomy” have “ancient roots.” Justice Kennedy wrote (citing an amicus brief co-authored by Chauncey and other historians of sexuality) that this is a patently bogus historical claim – not because there haven’t been laws since ancient times against anal or oral intercourse – but because the idea of a “homosexual” as defined by a particular set of sex acts is, in the words of Chauncey, “a stunningly recent invention.” Here, I find I beautiful marriage among postmodern or poststructuralist theory, compelling historical evidence (facts! evidence!), and civic society.

I’m not saying that a Reagan-appointed Supreme Court justice is a secret postmodernist or that he was channeling Foucault. Moreover, I seriously doubt Chauncey would consider himself a “postmodernist.” But the ideas were out there (the ubiquity of the postmodern perspective that Violet referred to). So, as these postmodern ideas about sex were blowing my mind in the early 1990s, they were being deployed by a community of scholars would then provide a key intellectual rationale for a genuinely progressive decision from a Court that’s, um, rather right-leaning. Go postmoderns!

I don’t have to face that false choice Ophelia forces me to make between a postmodernism that somehow denies the reality of the Holocaust and Truth capital T. I don’t have to fight the 1980s Theory Wars all over again. I can read the stuff and it can influence me in my own world of charts and graphs.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s posts.

Brian, Assistant Professor at Midwest University, at 5:45 am EDT on June 11, 2006

Foucault the postmodernist? okay, but ...

Brian: “I agree with Mike that concrete examples could go a long way toward clarifying how we should think about “truth,” and these examples can point to what’s gained by postmodern analysis (broadly conceived).”

I guess I’m sceptical that we should conceive of pomo analysis all that broadly. Why not be more constrained, so that the murky and silly stuff stays in the category, and the useful critical tools are identified as such, and shown not to depend on the more outrageous (or more often, inscrutible) philosophical claims of self-identified postmodernists?

As an aside (and to clarify why it might be best to leave the more radical postmodernists in their own tent), doesn’t yours and Mike’s call for concrete examples merely privilege the fixed, the (apparently) clear, the willnotmovedness of the voiced white male demanding clarity (obedience?) — and a stage to be clear upon — and in so doing further destabilize the voiceless subaltern on the margins of your discourse? “Clarify” you call. “Examples!” But I resist your seduction, your effort to take my supple fleshy forms with your concretizing demand for obedience, submission. You accept the hegemony of a concretizing epistemology that denies the situated powerladenness of all such concretizing ambitions, by privileging that which remains in the (socially constructed and invariably male) visual field, and neglecting that which falls away, resisting your efforts to rein it in, to subdue it, dominate it with your favoured metaphors of clarification that hint at the embrace of reasonable (com)promise ...

... or something like that.

Brian: “Can we agree, just for the sake of argument, that Foucault is a postmodernist or, at the very least, that he exemplifies a certain body of postmodern or poststructuralist thought?”

I’d rather not: I much prefer reading Foucault the historian to Foucault the half-baked Nietzschean “theorist,” and I certainly prefer either of these Foucaults over most any of the so-called Foucauldian postmodern analyses that popped up like weeds after his death.

Brian: “I was fortunate to read The History of Sexuality as an undergraduate and it was definitely one of my postmodern gateway drugs.”

But insofar as it is sound history, I just don’t see what’s usefully characterized as postmodern about, say, “The History of Sexuality” or “Discipline and Punish". I know everyone reads him this way, and he himself encouraged this with his own interpretive glosses (and in his silly French “deep intellectual” posturing in interviews).

When push comes to interpretive shove, however, I just don’t see why we need the “it’s all faces of power!” pomo reading to make perfectly good sense of Foucault as a very interesting and important historian of ideas.

Brian: “The sexologists in the late 19th century didn’t suddenly just “get it right” by turning sexuality into an object of scientific inquiry. As I see it, that’s the “post” of the “postmodern” part; after reading Foucault, we don’t have to slavishly buy into a modernist/scientific reading of sexuality – a reading that’s likely to be reductionist, determinist, essentialist, and some other bad word.”

See, this is the move I don’t get: why would you think that, without a Foucauldian sociology of knowlege and its production, that we’d “have to slavishly buy into” some conceptually problematic framework? Why couldn’t we just be properly sceptical interpreters of these histories? Do you seriously believe that, if we don’t read and accept Foucault, then we cannot be critical and sceptical of authority claims and accepted meanings?

And you seem to be in a bit of a bind here if you buy the “Foucault as postmodernist” reading: isn’t any interpretive framework really simply an artifact of power, thus making your (apparently) revealing Foucauldian archeology nothing more than another round in the shifting discourses of power?

You think you’re enlightened by your grasp of how the category of “homosexuality” has been constructed in modern history, but you’ve really just bought into another power discourse. And the digging never stops: its non-stop archeology, all the way down ...

If, on the other hand, you think we can successfully get off the “discourses of power” bandwagon at Foucault’s uncovering of the various reasons for constructing the now-familiar category of “homosexuality” (or “madness", or “condemned", or ...), and that this represents a reasonably persuasive account of how knowledge claims are socially constructed, then presumably you read Foucault as, well, a social-constructivist historian.

And if that’s the case, then I’m not sure what conceptual work is being done by “postmodern” in your example.

Mike: “So, Foucault blew up the ontology of homosexuality in broad strokes, ...”

See, it’s that sort of loose use of philosophical terminology that gets the pomos into trouble: as you yourself readily concede, in a very plausible sense the “ontology” of homosexuality isn’t what’s at stake in Foucault’s analysis. Rather, it’s about social meanings, and how these meanings shape the biases and interests of medical scientists and professionals.

Again, you seem to suggest that postmodern and poststructuralist approaches to the sociology of knowledge are what give us the (very plausible and useful) claims from Foucault that many of our apparently objective and seemingly uncontentious categories are in fact more subtle and fluid than we think (or wish to think), and that myriad cultural, political, and economic factors shape the social meanings we accept so that day-to-day discourse proceeds without constant fumbling over controversial assumptions and claims.

Foucault is unsettling because he strips us of that routine conceit, showsing us the messy and often-disturbing processes by which apparently uncontentious shared meanings are forged and perpetuated.

But again, I don’t see what’s gained by calling this approach to conceptual history “postmodern,” even if I’d readily concede that it sometimes deploys interpretive strategies that are probably best-labeled poststructuralist.

The approach certainly is sceptical of a certain sort of enlightenment optimism (and intransigence, and sometimes condescension) — that’s postmodern, right? But there were plenty of enlightenment sceptics who also denied that heady optimism and arrogance, and we don’t call them postmodern (well, I suppose some people try — gotta get those publications out, after all, and “Montaigne as postmodernist” is a better sell in cultural studies journal than “Montaigne: presaging a more theoretically modest and empirically grounded anthropology?").

There is, after all, a tradition of clear-headed thinkers who were sceptical of grand enlightenment claims and aspirations, but who nonetheless seem to have believed that some sort of (reasonably certain) knowledge was possible about an (ontologically distinct) exernal world, and that morality is both meaningful and workable in the world, and not merely a cynical discourse of power and privilege. For instance Hume would roughly fit this characterization, I think.

Now all of this may simply be to say that “postmodernism” is a messy and contested label — true enough. But it seems to me that, when we find something useful and constructive in the critical tools forged by Nietzsche and Foucault, they don’t really depend critically upon buying into the self-identified “postmodern” interpreters of Nietzsche and Foucault (the latter who are, again, encouraged by things Foucault himself said, to be sure).

we’re all scientists now ..., assistant professor at a small research university, at 11:35 am EDT on June 11, 2006

Skip the capital T

“I don’t have to face that false choice Ophelia forces me to make between a postmodernism that somehow denies the reality of the Holocaust and Truth capital T.”

I don’t force anyone to do anything. In any case I didn’t say postmodernism denies the reality of the Holocaust. I didn’t even say anything very close to that. I was replying to Violet’s concerns about “claims to absolute truth” rather than imputing anything to postmodernism. My point was that blanket skepticism about all truth is at least as useful to, for instance, Holocaust deniers as it is to, say, postcolonialists. At the same time I explicitly disavowed any claims to absolute truth, and that would include “Truth capital T.” I repeat: never mind “absolute truth,” never mind certainty, never mind “Truth capital T.” Skip all the silly irrelevant pejoratives, all the mocking distancing devices. There is still abundant room (and reason) to talk about common or garden truth and truth-claims. You think it’s true that the Holocaust happened and not true that it didn’t happen, right? There’s no need to add capital letters or scare quotes or the word ‘absolutely’ or ‘certainly.’

Ophelia Benson, at 3:20 pm EDT on June 11, 2006

To: We’re All Scientists et. al.

Your last post makes me think we have more common ground than might first appear. First, I support your constrained postmodernism, if that means that theory eventually has to connect to real life and representations of real life (data, evidence, & other forms of research material). So, I wouldn’t call myself a postmodernist, but theorists that many people call “postmodern” have influenced my thinking and research. It seemed like that here, the term had been used somewhat broadly (hence my qualifier “broadly conceived”). I don’t have patience for the hyper-skeptical theorizing that denies any basis for knowing something. They might be correct (or whatever) in their theorizations, down there at that Nth degree of skepticism (like you parody), but I’ll let someone else jump into that battle. All I’m arguing here is that there are provisional uses of postmodernist or poststructuralist thought (in fields outside philosophy) and that certain uses of theory don’t require one to fight the “postmodernism denies the truth” battle all over again.

We part ways on Foucault – at least those two books you mentioned. I think he’s a better theorist than he is a historian. Ann Stoler, Thomas Lacquer, and Gail Bederman (in my little opinion) do a better job of bringing to light many of his ideas than he does (if that make sense).

Ophelia – I apologize for the rhetorical flourishes that offended you. I didn’t intend that. All I’m saying is that I don’t think it’s a useful discursive move to think with extreme examples like creationism and Holocaust denying. The provisional & provincial postmodernism that I’m advocating here doesn’t have to defend an epistemology that covers that level of irrationality.

Brian, at 8:45 pm EDT on June 11, 2006

Philosophy

I think these threads are way off base. The social sciences discussing a concept of truth need mention the formulation of truth in epistemology. Sadly, none of you have done so. There is a specific context to which the nature of truth has been described philosophically. The problem is extensive to areas both in epistemology and metaphysics respectively. However, epistemology is the locus of this problem, and the implications of our epistemological insights are then applied to the classic metaphysical impluse of ‘What is there?’.

The problem of truth is usually conceived as how it is that a statement/proposition is true. In this way, truth is seen as the quality of a statement. There are major sources of contention on how it is that proposition p is true because of blah or blah blah.

Currently, we could say that Quine and Davidson coherentism is a major philosophical school in the post-analytic philosophy tradition. The point I am trying to make is simple: the conception of truth is a philosphical problem, rooted in terms of epistemology.

What bugs me is that sociolog of knowledge presupposes the very fact it sets out to prove. Social constructionist understands knowledge as produced through socialization and social forces, but its initial assumption of sociology is that there are natural explanations for social problems. Sociology by method assumes the very condition of knowledge it uses to derive its conclusion for social constructivism.

Postmodernism is better understood in Lyotard’s essay on postmodernism than Foucalt. In that essay, knowledge is seen as a constructive enterprise in which values and facts are commingled. Lyotard borrows the term of a “language game” from Wittgenstein. Putnam has a famous essay discussing the collapse of the fact and value distinction. I think such philosophical arguments take for granted those things that are good in and of themselves, like the pursuit of wisdom itself. Philosophy is its own reward, and sadly not mentioned enough here. Clearly, truth here is a problem of epistemic reflection on our capacities to know the world, and one should not run from the postmodern conclusions that blur our particular viewpoint from the impulse to do science, or truth-seeking in other forms. We cannot shed our humanity, nor our perpsective; but we can offer our thoughts on why that is so without being postmodern.

LM

lordmystick@yahoo.com, Teaching Assistant at Simon Fraser University, at 5:25 am EDT on June 12, 2006

“Sociology by method assumes the very condition of knowledge it uses to derive its conclusion for social constructivism.”

I agree – to an extent – that a postmodern sociologist is an oxymoron. If you read my original post from Friday, I expressed shock that grad student in an MA sociology program was force fed, (what he called) postmodernism because the discipline. On the other hand, I mentioned that social constructionism (which is almost taken for granted in sociology) appears to many as “postmodern” or, at the very least, a soft form of poststructuralist argumentation; hence the perceived force feeding.

Speaking as a sociologist, I can embrace the uncertainty of knowledge and be self-reflexive about my own language gaming and social location to the point of paralysis. For instance, one could reasonably deconstruct my recent posts as stemming from my professional investment (class interest?) in an intellectual enterprise that sits uneasily between the sciences and humanities. Bourdieu would argue that I’m making a virtue out of a necessity; I’m valorizing an epistemological stance that just so happens to justify my intellectual labor. But I’m willing to plead guilty and serve my sentence as long as I have time left to finish my footnotes and bibliography. In these online discussion spaces (and after my grading is done!), I can chew on the epistemological questions that fall in this in-between space between science and something else, but I have to bracket many of those debates when I sit down to write for audiences composed of sociologists and historians.

Lordmystick: you’ll find strong support for your critique of constructionist sociologies in Woolgar & Pawluch’s Feb. 1985 article “Ontological Gerrymandering: The Anatomy of Social Problems Explanations” in Social Problems. But be sure to read Joel Best’s response “But Seriously Folks: The Limitations of the Strict Constructionist Interpretation of Social Problems,” in Constructionist Controversies (eds. Miller & Holstein, 1993). These readings will also suggest that it’s possible to have these discussions without using the P word and that these debates have been around a long time, albeit under various disciplinary patinas.

Brian, at 9:45 am EDT on June 12, 2006

I don’t know. Perhaps, I my inner daimon is mad at the fact that I had to sit through classes with Tarski’s T condition, and Russell’s logical atomism. This inner philosophical child has been picked on so much that, once I am a TA, I will unleash my graduate pains on undergraduates and disciplinary discussions that are doing philosophy without admitting it.

More to the point, I feel that truth ascriptions to propositions we make about the world are at the very ground of this discussion. How it is that truth values assigned to propositions is just how we have talked about it historically. I feel when social sciences engage in these questions, they are partaking of a conceptual analysis that has its roots in what we, philosophers, do.

Far be it from me to judge, I do have only a “green belt” in philosophy.

Personally, I seek a priori justification for my beliefs in a Kantian conceptual scheme, but I am antiquated in my philosophical interests.

I don’t know about you Brian, but since you are a sociologist (Durkheim from ephilosopher??) sorry forgot what I was going to say.

lordmystick, TA at Simon Fraser, at 1:45 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

3 cheers for coherentism

(1) Yes, as lordmystick says, this is primarily an epistemological issue (and one that’s been around for eons).

(2) Anyone looking for something more than a coherent understanding is searching for a Holy Grail.

(3) I realize a lot of people don’t like the consequences of that view, but that wasn’t a very good argument against Galileo either. . .

tje, at 10:05 am EDT on June 14, 2006