BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Head Shop >

Postmodernism

  
 
Thiassi
23:54 / 08.01.02
This topic has been moved from the Invisibles and Postmodernism thread. As far as I can tell, the purpose of this thread is to explain and define the concepts of postmodernism.

Previously I stated that it seemed like Postmodernism was the rebirth of Sophism.

Haus replied:
quote:
Wow. That's a fascinating statement. What exactly are the tenets of "sophism", please? And in what way does postmodernism rebirth them?


Taken from the Georgia Institute of Technology Rhetoric Resources Website:
quote:
In contrast to Plato's foundationalism, the Sophist took a distantly different veiw of reality and truth, a more antifoundationalist approach. They believed that there was no absolute proof of anything, and "instead of language counting for everything, it counts for nothing" (Gibson 285). Sophists saw an insurrmountable gulf between the world and language's limited ability to express things in it.


As for postmodernism, I claim to be no expert in it. In fact, I have started this thread in order to gain knowledge on the subject. However, the very limited reading I have done in the past leads me to believe that these two subjects share certain similarities. For example, I notice a lot of similarity between the quote above and Tom Coates' previous post. Both of these express the belief that language cannot accurately describe our world, and that the true universe, if it exists, can not be known for certain.

Perhaps the objection was to the rebirth aspect of my observation though. I think we can agree that Sophism lost popularity after the emergance of Plato. I'm also going to tenatively (because my knowledge of philosophy is pretty limited) suggest that a philosophy with these two concepts at its heart did not arise until recently in the form of postmodernism. However, I will concede that parts of existentalism touched on these concepts.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
07:03 / 09.01.02
Caveat: the words 'postmodern', 'postmodernism', and 'postmodernity', variously punctuated and capitalisted, cover a multitude of sins (or riches).

I think, but I may be mistaken, that the term 'postmodernism' as refering to a coherent body of stylistic decisions, arose in architecture, and is literally that which comes after modernism. Similarly in art (?).

With political/social theory, it suddenly becomes far less clear-cut. Notions of a 'postmodern era' are muddy at best, and the descriptor probably only means 'any period in which theories of postmodernity are expounded'.

With specific reference to your discussion, I think you're mistaken in saying postmodern thinking revives the sophists as described in your reference. In the postmodern, there is no underlying reality, no world which can or cannot be revealed. The surface, be it created or viewed (and they may be the same thing) is all there is.

That's it. I've dried. Someone help me out.
 
 
Jackie Susann
07:23 / 09.01.02
I disagree - I can't think of any significant 'postmodern' writers who claim there is no underlying reality.

As for postmodernity vs the sophists, I know nothing about the latter but, based on your quote, the differences seem pronounced. No postmodernist would ever, ever claim that language counts for nothing. Nor do postmodernists think the problem is "language's limited ability to express things in [the world]". Basically, it seems that sophists saw language as not complex enough to express the world, but would have accepted that a sufficiently complex language could do this (i.e., if you had a word for everything). Whereas for postmodernists, the failure is internal to language and the way meaning works, which is basically self-referential.

Not all postmodernists think that, but I think it's safe to say many do. I will now bow out as Haus makes fun of you.
 
 
—| x |—
07:49 / 09.01.02
Postmodernism is a tough one, and Nick points out why in his opening paragraph (and verified by Crunchy's rebuttal): it is a word used by different people in different ways. Some will scoff at it, others will embrace it, and some will embrace it after you explain that your "postmodernism" is not quite the "postmodernism" that they'd normally scoff at. Oh well, definitions are always troublesome while also an attempt to avert trouble!

In allowing a certain degree of slack at the edges (where the chaos of a crumpled boarder blurs sharp distinctions anyway), I think I sort of see what you are getting on about. The general view that I have regarding postmodernism involves the recognition that any one way of seeing the world (perhaps a structure of knowledge, a paradigm, a model, or some such thing) is recognized as only a way to see the world. In this sense, I see the connection with the Sophist "antifoundationalist approach" embedded in your quote. Both views seem to accept that there is not a single "truth" to the world, that there is not one way of seeing that captures the totality.

My way is the highway,
11 * 5 = 0 (mod 5)

[ 09-01-2002: Message edited by: modfive ]
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
07:53 / 09.01.02
Oooh, Crunchy, I was afraid you might pick me up on that. Maybe you can help me out though - there's a quote whicn runs along the lines of "the depthless surfaces of postmodernity do not even satirise, because irony posits an underlying truth which postmodernity rejects" which I keep trying to find and can't.

I'll look around for stuff about surfaces if I have time later!
 
 
Cat Chant
08:00 / 09.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:
I disagree - I can't think of any significant 'postmodern' writers who claim there is no underlying reality.

Baudrillard's fourth stage of the sign (it masks the absence of a basic reality)?
 
 
Jackie Susann
08:25 / 09.01.02
Nick - it sounds like, maybe, Frederic Jameson from 'The cultural logic of late capitalism', but there he is describing the way postmodern parody works rather than making an ontological claim.

About the Baudrillard - I don't really rate him but I would see that statement (not having read the work its from) as not implying an ontological claim in the way 'there is no underlying reality' does. Isn't he basically saying that in the 'fourth stage' signs no longer have referents? Because that seems to bear on the relation between language and reality rather than the substance of reality as such.

I think, generally, there is a substantial difference between postmodern critiques of the grounding and/or universality of truth claims and the idea that nothing is real. Like in Foucault's critiques of the concept of truth, he is not saying that there are no objective facts but that the conditions for something being considered a fact are social (and local) - which is really pretty obvious and difficult to argue.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
08:36 / 09.01.02
Make fun? Would I ever?

I would, however, point out that your (Thiassi's, and thus the Georgia Institute of Technology's) description of sophism possesses several characteristics which might be identified as typical of antepostmodernist thought (sorry, I love using that word, and it so rarely happens).

First up, you have established a "grand narrative", in which the emergence of Plato heralds the decline of sophistry as sure as the Roman empire eradicated the Alexandrian or the Dark Ages swept away the Roman. It seems unlikely that the emergence of Plato did any such thing.

Second up, you are conflating personality with position. That is to say, "the Sophist" (unless you are referring to the capital-"s" Sophist of the Platonic dialogue of the same name, who is IIRC in fact an Eleatic philosopher) here appears to be a bowdlerised Gorgias (who does appear to have argued, although whether as a philosophical exercise or not is unclear, that nothing existed, and that if it did it could not be understood, and that if somebody could understand it they would be unable to communicate it meaningfully to another). However, this belief differs most obviously from postmodernism through context: the views of reality formed in Classical philosophy were in most cases attempts to reconcile or justify the division between the unity of the world and the tendency of the phenomenological world to change - a physical as much as metaphysical puzzle that is not particularly vexed in the 20th and 21st centuries.

So, it could be suggested (mayyyyyybe), that by running the idea of "the Sophist" - a monolithic entity espousing an antifoundationist view of the universe that fits presumably in the narrow interstice between the voorsocratikers and Platonists - up against the idea of "a sophist" - an often-itinerant teacher of rhetoric and philosophy, such as Gorgias, Protagoras or...um....Aristotle, you can decentralise and disrupt the certainties produced by Thiassi's dictionary definition to create new perspectives on the idea of "sophism" through its perceived relationship to postmodernism and through a postmodern analysis.

Anyone see the match last night?
 
 
Cavatina
08:49 / 09.01.02
I have read that the word 'postmodernism' was coined in the late 1960s in reference to novels by John Barth, but circulated much more widely following its use by Charles Jencks in his 1975 book, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture.

However postmodernism as a(somewhat disparate) philosophical movement, is - as you suggest, Thiassi - commonly conceived as a form of scepticism. It calls into question claims to truth, normative cultural and political values, the authority, knowledge and values disseminated by what Lyotard, in The Postmodern Condition(1979), called 'grand narratives'. Its particular arguments and claims are often said to be counter-intuitive. It seeks to destabilize other theories without claimimg to set up one of its own. As such, postmodern philosophy can be placed in a tradition of antifoundational philosophy that stretches back to the Sophists. However, postmodern philosophers like Derrida - that is, the proponents of poststructuralist discourse, who disrupted and overturned the system-building thought of the early-to-mid 20th century structuralists - drew on much later antifoundationalists, Nietzsche, in particular.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
08:49 / 09.01.02
I would again respectfully point out that sophism has by no means been established as intrinsically antifoundational. The Uncle Friedrich connection is, however, does seem a lot closer. See Neitzsche, Heidegger and the Transition to Postmodernity by Gregory Smith or (much easier to find, in the UK at least, and a buckload easier to read, Neitzsche and Postmodernism by Dave Robinson.
 
 
Jackie Susann
08:49 / 09.01.02
Could someone define/explain 'antifoundationalist'? I have no idea what it means. Once that happens, I want to take some shots at the idea Nietzsche is a major precursor to postmodernism, but maybe I'm missing the point...
 
 
Tom Coates
11:23 / 09.01.02
I think one of the wonderful things about postmodern philosophy is the immediate self-defeating nature of it - which is where its charm comes from and its power.

And I think this provides an example of push concepts to the boundaries and watching them collapse. Postmodernity takes continental philosophy (mostly) to its limits - push argument to the point where thought that has been developed undermines the very basis for it's own conclusions.

Truth is a very interesting thing as far as I am concerned. I think it was Derrida who argued that 'truth' is not irrelevant in postmodernity or deconstructionism, quite the opposite - that the concept of truth is hugely powerful - it's a concept that props up the whole differing mesh of almost every ideology, but it's a concept that truly is only operable within a conceptual space. Truth is fundamental to any conceptual system but ... it can not mean what we take it to mean - it cannot be a goal as we THINK it is a goal. Really interesting stuff, truth. If you think of it as a concept which only functions as part of a system of ideology rather than as a scientifically achievable end, then it comes much more rapidly into focus.

Which brings me to Baudrillard, who in many ways denies the reader the opportunity to use the concepts of authority and truth in the reading of his work. He calls it science fiction. And as such it's remarkably prescient.

He describes in The Transparency of Evil, the way that the concept of Evil is changing from them and us to ideas of contagion, mutation, transgression. THe new evils he identifies - transsexuality, terrorism, cancer and HIV. These are symbols of the new evils we face. Very very interesting and entertaining stuff.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
11:31 / 09.01.02
Anti-foundationalism is a new one on me. The Georgia site has a description here. Although I am less able to excoriate it as its numpty-heided commentary on sophism, it seems a) illiterate and b) prone to this kind of thing:

Nietzsche is one of the most prominant minds of the 19th's century, although he was not very influential until the 20th. His writings were considered racist by some and he is one of the more controversial literary figures studied in the 20th century. One of his ideas was that there was no good or evil.

Which is a) untrue and b) numpty-heided.
 
 
rizla mission
12:26 / 09.01.02
quote:Originally posted by modfive:

The general view that I have regarding postmodernism involves the recognition that any one way of seeing the world (perhaps a structure of knowledge, a paradigm, a model, or some such thing) is recognized as only a way to see the world.

um .. yeah, that was kind of my understanding of post-modernism too.

(Do you know, I'm almost following this discussion .. I feel like giving myself a sweet)
 
 
The Planet of Sound
15:10 / 09.01.02
Weren't the original (uncanny) Sophists more of a bunch of performing linguistic jesters tham anti-establishment free-thinkers?

"So, sir, have you lost a tail?"

"No, sir I have not."

"Then, sir, it must be rightly stated that you have a tail. Boom! Boom!"

(Associate goes around collecting pennies in recignition of the wit as audience laughs uproariously at unfortunate recipient. Highly developed sense of humour, yer ancients. That 'The Frogs'; laughed til' I cried).

So, the ultimate development of sophist thought would surely be the robot-statue-people and acrobats of Covent Garden, rather than postmodernist thought...?

Now, if someone can explain to me what the difference is between postmodernism and post-structuralism, I'll give them a nice prize.
 
 
grant
15:52 / 09.01.02
I *think* the difference between postmodernism and post-structuralism used to be the difference between architecture/art history and linguistics/lit theory but has since sort of conflated.

I also think it's interesting that one of the characteristics differentiating the sophists from the postmodernists is that no one is really sure what the specific tenets of sophism are, only that there's a kind of antithetical relationship to Platonism. Much like postmodernism and modernism.

Then again, that's only a structural resemblance (the rhetorical many vs. the formal one). I'll go away now.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
15:55 / 09.01.02
quote:Originally posted by modfive:
The general view that I have regarding postmodernism involves the recognition that any one way of seeing the world (perhaps a structure of knowledge, a paradigm, a model, or some such thing) is recognized as only a way to see the world. In this sense, I see the connection with the Sophist "antifoundationalist approach" embedded in your quote. Both views seem to accept that there is not a single "truth" to the world, that there is not one way of seeing that captures the totality.


I know nothing about postmodernism, so I'll go ahead and take this opportunity to ask some questions (to everybody, not just mod-five). If it sounds ignorant, forgive me. Do me a favor and beat that blunt ignorance into a useful shape.

Okay...so postmodernism involves the view that no one view can completely capture reality because these views stem from our ideas about what's really going on, which really aren't all that accurate, and that there are no maps that can ever be taken for the landscape, and to try to do so is not a good idea? Or is there some dissention on this. Someone was saying earlier that postmodernism involved the idea that all these views actually create reality. The map making the landscape? Or is the point that we don't know and won't ever really know? I don't want to purposely cut the idea down into one easily-swallowed chunk, but this is what I've gleaned from some of the posts. There's more to it than this, right? What am I missing? Is it possible for you all to provide examples of postmodernism?

[ 09-01-2002: Message edited by: Johnny is cold ]
 
 
The Planet of Sound
19:55 / 09.01.02
Half a nice prize to Grant. Has everyone here seen Mulholland Drive? Now, that's a postmodernist movie if ever I saw one...

In a crazy way, a good way of getting to grips with postmodernism/structuralism might be to dive into some examples in the Arts. Along with anything by David Lynch, I'd recommend 'Girlfriend in a Coma' by Douglas Copeland and the musical/literary career of Bill Drummond. I think. Er...
 
 
Saveloy
13:12 / 10.01.02
Planet of Sound:

"In a crazy way, a good way of getting to grips with postmodernism/structuralism might be to dive into some examples in the Arts. Along with anything by David Lynch, I'd recommend 'Girlfriend in a Coma' by Douglas Copeland and the musical/literary career of Bill Drummond. I think. Er..."

I'm not sure I follow that - how are they postmodern? I'm not saying they're not, just, er, I don't get it.


There's a bit on the web here that might be useful to anyone like me who thinks postmodernism is just some guy with a dodgy goatee and a beret, sitting in a cafe with a hefty academic tome in one hand and an Incredible Hulk comic in the other:

The Postmodern Turn (Steven Best and Douglas Kellner)

It's very much pro-pomo (ha ha) and there's some contentious bollocks in it, but I reckon it covers the general stuff in a readable manner.

For those who can't be arsed to read the whole thing, I reckon these to be the crucial bits:

QUOTE:
"Modernist art sought innovation, novelty, and contemporary thematic relevance, rejecting tradition by negating old aesthetic forms and creating new ones. In this sense, modernism in the arts followed the basic processes of modernity, which involved
negation of the old and creation of the new, producing continual originality and "creative destruction" in all spheres of life (see Berman, 1982)."

(It goes on to say, in so many words "but it got really elitist".)

QUOTE:
"The postmodern turn in the arts maintains some links to earlier aesthetic traditions while also breaking sharply from bourgeois elitism, high modernism, and the avant-garde alike. With modernism and the avant-garde, postmodernists reject realism, mimesis, and linear forms of narrative. But while high modernists defended the autonomy of art and excoriated mass culture, postmodernists spurned elitism and combined "high" and "low"
cultural forms in an aesthetic pluralism and populism. Against the drive toward militant innovation and originality, postmodernists embraced tradition and techniques of quotation and pastiche. While the modernist artist aspired to create monumental works and a unique style and the avant-garde movements wanted to revolutionize art and society, postmodernists were more ironic and playful, eschewing concepts like "genius," "creativity," and even "author." While modernist art works were signification machines that produced a wealth of meanings and interpretations, postmodern art was more surface-oriented, renouncing depth and grand philosophical or moral visions (Jameson, 1991)."

[ 10-01-2002: Message edited by: Saveloy ]
 
 
Thiassi
17:52 / 16.01.02
It has occured to me that there is no way I'm going to be able to sit here and exchange primary sources on Sophism with the Haus. So, it seems like there is only one option at this point.

I concede that Sophism is not as similar to Postmodernism as I first thought it was. You'll have to excuse me, I was only working on the definition I was given in back in ethics class.
 
  
Add Your Reply