The Ayn Randian Propagandistic Trope Concerning Postmodernism

“…the whole system of reason finally leads to some point at which reason does not deny itself, does not abdicate, but transcends itself within itself. “- Paul Tillich

By chance I discovered a video, Critique of Stephen Hicks’ “Explaining Postmodernism,” which is a critique of the book “Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault,”(2010) authored by the writer Stephen R. C. Hicks who refers to himself as a Randian Objectivist. The video is well versed in Kantian epistemology and critiques Hicks’ attack on a philosophical school known as postmodernism. I want to go into greater detail than the video to give additional counter-arguments against Hicks’ understanding of postmodernism.

I never liked generalized philosophical labels such as Idealism, Libertarianism, Socialism, or Rationalism since there is nearly always some mixture of these views influencing a philosopher’s thinking with close analysis. These terms are useful as tools for topical organization, but are limited at a certain level of granularity especially while examining specific logical arguments of an intellectual tradition. The term and concept of postmodern seems particularly ambiguous and I have wanted to investigate this issue for sometime now because it is often used as an ad hominem truncheon in discussions today.

The Fallacy of Circular Reasoning:

The most important step of philosophical analysis is to methodologically define the term postmodern, which turns out to be a big problem for this book. Since Hicks is authoring a book on postmodernism the burden of proof is on him to define how this term is used. Hicks refers to postmodernism as “anti-realist,” “denies reason,” “subjective,” and “radical.” Early in his book Hicks wrote, “The term “post-modern” situates the movement historically and philosophically against modernism”(Loc: 546). In other words postmodernism is bad since the opposite, modernism, is good.

Hicks describes his methodology as, “…understanding what the movement sees itself as rejecting and moving beyond will be helpful in formulating a definition of postmodernism. The modern world has existed for several centuries, and after several centuries we have good sense of what modernism is”(Loc: 546). Defining any group by what they think of themselves might not be the best methodological approach anymore that judging the moral character of a person by what they say about themselves. Do we really have a good sense of what modernism is?

However, there is a second even more serious methodological problem by using how “the movement sees itself,” as a definition since we are faced with the problem of deciding which movement we will select as postmodern. Hicks already presupposes what postmodernism is otherwise how else could Hicks identify any group as a member of the movement! How can one recognize postmodernism independently of Hicks’ judgment?  It seems that the term postmodernism has no essence. Wittgenstein used the word “game” as an example of a concept that had no essential meaning. The word’s meaning is how it is used. Likewise, the meaning of postmodern is whatever Hicks points to since it has no essence. Omnium-gatherum as a methodology for collecting the particulars of a universal concept will not work if one does not already have a universal concept of postmodernism. So the reader must rely on Hicks to point at any particular group he declares as postmodern. This behavior suggests that Hicks has an unstated criterion for identifying postmodernism that precludes his identifying some group as postmodern. And, Hick consciously and unconsciously carries out this circularity through out the entire book.

The Fallacy of False Dilemma:

This problem of an essential definition gets worse for Hicks. His concept of postmodernism is extremely vague so that its scope of meaning can be expanded, or contracted by mere pointing depending on the effectiveness of any criticism. To better understand Hick’s use of the term postmodern-ism we can divide speculative philosophy into two general types of theories of knowledge: The realistic theory of knowledge and the idealistic theory of knowledge. In the realistic theory knowledge meaning is receiving. In the idealistic theory meaning is bestowing. Hicks names everything “objective” as realistic, and everything subjective is “postmodern.” The problem with this crypto-definition of postmodernism is that objective and subjective elements cross over into both philosophies of knowledge. Hicks uses an array of synonyms to describe the realistic epistemologies as the following:

Realistic: Modern, Enlightenment, rational, competent, universal, absolutist, individualistic, conservative, and objectively true.

On the other hand Hicks describe postmodernism with synonyms such as:

Idealistic: Non-realist, postmodern, anti-Enlightenment, anti-reason, incompetent, contingent, relativistic, collectivist, extremist, and subjective.

With this matrix of dialectical polarities Hicks can setup pre-constructed fallacies presented as false dilemmas, “Either P, or Q, and ~P, therefore Q.”

Or symbolically written: [(P v Q) * ~P ] ⊃ Q. 

“Either P, or Q” can be expressed as disjunctive propositions: “either accept Kantian relativism, or embrace objectivism; either accept postmodernism or embrace the Enlightenment; either embrace Objective truth or accept postmodern relativism.”

Interestingly, these false dilemmas can be rhetorically disguised giving the impression that an additional sound argument is being offered:

“Either not P, or not Q, and P; therefore not Q.”

Or symbolically written: [(~P v ~Q) * P] ⊃ ~Q

This expression can be disguised as “Either reject all truth with skeptical subjective Kantian relativism, or reject realism based on universal objective reason. Obviously, those who accept Kantian relativism are in fact rejecting Objective truth which realism is based.”

The argument’s fallacy is not that its disjunctive argument form is invalid—that is why it is called an Informal Fallacy, but that other disjuncts [(P v Q) v (R v S) v (Φ v ψ)] are excluded by definition, or oversight, or to logically force a false conclusion based on false disjunctive choices.

Objectivists mindlessly repeat this trope ad infinitum.

And yet another disguise for [(~P v ~Q) * P] ⊃ ~Q,

is the expression: [ P * (~Q v ~P) ] ⊃ ~Q

Which reads as,"For all those that accepted skepticism, they failed to understand the problem of knowledge as essentially rejecting objective science as the key to knowing reality, or avoiding relativism that denies the possibility of all knowledge. Consequently, they fell into relativism."

Now this sophistry is repeated over, and over again throughout the book. Just change Kant's name to Hegel, Kuhn, Heidegger, or whoever is associated with these philosophers for any reason. The author simply pours different content into the same form to reach the same distorted false conclusion.

The Insidious Metaphor Logical Fallacy: Φ

Hicks wrote, “Kant was the decisive break with the Enlightenment and the first major step toward postmodernism” (Loc: 1139). These synonyms are as ambiguous and misleading as the term postmodern itself. For example, the term “Enlightenment” has a positive meaning that is unconsciously imported through a metaphor influencing the reader’s thinking. Not everything that happened in the Enlightenment was Enlightening; not everything modern is good; nor was everything in the “Dark Ages” conceptually backwards; and the “Cold War” had millions of human casualties; and even “Realism” can be an idealist theory of knowledge subjectively biased. What Hicks referred to as the “Modern Era,” Kant and Hegel a history of errors. Even if the belief in objectivism is objective, then that belief provides no evidence whatsoever for the truth of objectivism. Beware of bare assertions based on insidious metaphors that unconsciously influence critical thinking.

The Fallacy of Ambiguity: ψ

Hick’s critique of postmodernism is based on the thesis that Kant’s epistemological skepticism is irrational. “Kant was thus different from previous skeptics and religious apologists…But earlier skeptics had never been as sweeping in their conclusions.”(Loc: 1130). If Hicks’ thesis is false, then the book’s entire philosophical narrative collapses.  Hicks wrote, “Thus, the argument runs, Kant should be placed in the pantheon of Enlightenment greats.[27] That is a mistake“ (Loc: 897). And again he writes, “His [Kant’s] philosophy is thus a forerunner of postmodernism’s strong anti-realist and anti-reason”(Loc: 1191). In another passage he writes, “Any thinker who concludes that in principle reason cannot know reality is not fundamentally an advocate of reason” (Loc:1130). This is just one of Hick’s shocking summary judgment of Kantian epistemology.

Hicks wrote, “Bacon, Descartes, and Locke are modern because of their philosophical naturalism, their profound confidence in reason, and especially in the case of Locke, and their individualism,” (Loc: 574). Hicks avoids any in-depth look at Locke and Descartes because they are counter-examples to his claims that Kant (1724-1804) is an extreme skeptic. Kant was a skeptical philosopher of the Enlightenment, but so was the Enlightenment philosopher Descartes (1576-1650) famous for emphasizing methodological doubt; and the empiricist David Hume (1711-1776) is the most famous Enlightenment skeptic of the Western World. Hicks claims “With Kant then, external reality thus drops almost totally out of the picture, and we are trapped inescapably in subjectivity—and that is why Kant is a landmark.” (Loc: 1157). Descartes most famous argument in the “Mediations” is “I think; therefore, I am,” which is a subjective argument. Would Descartes’ anchoring all knowledge in the subjectivity of “I think,” be as irrational as Kant? I believe Hicks has his philosophers mixed up, or his concept of postmodern is simply empty.

In fact, radical skepticism can be traced back all the way to ancient times such as the Greek philosopher Pyrrho (360 B.C.- 270 B.C.). “Pyrrhonism is credited with being the first Western school of philosophy to identify the problem of induction”(Wiki). Pyrrhonism dealt with the same problems of induction as the radical empiricist skeptic Hume. A strong current of skepticism can be found throughout the history of Western ideas.

Science today has fundamental questions going back to Isaac Newton (1642-1726) that are still unsolved today. Newton understood that the machine paradigm of nature and the absurd observable phenomena of interaction at a distance such as the non-physical interaction of gravity, or magnetic repulsion and attraction were scientific mysteries. During Newton’s era these phenomena were believed to be occult ideas yet modern scientific mechanical philosophy concluded that there could be no physical interaction without physical contact. Newton, Hume and Locke agreed that the scientific machine paradigm could not explain non-physical interaction. Newton wrote, “The notion of action at a distance is inconceivable. It’s so great an absurdity, I believe no man who has in philosophical matters that competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it…we concede we do not understand the phenomena of the material world….”(see Chomsky lecture, “The Machine, the Ghost, and the Limits of Understanding”). Newton’s conclusion is nothing works by machine principles—there are no machines!

The empiricist, John Locke (1632-1704), wrote further concerning these scientific mysteries:

“It being, in respect of our Notions, not much more remote from our Comprehension to conceive that God can, if he pleases, superadd to Matter a Faculty of Thinking, than that he should superadd to it another Substance, with a Faculty of Thinking; since we know not wherein Thinking consists, nor to what sort of Substance the Almighty has been pleased to give that Power, which cannot be in any created Being, but merely by the good pleasure and Bounty of the Creator” (Locke, John. 1823: The Works. Ed. by Thomas Tegg, London, IV.III.6).

Consequently, the “modern” scientists lowered the standard of scientific intelligibility by adopting the machine paradigm of nature regardless of the non-material interaction at a distance theoretical problem thereby reducing science to pragmatic object-manipulation. Pragmatism is the epistemological foundation for the denial of knowledge (Tillich). The history of modern science is the very opposite of Hicks’ thesis that modernism is the paradigm of realism. Hicks assumes modern scientific reasoning had no theoretical problems explaining reality. “Epistemologically having rejected the notion of an independently existing reality, postmodernism denies that reason or any other method is a means of acquiring objective knowledge of that reality” (Loc: 546). By ignoring the history of modern Western Science, Hicks’ concept of science is a philosophical caricature of scientism rendering him incapable to understanding the most fundamental ideas of Kantian epistemology.

And there are many more serious logical problems with this book’s thesis…to continue!