Metamodern Spirituality | Postmodern Philosophy and Beyond (w/ Stephen Hicks)

Stephen Hicks, a professor of philosophy and author of Explaining Postmodernism, joins me to discuss the transformation of worldviews from the premodern to the modern and from the modern to the postmodern. After his incisive overview of these dramatic shifts, we discuss what it might look like to integrate the genuinely positive contributions of postmodern thought, and consider where we are headed in a post-postmodern world.

0:00 Introduction
1:58 How to Trace Philosophical History
4:15 From Premodern to Modern
15:56 From Modern to Postmodern
34:07 How Do We Move Beyond the Modern and Postmodern while Integrating Their Strengths?
43:28 Relativizing the Critique
51:14 Living After Postmodernism

[billwilkie]

Premodern "religion" certainly must include the platonic and vedantic metaphysics as well as not on mystical revelation and experience, but the role of reason in intelligibility of reality.
Modern must include the shift of science from a method to a metaphysic.
And the postmodern must include roots in Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and Wittgenstein.
And the narrative of enchantment, disenchantment, and reenchantment is adjacent to all of this.
Moreover the absence, presence and rejection of foundationalism are core.
But this is a good discussion, other than Hicks' scientism which collapses his contribution to history rather than value. Brendan is perhaps too polite regarding Hicks' regressive and blinkered devotion to modernity.
Ultimately, the postmodern opens a space for recapture of the best of premodernism to be recaptured. Is that meta modernism?

[Matterful]

You should have him back! Much more to talk about (especially on objectivity).

[Lifeonbooks]

This was a great interview and he does an excellent job of breaking down complex ideas into easily understandable terms. Would love to see a follow up to hear his thoughts on what comes next.

[johnbrown]

Thank you for posting this interview with Dr. Hicks, who certainly ranks among the top scholars in the realm of critique of postmodernism.

[thomasgrasha]

@10:26 This is, in fact, the modernist position that he is attributing to the pre-modern thinkers. The pre-modern thinkers started with the senses, especially Aristotle. Descartes, arguably the first modern philosopher, was the one who advocated starting from non-sensory 'data'. Kant elaborated this to the point that all sensory data, the world of things, was unknowable. This is why meta-modernism will go nowhere. It perpetuates the errors of both modernism and post-modernism while purporting to be something new. The Moscow-Tartu and Peircean schools of semiotics have done a lot of important research on this subject but the so-called meta-modernists are apparently completely unaware, still drowning in a pool of hyper-modern solipsism and historical ignorance.

[suroktheslayer]

Stephen Hicks doubles down on modernism.

[arktseytlin]

So hold on :) If postmodernist says "there is no such thing as truth" - is that statement true? Because if it is, it is self contradictory. So it has to be false :)

[rochus]

Very interesting episode but I would recommend everybody to watch "A Critique of Stephen Hicks' "Explaining Post-Modernism"" by CCK Philosophy. There are many reasons to be very critical with Hicks.

[sirrobinofloxley]

I think the pivot in the 90"s was the arrest of John Gotti, as depicted in Godfather 2

[saman.rostami]

It's "interesting" to see Dr. Hicks not mentioning Ayn Rand's name and her philosophy (Objectivism) even once as a possible solution for post-postmodernism... especially knowing that Dr. Hicks is a Senior Scholar for The Atlas Society, an organization that is entirely based on Ayn Rand's ideas with its main goal stated at Atlas' website: "Our Moonshot: Engage a billion young minds with the ideas of Ayn Rand"!

Throughout the video you see Hicks is agreeing and applauding Brendan with the existence of "Relativistic/partial truths" and alike. Ayn Rand furiously refuted all the BSs that come with postmodernism and called their great grandfather, Immanuel Kant, the most evil individual in human history.

Do you think Hicks' disregard of Ayn Rand has something to do with the fact that he's now buddy-buddy with Jordan Peterson, who relentlessly misinterprets and bashes Rand's fictional writings and philosophy?

[tofo]

The modernism now needs efficient meaning-making that can be applied to all lives disoriented by postmodernism. Stop the fight between the sexes and elevate beyond all the victim groups created by woke ideology.

This fight for power and success must be made a less steep a slope, but still worth pursuing without people finding it artificial. If we can breed new plants that grow better we could make a system where people are happy from the start and where being content is something being generated in the process rather than skepticism and a desire for a revolution.

I think we have to expose the skepticism and post modernism now in operation in society. Belonging to the virtuous post modernists that think they do good while actually being mean and selfish must be replaced by something more fulfilling.

We want journalism back. We want the intolerant and self proclaimed justice warriors to start producing their own creations and have them tested in reality.

That feeling they feel. It can not possibly be happiness. The revolutionaries must see their own corruption before they run the same path as Mao, Fidel Castro and the like.

Corrupt post modernists are no better than corrupt modernists.

We can sense their intolerance and their lies about being virtuous. We can sense they come from grief and discomfort. It is objectively real.

The proof is inspired people does not oppress other people. The racket is obvious.

[hershchat]

Where is he getting “a millennia” for the duration of serious development of philosophy? How about Nyaya and Samkhya and many millennia of work that preceded? Also, “a millennium”, “many millennia”. Gotcha.

[Rabbinicphilosophyforthewin]

32:52 if one does postmodernism correctly, one is NOT left with a conflict model. Read the prologue to Totality and Infinity—Levinas rants that history is characterized by violence, and the whole point of his project was to replace the incessant violence of Greek metaphysics with something like the Hebrew shalom.

[warrenny]

I'm a non-philosopher type. But i enjoyed this; frankly there was a lot oacked into the discussion.

Around 36:47 he talks about the 3 competing philosophies....but i have a suspicion that most intellectuals and regular people take parts of each and hold a centric view of life.

No offense, but I think people who strongly hold one particular belief are the ones who create tension and hurt in society.

[vivarc]

I often wonder, how much drug use, poor health, and media addiction have fueled the post modern movement?

[BH-srkb]

Interesting discussion. I was waiting for a more indepth look at metamodernism in contrast to modernism and postmodernism.

[richardyates]

The pre-modern does not start from the premise that all knowledge is obtained or derived from revelation.

[aa.]

I'm not sure he states it explicitly here, but I feel like it's implied anyway. One of the common and central tropes of these critiques of postmodernism is that it has led to the current division in Western societies (or at least it's backing one of the factions). While it merely just perfectly captures the situation, when people live in drastically different realities by virtue of having different sources of information. Like... yes, your experience and worldview is defined by your social status. Obviously. And they are mad at that. It's like blaming a weatherman for the storm.

[ManJ-dciu]

He needs to look into Rorty and Habermasian views as well

[brandis]

This guy is straight to the point! Love it.