Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks: Chapter 2: The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason

This audiobook edition of Explaining Postmodernism is read by the author.

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[originalblob]

So, it's the Germans' fault again...

[onajourneytosomewherek]

have post modernists dealt with the concept of "Honesty"

[milespotter]

I wasn't expecting to go this far back for an explanation of Postmodernism, but it's fascinating stuff and eminently well explained. Thanks!

[skwbtm]

Kierkegaard said, "the resolution is the only language in which God will involve himself with a human being." Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions 1845 Hong p. 113

[kaktotak]

I'm about half an hour in, I've just heard the Kant's conclusions, and immediately I have 3 questions:
1. Why does he assume that there's a noumenal realm at all? If our sensory perceptions do not reflects the "things as they are", and we are only constructing them in hour heads, doesn't it mean that noumena are all constructions, or at the very least cannot be expected to be anything but constructions?
2. To what extent are sensory perceptions "real"? That is, to what extend they are independent of the subject, to what extent they are constructions of the mind? If they can be considered independent of the subject, his creative mind and apriori assumptions, then phenomenal realm is actually not completely a mind's construct, but a result of negotiating apriori stuff with sensory input. Which makes it more "real" than any pure construct or apriori knowledge.
3. How did he expect to protect religion and faith with this argument, if all it does is destroy everything?

[TheWhitehiker]

'Schleiermacher' consistently mispronounced.
Still, good history.

[_VISION.]

35:20 sounds like he was a pyrrhonian skeptic

[dsnutt]

. . . as Kierkegaard states, what seems absurd to the non-believer like Climacus is eminently reasonable, and becomes more so, to the person of faith.'

[drstrangelove]

58:58 "whatever the variations, the metaphysical themes of clash and conflict, of truth as relative, of reason as limited and constructed, and of collectivism, were dominant. For all of their differences with Hegel, Postmodernists adopt all four of those theses"

[dsnutt]

He clearly doesn't understand Kierkegaard . . . Hicks is not aware or doesn't care about the pseudonymous, indirect method by which the 'absurd' which he ascribes to Kierkegaard is actually the perspective of Johannes Climacus, who represents 'he' of the 'knight of infinite resignation.' Hicks lack of understanding of Kierkegaard is clear in how he ascribes to Kierkegaard what should not be ascribed, as Kierkegaard himself warned in his direct communications, that one should not ascribe to him what his pseudonym has said.

[nwlly]

Kant's model is essentially dealing with the idea of hard solopsism. Trouble is, for his model, we are forced to deal with reality on its terms. We share a reality with others. We can independently test many things relating to that reality and compare results. We can do the same with our senses. We can compare perceptions, test our perceptions independently and, again, compare those results. The other thing is that it infers that we must be certain or absolute: we are instead tentative, not knowing everything with 100% certainty, or even know what that would mean necessarily. But, we are left to deal with this reality on this reality's terms, unless someone can actually demonstrate we occupy some "alternative" reality or realities, or that everything must be just a dream (like being plugged into a Matrix)

[niitro]

There is an objective reality in which we all have subjective experiences. Is that so fucking hard to understand?

[xxcrysadxx]

Dr. Hicks, is there a website where I can obtain this book directly from you, or must I go through secondary channels like amazon or ebay?

[jeremybrumfield]

Was that a "brown M&Ms clause" type thing at the end of page 51?

[dsnutt]

I might add the historical inaccuracy that Kierkegaard was educated in Germany does not help his presentation. He attended the University of Copenhagen.

[kimshaw-williams]

So Kant was an apologist for religious insanity. Whoopty whoopty....what an idiotic withdrawal into the cultural fantasies of the past. No wonder philosophy ends up disappearing down its own fundamental orifice.

[panbert]

Da anti-enlightenment Kant who is apparently against reason

[onajourneytosomewherek]

'free markets" in today's world means: where can we get the cheapest are capitalists now post modern??

[LunaLu-]

"one must not try to relate to reality cognitively.what is needed is action, commitment, leap into that which one cannot know but which one feels is essential to give meaning to one's life->irrational leap of faith" S Kierkegaard