What would a “postmodern” epistemology look like? Some turn towards language because they believe epistemology cannot be “solved” until we can be sure that we’re talking about the same thing. Some reject any attempt at epistemology because it is simply beyond our reach. Nietzsche took up an argument similar to Kierkegaard’s in opposition to Hegel and through him comes the “latest” theories of knowledge.
Possibly Nietzsche’s greatest contribution to the study of knowledge focused on the language of epistemology. In his essay titled “On truth and lie in an extra-moral sense,” Nietzsche describes his position nicely:
What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms — in short, a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins. (from The Portable Nietzsche, 46-7).
Simulated Truth
The message is clear: truth as a concept derives from the usage of language and is based solely on language. In reality, there is no Absolute Knowledge; there is no access to an undifferentiated knowledge of truth. Because of language, there cannot be knowledge of any kind of “objective” truth. For Nietzsche, truth and knowledge are really just forays into what is now called deconstruction. It’s all about interpretations of interpretations. To borrow Baudrillard, the language of truth is a set of simulacra that create and re-create a false notion of truth that has been accepted as the real thing. In reality, however, this notion of truth is the lack of the real thing. Slavoj Zizek explains how Coke is a great example of this:
We drink Coke — or any drink — for two reasons: for its thirst-quenching or nutritional value, and for its taste. In the case of caffeine-free diet Coke, nutritional value is suspended and the caffeine, as the key ingredient of its taste, is also taken away — all that remains is a pure semblance, an artificial promise of a substance which never materialized. Is it not true that in this sense, in the case of caffeine-free diet Coke, we almost literally “drink nothing in the guise of something”? (from The Fragile Absolute, 23)
Conclusions
There is no “postmodern epistemology” because it requires us to move beyond the confines of language. 20th century philosophy was obsessed about language until it slowly began to realize it cannot be comprehended. Language, as the vehicle of “truth,” cannot be transcended or reduced in order to provide insight into knowledge and truth. Truth and knowledge are embedded in language, the thing to which we humans are bound and chained. The best description we can have of truth and knowledge can be seen in Deleuze’s work The Logic of Sense. In this work, Deleuze speaks of knowledge as a polymorphic surface on which we oscillate between sense and nonsense, between understanding and non-understanding. There is no “deeper” meaning to language because it is all “surface” level; it would be better to picture it as moving away towards the edges (nonsense) and less as some kind of hidden “deep” structure (yes, Deleuze’s work here is a critique of people such as Noam Chomsky).
This brings the end of this series to an anticlimatic moment. The most recent theories of knowledge only undo the ones before it, bringing us back oddly close to Plato’s position in the Meno: we cannot know truth in its unadulterated form. Truth as a concept is buried in our usage of language and neither it nor we can overcome language. We cannot overcome ourselves.
There is something that is absolute difference. Deleuze sees it in what he calls the War-Machine. It is without respect or reason, without emotion or attachment. It borders on the suicidal and self-defeating. It is always and absolutely conflictive difference. It does not accept “community” or the contemporary notion of “diversity.” It rejects the Hegelian subsumption of difference under identity. It does not believe in “unity in diversity.” It engenders hate. It follows no rules, no laws, no structures. It does not act for some “good.” It does not even act for some “evil.” It simply acts.
Deleuze believes that the best example of the War-Machine is Genghis Khan and his Mongolian warriors. Even though they conquered the Chinese empire and large portions of the Muslim one, they slept in tents. They razed cities, drove around the Great Wall, and killed for kicks. Yet they never built (or rebuilt) cities, did not institute a new government, nor even made it mandatory for the people they destroyed to adhere to their laws. This is because they had none. There was no hierarchy. They were rhizomatic….like weeds. Yet, because of their lack of respect for laws, rules, and structures, they were also suicidal. At any moment, they could have brought about their own destruction. Yet they would still act without remorse.
Another example is that of Geronimo. Here was a man upset at the Spanish. Along with just two troops, he snuck past the guards and into the center of the Spanish encampment…and opened fire. They were able to shoot 20 people dead. It was a massacre by three. That is the intensity of the War-Machine.
Today, there are many groups surfacing in this mode. I say “mode” because it is not something one can always avoid. Currently, the Christian Right, as well as other groups of neofundamentalists (e.g. the al Qaeda brand), are becoming machinic. They are moving towards that suicidal grasp. The recent problem with Ted Haggard is one such example. One cannot become the War-Machine without losing control, ethics, and morality. The War-Machine is pre-philosophic, pre-ethical, pre-morality. It is passion and intensity. It deterritorializes its past (i.e. removes the context of its past in which it is situated) and creates a new context which disregards both its contemporary locality and its historical context. As Nietzsche said (On the Genealogy of Morals, of which Deleuze quotes often), “They come like fate, without resaon, consideration, or pretext…” The War-Machine becomes the face of the other: a blank wall with two dark eyes. It is the completely unknown.
In my previous post in the series, i outlined some strands of the emergence of Postmodernism as it relates to its earliest core: language. Postmodernism is, by and large, a reaction to modernism’s schema of language, most notably the structuralism that was becoming dominant in the early-to-mid twentieth century. Prior to the “rise” of post-structuralism, there was a major infatuation with language in philosophy. Everyone in that time period was becoming increasingly obsessed with language. Nietzsche, Heidegger, and others while not focusing on language each had their own view of language. Others like Wittgenstein were more focused on the language phenomenon. But, after post-structuralism, language became less of a focus. Of course, there are different trains of thought today when it comes to language, the emphasis has become less and less. The following is primarily my thoughts on language from some kind of postmodern context. It is adapted from a paper i wrote in March on the question of language after postmodernism.
Sense
One of the major strands that arose in the post-structuralist movement was put forth by Deleuze. He had criticised the concept of “deep structures” where the meaning of a given utterance was below the surface of the actual utterance. His primary suggestion was that meaning was also found at the surface but at the edges of it. Think of it like a plate where the utterances are closer to the center of the plate, but the meaning understood by the recipient is found around the edges and corners. Beyond this, he suggested that there is some kind of “external” reality (although this doesn’t really require any particular kind of epistemological view for it to work) and an “internal” reality. The internal was marked by thought while the external was marked by objects of thought (or even representations of those objects). Communication occurs, for this view, when the two randomly intersect at points Deleuze calls “singularities.” Each singularity is the transmission of thought from one to another. Here, though the meaning of a given phrase is in some kind of contextual flux where the given utterance is understood within the given context and isn’t necessarily understood that way in a different context.
Understanding
Derrida picked up on some parts of Deleuze when he said that “there is nothing outside the text.” For Derrida, the meaning of an utterance is only as good as the known context…and everything is context. This is where i will pick up. Deleuze’s “external” reality is more like a formless liquid. The meaning of a given utterance is arbitrary in that something like the word “red” refers to what is considered “red” because it has been imposed upon the “external.” There is nothing inherent to a cherry or an apple that makes it necessarily “red.” That color can just as easily be “grurpue” and those objects would be that. Therefore, i suggest that language is much like a glass which is used to constrain the “external” reality. Language is limited by itself and is self-referential. The “external” reality that remains apart from the glass of language is beyond a given language community’s understanding. Things like death and infinity are beyond most, if not all languages, but that is because the cup of language hasn’t been able to contain those “external” concepts. Communication is only possible when the communicants have some understanding of each other’s cup of language. It is generally assumed that those who use similar utterances are using similar cups, but that is just an assumption. There is nothing inherent in any of my writing here that guarantees i am using English. That is something assumed by you (my reader). In a more functional view, this assumption is worthwhile because otherwise nobody would be certain of their communications.
Sensing Meaning
This leads us to a kind of disjunct where the theoretical differs from the functional. It would be better to continue using the functional for the reason that it is functional. The theoretical is good for conversation pieces, but not for any kind of functional working. Yet, this leads us to the matter of interpretation. Not only should one be concerned with how one interprets another’s communication directed at the one (e.g. how do you interpret these symbols and the meaning contained within their patterns) but also how does one interpret something written by another to another (e.g. how do you interpret something like the Bible which was written by somebody to somebody else…and neither of those people are you). In the next part, i will explain this further and how we should approach interpreting communications that are completely external to somebody. It may well be impossible to place oneself within a totally foreign context, meaning that we may never be certain of the communication. But, there may be some functional method with which we can have some kind of working understanding that will remain fluid so that if more context becomes available, the interpretation can change.
Talk
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Clint, christopher, Jasen
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Chris Martin
Wilson, Rick, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad, christopher, brad