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Sunday
July 18, 2004

A Book Endorsement by Tibor R. Machan

Professor Hicks has written a sweeping yet very readable explanation of why contemporary intellectuals embrace postmodernism. This is the position widely championed in academic circles - from philosophy, literature, law and the social sciences - that holds that there is no truth, no reality, no clear meaning, no understanding and, most of all, no value in relying on human reason for any purpose whatsoever. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (18 messages)

Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 6:32am

The author, Professor Hicks, informs me that Scholargy Publishers is now embarking on a bona fide book publishing project, soliciting scholarly works and publishing some in the usual way. It is, then, not a vanity press or self-publishing outfit, as its web site made it appear. Sorry if I mislead anyone.

Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 12:29pm

I'll check this book out...

You know, for years while in high school and college, and before reading Rand, there was some sort of what I thought was a "spiritual" evil in the air, with most of my professors and students, and the academic climate in general. Couldn't put my finger on it.

Thank Rand for Rand. *L* Now I know that that which I felt in the air, was postmodernism... For the longest time, I had this sickening feeling in my soul while having to go to class and around the university in general. I was miserable...

It was the same thing in my clinical psychology program, which I ultimately abadoned or was harrassed out of... I was in the program after having read Rand, and they could easily tell that I was of a different sort of mind about things, that opposed their general climate.

And once again, it took me awhile to realize that that "climate" which ruled there was postmodernism; with that as their philosophical base, the industry entrenches the manufacture of false consensus and conformity as the justification for their "treatment" approaches.

Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 12:05pm

Prof. Machan,

The book looks quite good. Another book that covers similar ground is by theologian Millard Erickson and is called Truth or Cosequences: The Promise & Perils of Postmodernism (IVP, 2001). Erickson sees Kant as something of an "objectivist."

Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 7:43pm

Tibor Machan wrote:
"The most important figures in Western intellectual history show up, for better and for worse - mostly for worse - and among them the greatest villain is Immanuel Kant, the 18th Century German philosopher who brought about what has been called a Copernican Revolution. The substance of this revolution is that it is not reality that gives us the contents of our minds but our minds - or some great Mind (if you listen to Hegel) - that produce reality."

I bet Fred Seddon is preparing his defense of Kant this very moment...

Michelle Fram Cohen

Monday, July 19, 2004 - 3:02am

I can confidently report that Fred is a fraud. He reiterates over & over that he likes sex. Would he accept the notion that his sex, however "phenomenal," was not the real thing? Would he opt hereafter for "noumenal" sex? Or accept that his humpings would acquire moral significance only to the extent that he did *not* fancy his humpee?

Ask me another!

:-)

Come on Fred, you showbiz charlatan, where are ya??

:-)

Linz

Monday, July 19, 2004 - 6:56am

I have not yet read Stephen's new book ,but based on a lecture of his (on the same topic) that I attended several years ago, I am sure that it is excellent!!!!

By the way, Linz's favorite entertainer, Fred Seddon (also known as "The George Carlin of Philosophy"), also spoke at the same event of the West Virginia Philosophical Association!!!!!!

Monday, July 19, 2004 - 2:44pm

In _A Devil's Chaplain_, Richard Dawkins wrote a little essay called "Postmodernism Disrobed" about a professor of physics at NYU named Alan Sokal who bullshitted an entire article and submitted it to the journal _Social Text_ (a prominent journal in the field of postmodern theory). His article, which was nothing more than nonsense peppered with postmodernist jargon (the title of the article: Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity) was accepted and published...after which Sokal revealed that it was a hoax, and he pointed out sentences in his articles that were grammatical, but had absolutely no meaning. Sokal is also the co-author of a book (with Jean Bricmont) called _Intellectual Impostures_, which so far has only been published in French.

I actually attend NYU, and I'm planning to look up Sokal's office and drop by as soon as I'm back on campus this fall-- to say thank you.

itesseract

P.S. Most of Dawkins' book is worth reading...it's a collection of very short essays on a myriad of topics, mostly religion and science.

Monday, July 19, 2004 - 8:41pm

Here's a link to the article Jana mentioned: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html

My favorite subheading: "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Liberatory Science."

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 3:03am

Professor Machan mentioned the paradox of political correctness, a censorious movement, being "joined at the hip" to multiculturalism, a movement which abjures intercultural aspersions of any kind, as "paradoxical."

Here's how you resolve the paradox: they're bigots of a peculiar form, a form which might have resulted from the Puritan influence in America: church hypocrites.

This type of personage assumed the role of critic and castigator - the "mouthoff" - in order to hide their own hypocrisy from strangers and from the naive. (The others tend to put up with them in that role.) The politically-correct'er is just this type of personality in secularized form - because their own "culturo-centrism" is very obvious to those who don't "buy in" to the multiculturalist ethos.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 6:57am

Tibor,

(Or anyone else who knows the answer....)

It might be nice if someone provided a link to where the book could actually be obtained.

Regi

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 1:56pm

Regi,

The book can be obtained from Amazon, as well as from the publisher at: http://www.stephenhicks.org/Order%20form%20Explaining%20Pomo.pdf

-- Michelle

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 5:18pm

Thanks! Michelle

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 11:57am

I bought and read Stephen's book at the Summer Seminar in Vancouver. I loved it, despite the fact that his Kant and my Kant are very different Kants. See my chapter 4 in my book AYN RAND, OBJECTIVISTS AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. Also I recommend Nicholas Rescher's KANT AND THE LIMITS OF REASON as one of the best book on Kant I have ever read. In others words, he agrees with me.
Fred

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 12:00pm

Linz, I haven't been hiding, just on vacation. But now I'm back to defend phenomenal sex ( which is phenomenal) and my buddy Kant. See ch. 4 of my book and you'll have most of your answers. Also see the book recommendation in my post to Michelle's post. Perhaps TOC should have me and Stephen debate Kant in a fun panel. What a phenomenal idea.
Fred

Monday, July 26, 2004 - 12:03pm

Ed, You are too nice, but accurate. Stephen was so well received by the West Virginia Philosophical Society that Ted Drange, a member since 1967 since he was the best speaker he ever heard!!!!
If anyone is interested in speaking at the Fall meeting let me know.
Fred
President
WVPS

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 3:21am

Ha! Is this a Seddon I see here before me?

The noumenal or phenomenal Seddon - that is the question.

Now, young Seddon - repair at once to the "TOC, SOLO ... & KASS" thread, where you received honourable mention. I'd be interested in your response ... & not *just* to the honourable mention!! :-)

Linz

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 12:26pm

I will go there now.

Monday, June 20, 2016 - 9:22am

My local Ayn Rand Meetup group is currently reading Explaining Postmodernism and finding it quite illuminating regarding the ongoing decline of the ivory tower.