Are there any real insights to be found within postmodern continental philosophy that justifies the obfuscatory language, that is not a mere restatement of an idea within analytic philosophy, or couldnt be reduced to a shallow truism? Just as an example,I began reading the more metaphysically minded works of Deleuze but I am left with the sense that, while there are poetic sentences to be found, one could glean a much better sense of the problems of metaphysics from reading Quine than going on a historical jerk off session with all the logorrheic phenomenologists. Maybe im missing something here. But I really want to engage with the text sincerely and am failing to apprehend the philosophical and, more pertinently, logical justification. Why Couldn’t all the French fucks just write in the style of Russell, and where does contemporary philosophy stand within the analytic-continental split generally
Sorry I'm not that smart and I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, but I suspect the answer to your question is something akin to "nah bro it's all a bunch of bullshit nonsense".
>>24676679There was a time when I would have effortposted in response to this, and part of me still wants to, but honestly based on your tone I'd say you're perfect for analytic philosophy and you should stay there. You're not ready for continental because you can't get behind your own thought. One thing: anything can be reduced to a shallow truism, Thats why its shallow. The fact that one can do this doesn't mean that something isn't worth engaging with. Very disingenuous.
>>24676679Yo Kang yu do be missing something on gawd no cap frfrfr
>>24676695I apologize if I came off as a smarmy analytic, but I am genuinely curious. Partly because the only lectures I was able to attend were analytic, and the postmodernists are who I have a real interest in. I can’t read continental without feeling as if im doing something spurious or unproductive, and I’m left ultimately in a state where the only “appropriate” philosophy is one in which there are only minutae and stagnant syllogisms. I want to rid myself of this parasite.
>>24676719not that anon, but it's probably a good idea to first read nietzsche if you haven't already, to see where this interest in the literary style of philosophy emerged from.
>>24676719Alright. The reason for the language, mostly, it because it works on an entirely different set of premises than analytic philosophy, which by the way, is no less jargon heavy in its own way. You can't honestly say that Donald Davidson is intuitive, its just that if you have been trained in analytic thought, you are comfortable enough with the priors to take certain forms of communication for granted. Yes, the French (some of Deleuze for instance) can be baroque, but even then, this isn't universal. Foucault is extremely clear. Even Sartre is reasonable if you have a background in phenomenology, he tries and largely succeeds at being systematic. The issue here is that people think they can walk into an ecosystem of thought and literature with no prior work and understand everything. We wouldn't expect this of higher level mathematics, why would philosophy not be granted the same? If you want justification, read the introduction to Being and Time. Its quite clear. We have been doing metaphysics by looking at the way the entities appear to us, and then reading the nature of things in general based on the nature of discrete things, and us along with it in one way or another, whether the Aristotelian rational animal or the Cartesian cogito or even the Kantian transcendental subject (although Kant came close to the problem). Therefore, when we ask about beings metaphysically, this presumes an understanding of being which we have already misinterpreted, and a complete misinterpretation of the thing which is doing the asking. Heidegger builds up the analytic of Dasein to treat the human relationship to being with as few philosophical assumptions as possible. Any quirks of language are largely a result of him not wanting to use existing and conceptually laden terminology which might steer us further from the investigation. Regarding logic, logic already presumes as a certain relationship to entities. It has its place once we have demarcated a space for logical inquiry, but logic itself cannot supply this demarcation without being arbitrary. Even Wittgenstein was onto this and he knew Russell so this isn't a purely continental thing. Logic is downstream from ontology and ontology is not reducible to logic. Its funny you should mention Quine actually because his whole theory of language comes very close to a sort of holistic Heideggerian picture of the world since any entity can only be defined on the basis of every other definition in the language appropriate to the questioning, and therefore, starting one place is basically as good as the next if we're searching for meaning. If you really want to get into continental thinking, start with Being and Time, and take his definitions as they are given with as little preconception as possible. That means no appeal to consciousness, empiricism, any of it. Ultimately the subject-object distinction as we're familiar with it becomes a problem too. This sort of thing just does not obtain in analytic.
>>24676719Oof would you look at the time. It's shabbos o clock somewhere. Say would you flip that light switch over there for me. Yes that's the one. So much better. Yes you go ahead and lecture us on what's appropriate for postmodernism these days.
Phenomenology and existentialism offers genuine insights into the nature of experience, the human condition, art, and religion. These are ideas that build upon the tradition of German Idealism. Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Derrida are its major proponents. Their theoretical language is appropriate to their philosophy and is arguably no more nor less obfuscatory than any other philosophical language. If you'd like to read Anglo authors who write about these ideas in a slightly more analytic-friendly way, try Dreyfus or Rorty.Postmodern philosophy, with the exception of the postmodern-leaning phenomenologists (Derrida and Nancy, mainly) is generally a rejection of phenomenology and comes through as an attempt to revitalize critical theory. This includes most of Deleuze's work, Foucault, and all the other Frenchies. I believe there are no genuine insights in their work as they all either put forward unsatisfactory alternatives to phenomenology (Deleuze's metaphysical work in Difference and Repetition, for example, or Foucault's early work) or indulge in performative restatements of varying flavors of critical theory. Arguably, they fail at that too and leave critical theory and Marxism in such a shambles that it is worthless on that register (see Habermas' writings for this argument). If you are not sympathetic to Marxism, then there is nothing in these authors for you, ultimately. Roger Scruton argues convincingly that the obfuscatory language of these authors is intrinsic to the political vision they present, a kind of "motivated nonsense:" beat the reader into submission with political jargon they are not allowed to question, Stalinist-style. This is most true of the most obviously Marxist of the postmoderns, such as Althusser, Badiou, and Zizek.
Just here because I hate Deleuze fans and im fishing for valid criticism of their philosophy.
>>24676719>>24676679You write like a dick. The first question is, what is postmodern philosophy? The second question is what is it trying to tell you? The third question is, if you know what postmodernity is and the solutions they provide, where can you apply them?
>>24678162>If you are not sympathetic to Marxism, then there is nothing in these authors for you, ultimately.What? Since when Is Foucault Marxist??
>>24676679Just read Montaigne
>>24678207You can ignore that. Too much metaphysics. That guy thinks he has some sort of eternal truth. He won't respond with anything though.The real question for the delightful analytic D&G anon is where it decided to wind up. It seems to have a particular affinity to Nietzsche, but one of the big 3 interpretations of eternal return is off the table. To get one of the remaining 2 it has to incorporate Spinoza or stay in it's head. If it wants to incorporate Spinoza and stick with Neetch it loses Marx and loses absolute person and it won't be able to respond which has been tested successfully. Of course you can incorporate Spinoza and side with Marx but that entails it knows something which means it can make agreements and it claims to be unable to do so.What do you think chum? >>24676679
>>24678207Foucault, like all the other French postmoderns, plays a repetitive, coy dance where he attacks only the intellectual edifice of Marxism while furthering its core ethical and political commitments. Think seriously about this for just one moment and tune out the surface-level claims against Marxism that Foucault etc. make, and you will see it's true.>>24678253Take your pills, fag
>>24678288I guess that leaves with Scruton. Had to think yourself into some meaning and also having to admit change and not knowing. Didn't he turn pomo and decided fags were great or something? Oh wait, you know how metaphysics works, he done thought fags were always and are great. I suppose that could change or is he dead yet? Another hypothesis successfully tested, you'll never respond with any sort of eternal truth.
