Why Postmodernism is just Modernism on Steroids
Markus Raninen
Why Postmodernism is just Modernism on Steroids
Postmodern philosophy is not at all post modern. It is a direct continuation of modern philosophy, where the philosophical assumptions of modernism are taken to their ultimate logical conclusion – namely radical solipsism. This makes both of them inadequate philosophies for the purposes of scientific inquiry.
Solipsism – Trapped in the Jail of Mind
Solipsism means understanding everything, experienced by the mind, as something that the mind itself produces. That is to say, everything you feel, experience or think is internal to your mind. Simply put, all that you experience is just your own mind. Bertrand Russel (1872–1970) has made this point elegantly:
“What I maintain is that we can witness or observe what goes on in our heads, and that we cannot witness or observe anything else at all.” Bertrand Russell 2003 [1959] p. 26.
Beyond your mind (and experience) lies then the realm of real things-in-themselves. However, these things are forever unknowable in every respect. We can’t even know for sure, that they exist.
All we have is our own individual bubble of experience, which is completely separated from the world and from the experience of others. As David Hume (1711–1776) puts it:
“[Philosophy] teaches us, that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object.” David Hume 2006 [1748] para. 118., emphasis added
To make this idea more understandable we could conceive the mind as some kind of container, let us say, a cookie jar. As we just learned, according to solipsism, all that you can ever experience is the interior of this cookie jar. And there you are trapped for eternity.
Next thing you know, cookies suddenly begin to appear inside the jar. These cookies represent the contents of your mind: various perceptions, feelings, thoughts and experiences popping into existence in your head.
And now begins the spiral into immense problems. Firstly, you have no idea what these cookies really are. Are they perceptions of the real or just hallucinations and fantasies? They just appear without any apparent reason.
Secondly, there is no possibility of discovering the causes of these cookie-appearances, as the causes lie outside the jar. Remember, the outside remains forever beyond your experience.
If we represent the causes of the cookies as question marks, and the causations as arrows, we notice how the question marks remain external to the jar. Therefore, the causes of these cookies lie behind the veil of experience as eternally unsolvable mysteries.
Thirdly, we can’t even be sure that there is an outside world. If we have no direct connection with the external world beyond the jar, it can very well be, that this experienced interior of the jar is all there is.
This is called the problem of the external world. We may call it also the Matrix problem. Maybe our personal cookie jar is a part of some cookie simulation and the simulation is feeding us new virtual cookies that we mistake for real cookies. Who knows? We can’t tell the difference. David Hume makes this same point:
“By what argument can it be proved, that the perceptions of the mind must be caused by external objects, entirely different from them … and could not arise either from the energy of the mind itself, or from the suggestion of some invisible and unknown spirit, or from some other cause still more unknown to us?” David Hume 2006 [1748] para. 119.
To summarize thus far: Modern philosophy claims that we experience only the internal contents of our minds. As these contents are completely separated from the external world, the external world is forever outside of our experience. Therefore, reality is, in the end, forever unknowable and the pursuit of truth is impossible.
This view of the mind was forged in the beginning of modern philosophy and modernism more generally. This seems odd, to say the least, as modern philosophy began simultaneously with the scientific revolution. Why would these enlightened men of reason and science be inclined to choose a philosophical stance that would lead into radical solipsism?
If the dream of science was to inquire the reality, why on earth would you develop a philosophy claiming that this aim is completely unattainable? We are approaching the roots of the difficult relationship between modern science and modern philosophy.
Early Modern Bluff
The aim of science is to inquire reality. Or more precisely the mind-independent reality, which is independent from the opinions of me, you or any number of people. The earth goes around the sun regardless of the opinion of the medieval Catholic Church, for example.
For the early moderns the world was ruled by mathematics. They wanted to break free from the authority of the Church and replace the old tainted philosophy with a modern one. The moderns declared how no authority could dictate what the reality was like. In order to learn the secrets of the universe, one should put down the Bible and start reading the Book of Nature:
“Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these one wanders about in a dark labyrinth.” Galileo Galilei 1623, p. 4
The moderns had a problem to solve: How to justify an immediate access to these mathematical forms? How to justify the new mathematical sciences that inquired the mathematical reality? The proposed solution seemed perfect at first, but it was soon realized that it was a false shortcut. It was the early modern bluff.
To see this we must return to the core of our experience and ask: what are the basic sense qualities in our experience? Happily both modern and medieval philosophers were unanimous on this subject. The common sense qualities were among others:
color, shape, size, solidity, texture, position, motion, number, odor, flavor and sound.
We notice something. According to the moderns, the bolded sense qualities are quantitative, and thus mathematical and objective, whereas the italicized sense qualities are qualitative, and thus subjective. This is John Locke’s (1632–1704) famous distinction between the primary and secondary sense qualities.
The primary sense qualities were objective and measurable, whereas the secondary sense qualities where subjective. We can argue about the precise hue or taste of some object, but the size or shape of that object is not debatable. It can be measured, objectively.
Furthermore, all secondary qualities seem to be something that our mind attaches to objects. In the cold mathematical reality of things, color has no effect on anything. Color is something that our mind imposes onto the real primary qualities, thus being mind-dependent.
On the contrary, the position or motion of an object is mathematical, real, and thus mind-independent. This was the way of the new physics, which would go beneath the mere sense appearances and uncover the deep mathematical foundations of reality beyond our subjective experiences and sensations.
You may now wonder, how the moderns justified the access to external objects? If modern philosophy is solipsistic, and solipsism prevents all access to the external reality, how could the moderns bypass the impenetrable cookie jar?
Well, you are going to be surprised. The father of modern philosophy, Mr. Enlightenment himself, Rene Descartes (1596–1650) has the following to say:
“Absolute certainty arises when we believe that it is wholly impossible that something should be otherwise than we judge it to be. This certainty is based on a metaphysical foundation, namely that God is supremely good and in no way a deceiver, and hence that the faculty which he gave us for distinguishing truth from falsehood cannot lead us into error, so long as we are using it properly and are thereby perceiving something distinctly.” Rene Descartes 2003 [1644] para. CCVI., bolding added
For Descartes (and for many of us) mathematical truths are self-evident. And according to Descartes, when something is truly crystal clear, perceived properly and judged as rational, it is true. Why? Because “God is supremely good and in no way a deceiver.”
Problem solved! We can be sure that our knowledge of the real is true, because God is no deceiver. The link between the cookies and their causes is knowable because God is good.
For Locke (and probably for you) this is insufficient. Descartes seems to exclude the role of sensation in thinking, which for a physician like Locke was simply unacceptable. Instead of divine rationality, Locke proposed that we get our ideas (cookies) in two ways: 1) through our senses and 2) by combining our ideas (cookies) in ways that produce new ideas (new cookies).
But here is the crucial misstep. You may say that ideas are conveyed through the senses. But if the ideas themselves are the only thing experienced, how could you really know that something is conveyed?
You may say that somebody puts cookies in the jar. But if you only see cookies mysteriously appearing, without ever seeing anyone putting them there, how could you claim to know, that there is a someone outside the jar? A proposition like that is simply not justified.
Although Descartes and Locke disagreed on the role of the senses, both agreed that we can only experience ideas (cookies) internal to our minds (jars). That’s why both of them end up confronting the problem of the external world.
Problem of the External World
The final blow to all of this was given by Bishop Berkeley (1685–1753). The idea is rather simple. It begins by reflecting once again on our sensations. How do you perceive the primary qualities, such as the shape, size, position and motion of these apples?
Through color of course! Without any color you are not able to perceive anything. This leads into a realization that we can access the primary qualities only through secondary qualities!
This has devastating consequences. Namely, if primary qualities are real and secondary qualities illusory, our whole experience is one grand illusion. If the objective reality is mathematical and quantitative, but the only way to access it is through the subjective qualitative sensations, we have no real access to the objective reality.
In other words, the objective world is seen through a subjective lens, without any possibility of distinguishing between the lens and the reality. Maybe the lens is all there is. We are trapped in our individual jars in the eternal cookie Matrix. Hence David Hume concludes:
“[Reason] can never find any convincing argument from experience to prove, that the perceptions are connected with any external objects.” David Hume 2006 [1748] para. 121.
Modern philosophy has since tried to resolve this undesirable outcome, but it has never succeeded in it, as it always begins with the same basic assumption: we can only experience the internal contents of our minds; we can only see the cookies inside our jar.
This has caused a chronic tension between modern science and modern philosophy. The former inquires the mind-independent reality (with great and evident success), whereas the latter claims that mind-independent reality is completely inaccessible. As you can see, these two projects are in obvious contradiction.
And then came the postmoderns…
Postmodernism – Change in Attitude
It has become a common habit to start any discussion of postmodernism by stating that postmodernism is a very ambiguous term. What I mean by it in this text is more or less the coherent body of thought that is very suspicious of the modern ideas of truth, objectivity and science.
Claims of objectivity and truth are seen as imperialistic uses of power, which seek to uphold, conceal and extend the prevalent power relations. Justifications based on truth, objectivity or science are only malicious ways of oppressing people outside the hegemonic power elites. That is the basic idea.
Now as that is out of the way, we can concentrate on the striking similarity between modern and postmodern philosophy. Namely, both of them claim that we cannot know the reality of things! Both of them say that we don’t have any access to the objective reality, as it lies outside our experience.
Compare for example the following quotes from the postmodern Richard Rorty (1931–2007) and the great modern philosopher David Hume.
“The difficulty faced by a philosopher who, like myself, is sympathetic to this [postmodern] suggestion … is to avoid hinting that this suggestion gets something right, that my sort of philosophy corresponds to the way things really are. For this talk of correspondence brings back just the idea my sort of philosopher wants to get rid of, the idea that the world or the self has an intrinsic nature.” Richard Rorty 1989. p. 7–8 “It is a question of fact, whether the perceptions of the senses be produced by external objects, resembling them: how shall this question be determined? By experience surely; as all other questions of a like nature. But here experience is, and must be entirely silent. The mind has never any thing present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connexion with objects. The supposition of such connexion is, therefore, without any foundation of reasoning.” David Hume 2006 [1748] para. 119.
Both say the same thing: There is no possibility of connecting our experiences to reality. What is the difference then? Why call the first postmodernism and the latter modernism?
Well, the difference lies in the attitude.
We can see this difference in the attitudes from the quotations above. Rorty wants to emphasize two points. Firstly, ideas (cookies) don’t correspond to any reality, and secondly, nor the reality (outside the cookie jar) or the individual (the cookie jar) have any inherent order or rationality.
Hume, for his part, wants to emphasize, how we have no way of establishing a connection between our experience and reality. Hence, we can’t reasonably suppose the existence of real objects.
However, Hume values reason. Although its domain is restricted, as reason can operate only inside the jar, it can be used to make rational judgments about the cookies inside the jar. Nevertheless, this does not help us with the problem of the external world.
Rorty, on the other hand, has no use for reason whatsoever. There is no rational standard to appeal to. There is no “natural” or “inherent” order to which the cookies should succumb to. There is only meaningless play.
We witness how the modern optimism and hope turn into postmodern pessimism and cynicism.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
As already discussed, the relation between modern philosophy and modern science hasn’t been the smoothest one for one simple reason. They contradict one another.
Science inquires the mind-independent reality and modern philosophy denies any access to the mind-independent reality. If modern science is Dr. Jekyll, modern philosophy is Mr. Hyde.
The moderns admired reason and science. They claimed that the universe was rational and reasonable. But because of their philosophical assumptions, they had to rely on something transcendental, God for Descartes, Categories for Kant, in order to justify the possibility of gaining knowledge about the external world.
But these serums against Mr. Hyde were only a temporary relief. They never fixed the root of the problem, so the tension between science and philosophy was never really resolved.
Although the project of science and the growth of reason were of utmost importance for the moderns, their philosophical ideas pulled the rug out from under the scientist’s feet.
Dr. Jekyll tried to repress his evil urges and purge himself from Mr. Hyde, but time was running out. The tension grew and grew. The serums were losing their strength.
Then something snapped. And a voice was heard:
Why bother solving the tension? Science is just a language game after all. Reason, rationality and science are all just fabrications, fictitious speculations.
Their real purpose is to conceal and justify various power relations. You see, if you can’t have any knowledge about the objective world, how could you make propositions about it? How could you claim that it has a rational nature?
All you are doing, is force feeding your own subjective cookies to others. On what basis you prefer your cookies over mine, when there is no basis, no foundation? All we can do is play with our own cookies, and let others play with theirs.
There are no standards whatsoever, so play without any self-control! Release your desires!
Let Mr. Hyde take control. Embrace the cookie matrix!
The postmoderns lost their faith in progress. They focused on the dark and sinister aspects of reason and questioned the whole project of science. Of course they had to ignore the undeniable scientific and technological progress, which proved that we could understand the reality. But from a philosophical standpoint their claims were legitimate.
Modern philosophers couldn’t rise up and deny their views. After all, they both shared the same presuppositions: We can only access the internal contents of our minds, and have, therefore, no access to the external reality. We see only the cookies in our own jar.
It is then completely legitimate to argue for the impossibility of ever reaching any objectivity or truth. It is conceivable that objectivity and truth themselves are only figments of the mind – cookies in the jar. Dr. Jekyll was powerless.
You may think that this is a ludicrous position to hold and point to the obvious advancements of science. However, in the end, according to both modernism and postmodernism, all you are pointing at are the cookies in your own jar detached from reality. You can never escape the cookie Matrix.
You may kick a stone and say “Of course this is real”, but all you have proved is that, if that particular cookie (experience) is in your jar (mind), it is a painful cookie.
I guess this is one of main reasons people don’t like modern or postmodern philosophy. They both subscribe to the same senseless idea that there is no possibility of experiencing the reality.
In the end, postmodernism is just modernism on steroids. Instead of rejecting the modernist assumptions on the nature of the mind, postmodernism fully embraces them. For this reason John Deely calls postmodernism ultra-modernism.
More importantly, it is absolutely crucial to recognize how modern philosophy is inadequate for scientific inquiry. Advocating for a return to the “good old enlightenment days” when these “damn French postmodernists where not around ruining everything”, is a complete waste of breath.
Both postmodernism and modernism share the same, ultimately unscientific, assumptions about the nature of mind. The recognition of this fatal “cookie jar mistake” is crucial, before we can advance to a truly scientific philosophy, that is in no contradiction with the scientific project, and which is compatible with everyday common sense.
Luckily there is such a philosophy, discovered and developed by the great scientist and philosopher Charles Peirce. And my whole vocation with this website and my work is to share and explore it together with you.