Post-Modernism: A paper tiger

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." -Ayn Rand As brilliant as Ayn is in her own right, this certainly isn't true, unless of course frozen fire is somehow not a contradiction. "Yes scientific theory is sceptical. Let me quote what you've said again. You stated, "Scepticism does not claim "truths" but seeks to explain the nature of existence in scientific terms." In one instance you use science as a tool for uncovering "truths" but in the next juxtapose it to skepticism, which is defined as, among other things: The doctrine that absolute knowledge is impossible, either in a particular domain or in general. I guess you would then have to define what truth means since you say truth and knowledge aren't synonymous. You either have knowledge of truth or not. That is either absolutely the case, or it is not. How can you explain this contradiction, which, really, only further solidifies my argument that such a belief system is riddled with logical fallacies. "Nihilism is an ontological (conceptual) position about reality, postmodernism is an epistemological (theory of knowledge) position about realities. And therein lays my opponents problem. The two are not in contradiction because they are not talking about the same thing." Postmodernism may not equate to nihilism any more that skepticism equates to postmodernism, but one is integral to the other. Think of it this way: All Floridians are Americans, but not all Americans are Floridians. It is the same with nihilism and postmodernism, as nihilism is the basis for its philosophical underpinnings. When you read Nietzsche it becomes axiomatic that one drives the other. An extreme pessimism is lauded by its adherents, but under the light of scrutiny, it is one gigantic contradiction. Skeptics, or at least people who refer to themselves as such, are often skeptical for the sake of being skeptical. Its become cool not just to reason, but to be skeptical of everything. For them there is often this belief within them that they are more practical, more pragmatic, and more rational than many of their counterparts. But as Chesterton here is saying is that when one becomes a critic of everything, pessimistic about all things, they run the risk of losing the very thing they are trying to prove or disprove, for the very test it assumes to warrant that skepticism soon comes full circle to where you would be skeptical of skepticism itself! For if they maintain such notions, why not then just be skeptical of what the skeptic proscribes? It is with these kind of fundamental gaffes that the whole thing breaks down. "Reality for the postmodernist is the self's view in context to the environment." You state the above quote right after telling me that solipsism is not analogous to postmodernism. So then reality can change at the whim of a thought, I assume, schizophrenia be damned? If that is so, then reality is only within the opinion of each individual person. Yet, people have no problem saying that someone is absolutely right or wrong, all the while denying that truth isn't absolute, which, incidentally, is the case here. You are, presumably, attempting to instruct me on reality, and in essence, truth. Yet you also maintain that postmodernism teaches that reality is basically only in the eye of the beholder. That would mean that neither of us are actually stating any truisms, as truisms would not exist absolutely, save the fact that truisms not existing absolutely would itself be a truism! Are you beginning to see why such a system of thought lives in that consummate contradiction? "Hume was not a postmodernist, he sat somewhere in between postmodernism and rationalism. To use him as an example of anything otherwise is a dead argument in this debate. Secondly and as an aside, Hume was talking about the use of religious arguments and morality and had applied a value to each of the arguments presented for the reasoning on this basis." Hume and Nietzsche were both arguably postmodernists in the way they viewed reality and truth, as they were very similar in their philosophical stances. Compartmentalizing them in to quaint little descriptions is not my intention. My intent is to expose how illogical their theories were on a foundational and basic level. Then again, if my reality says that Hume was a postmodernist, and yours says that he was not, who then arbitrates between the two? Is there any more need to point out the innumerable contradictions and logical fallacies here? We needn't be bothered by semantics and word games to try and rescue that which should have died on the doorstep of reason long ago. It fails as a philosophical notion not just because of its weakness -- indeed it is much worse. It fails because it is antithetical to philosophy. In essence it is not another epistemological theory, but because it actually emasculates philosophy itself. Thank you for the debate, Spiral. I look forward to future debates with you.