Playful thoughts #4: Post-Modernism is a self-refuting philosophy

chhaylin (65)in #philosophy • 7 years ago (edited)

In one of my previous posts, Philosophy 101 #15, I explained what post-modernism is. In this post, I'd like to share a small thought I had lately which is:

"Post-modernism is a self-refuting philosophy."

In order to explain why I think so, I will quickly describe some fundamental characteristics of post-modern philosophy.

Whereas modernism’s foundations are located in its profound confidence in reason and science and revolt against the pre-modern reliance upon tradition, faith, and mysticism, post-modernism critiques objective truth, science, liberal capitalism, and a classical liberal government. Post-modernists believe that all these are merely social constructions, creations of linguistic practices and are relative to social groups that share the same narrative.

It is the rejection of objective truth that I would like to focus on, and which makes post-modernism a self-refuting philosophy.

"Objective truth does not exist" is a self-contradictory statement

If, according to post-modernists, there is no objective truth then they can also not claim that objective truth does not exist. If we consider this statement - "objective truth does not exist" - to be true, then it must necessarily be a self-refuting statement as it asserts the objectivity of its truth. Actually, if one reads post-modernist literature we find that they posit themselves as true and rational, and therefore convincing.

In this sense, post-modernist philosophy is caught in a directly self-denying statement that is all-too similar to the statement of the form "this statement is false".