The document discusses postmodernism and its critique of systematic approaches to knowledge. It argues that postmodernism recognized different methods for understanding reality like science, philosophy, culture and religion, though they are integral for human values. However, some could not accept this paradigm shift and perverted postmodernism into another system, celebrating methodological autonomy but forsaking their integrality. This led to practical nihilism, scientism, rationalism, provincialism and fideism. The document asserts that a true understanding of postmodernism's critique accepts the autonomous methods while maintaining their axiological integrality, as seen in Peirce's pragmatic semiotic realism.

1. Brian, you wrote: "Since I've used the term [postmodern] to describe
an
unfolding, evolving, unfrozen (and, in fact, biased-against-freezing)
mindset,
I've always considered specificity, authenticity, and values as
inherent in
postmodernity ... "
BRAVO!!! and some thoughts (you've seen in different form before)
I hope it is the last word on postmodernISM! For, as I see it -
The postmodern "critique" (not a "system") recognized that methods
precede
systems, that science, philosophy, culture and religion were
methodologically-autonomous (each necessary, probing reality with
distinctly
different questions) even though otherwise axiologically-integral
(none, alone,
sufficient for human value-realizations).
Now, humanity had so long been immersed in systematic approaches that
some just
could not bring themselves to JOTS (jump outside the system) to
properly enjoy
this paradigm shift and so, ironically, perverted this critique into
a system,
postmodernISM, which celebrated these new-found methodological
autonomies while
forsaking their axiological integrality, "gifting" humankind with a
faux
apologetic for a practical nihilism, which, itself, was nothing new
insofar as
it's always been a bad apple from which humanity has occasionally
taken a bite.
Some intuited a wisdom in the critique and thus retreated from what
was a
terribly naive realism to a self-congratulatory "critical" realism
but, for
similar reasons (having to do with an inveterate system-ism), could
not fully
accomplish the paradigm shift and, instead, embraced a "weakened"
foundationalism, unable to even conceive how a nonfoundational
epistemology
could deliver value (axiologically). Hence, because they were now -
not only
methodologically,
but also- axiologically divorced, different people (perhaps due to
temperament
or even aptitude?) desperately sought epistemic refuge in one method
or another
(largely to the exclusion of the other methods) "gifting" humankind
with
scientism (science), rationalism (philosophy), provincialism
(culture) and
fideism (religion).
Some not only tasted but saw the wisdom in the critique and were able
to JOTS
into a nonfoundational epistemology that articulated -not a departure
from
humankind's unconditional, existential orientations to such
transcendental
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2. imperatives as truth, beauty, goodness and love, but- a new theory of
knowledge,
which expressed a new understanding of our autonomous methodological
approaches
even while maintaining their axiological integrality. A paragon of
nonfoundational accounts can be found in the contrite fallibilism of
the
pragmatic semiotic realism of Charles Sanders Peirce, who provided an
"emergentist" explanation of human knowledge properly consistent with
an
evolutionary anthropology and epistemology.
Interestingly, throughout the history of Christianity, this type of
approach has
always enjoyed at least a minority status in practice as well as some
inchoate
expressions in theory, practices and expressions that, in my view,
have been
well chronicled by Phyllis Tickle, well explicated by Brian McLaren
and well
preserved by Richard Rohr and his Franciscan ancestors, all who, per
my
intuitions, resonate with other "minority reports" throughout history
(that it's
been neither the "dominant" discourse nor power structure, more so
esoterica
than exoterica, may be much of the point?) dating back to the
Kabbalah (Jewish)
and Plotinus (Neoplatonist), Origen and Pseudo Dionysius and John
Scottus
Eriugena, Meister Eckhart and John Duns Scotus and John of St. Thomas
(Poinsot),
and Charles Sanders Peirce, as well as some of our contemporaries
like Thomas
Merton and Walker Percy.
Now, many will resist such accounts as ours because they have a
subversive ring
to them. But that nagging gong they hear comes from their own
systems, which are
self-subverting!
later, mon ami
jboy
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