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Post Modernism

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Submitted By samgula
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Joyce Samantha B. Gula
Introduction / Summary of Postmodernism
Postmodernism is the belief that:
(1) Most theoretical concepts are defined by their role in the conjectured theoretical network. (A subset are 'operationally' defined by a fairly direct tie to observations.)
(2) The theoretical network is incomplete.
(3) It follows that theoretical concepts are 'open', or what logicians call 'partially interpreted'. Research continues precisely because they are open; the research task is to 'close' them, although never completely.
The current Postmodern belief is that a correct description of Reality is impossible. This extreme skepticism, of which Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn are particularly famous, assumes that;
a) All truth is limited, approximate, and is constantly evolving (Nietzsche, Kuhn, Popper).
b) No theory can ever be proved true - we can only show that a theory is false (Popper).
c) No theory can ever explain all things consistently (Godel's incompleteness theorem).
d) There is always a separation between our mind & ideas of things and the thing in itself (Kant).
e) Physical reality is not deterministic (Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, Bohr).
f) Science concepts are mental constructs (logical positivism, Mach, Carnap).
g) Metaphysics is empty of content.
h) Thus absolute and certain truth that explains all things is unobtainable.
As Taborsky writes of Postmodern philosophy;
.. the Mediated concept of Truth, is that it first admits that there is no such thing as absolute, pure Truth. There is a reality, which may be abstract or sensual ... but one cannot access it/know it ..'in-itself'. One can only 'know' it within the socially constructed (or species-constructed) 'mediative-habits' of one's particular society/species/whatever. (Taborsky)
Effectively Postmodernism comes to the

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