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Re:Derrida vs. the rationalists by jnbiche on Thursday February 09, 2017 @02:42PM (#13610172)
You realize that most academic philosophers in the US and other English-speaking countries share your attitude toward post-modernism, right? TFA even points out the divide. You must have gone to a program with a "traditional" philosophy department, perhaps in Europe?

Most university philosophy departments in the US focus on logic, analytic philosophy, philosophy of science, cognitive science, etc, etc. I can't even think of a single philosopher at my university's department who would have done anything but chuckle at post-modernism. In fact, it was a philosophy prof who told me about the book "Fashionable Nonsense".

From the article:

"Outside France, the dominant philosophical school was analytic philosophy. A broad church, its foundations had initially been articulated by, among others, Bertrand Russell, GE Moore and the early works of Wittgenstein. Founded on the notion of conceptual clarity, analytic philosophy (in its crudest form) regards philosophy as a branch of the sciences, often subservient to the natural sciences, or at best continuous with them. It proposes that through the logical analysis of philosophical propositions, the basic questions of existence can be clarified, and possibly solved."

So why would you generalize all philosophers into the bucket of post-modernism? Many of the founders of modern analytic philosophy were mathematicians: Russell, Frege, Whitehead, Peirce, etc.

Re:Derrida vs. the rationalists by theoh on Thursday February 09, 2017 @05:46PM (#13611750)
The mathematician Michael Harris wrote a very good even-handed review of Fashionable Nonsense.

He finds possible value in the philosophy that it mocks, and points out the general crudeness of the authors' attitude and approach. I think his review is well worth reading.

https://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~michael.harris/Iknow.pdf

Re:Derrida vs. the rationalists by jnbiche on Thursday February 09, 2017 @07:01PM (#13612183)
Oh dear God, I read only 1/4 of the review and I feel like I've lost several IQ points. Yes, perhaps they were crude, but unlike Dr. Harris, I find no value in the philosophy mocked by Fashionable Nonsense. Even reading about that kind of postmodern philosophical claptrap is pretty devoid of value (which is probably why I never managed to read all of Fashionable Nonsense).

But yes, he's a mathematician, I agree.

Re:Derrida vs. the rationalists by theoh on Friday February 10, 2017 @08:22AM (#13615162)
Harris has, I think, a really good prose style and a refreshing "all's grist to my mill" attitude to the topic.

Sorry for the damage to your IQ.

Re:Derrida vs. the rationalists by mannykannot on Thursday February 09, 2017 @03:09PM (#13610442)
A fair point, but the persistence of the divide is, itself, telling (or interesting. Or both.)