News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Postmodernism generator by trominos on Sunday July 19, 2009 @04:14PM (#713337)
Can you point to any postmodern philosophy papers that are useful?

How about some that merely make non-obvious true points?

Or some that are at least interesting?

It probably seems like I'm bashing postmodern philosophy, but although I expect this line of thinking to end at the conclusion "postmodern philosophy is useless," I've never actually followed it myself, and I would honestly be very happy if you could answer "yes" (with examples) to at least one of the above questions. It's just that from my vantage point as a relatively uninformed outsider the field feels vacuous.

And your logic in the last sentence of your post is terrible.

Re:Postmodernism generator by mustpax on Sunday July 19, 2009 @06:55PM (#713536)
It is much longer than an essay, but I would highly recommend Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology.

Now as inspired as the text is, it is not a light read. But not all meaningful scholarly work needs to be written like a popular science novel. (I mean, ever try reading Gödel’s famous paper?) I read Heidegger in the context of a Philosophy seminar and frankly it helps having access to secondary sources for help.

On a more positive note, Heidegger has only been called postmodernist in retrospect. At the time he was producing these essays and writings, there was no postmodernist jargon to lean on. So his writings are pleasantly free of words that only help to obscure.

Re:Postmodernism generator by yason on Sunday July 19, 2009 @05:19PM (#713435)
Can you point to any philosophy papers that are useful?