Anti- postmodernism, cont.

[Dave Monroe]

Neither anti-rational nor anti-logical.  But all about
pointing out contradictions, aporia, what have you ...

--- jolly <jollyrogerx99 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> The irony of ironies:  that po-mo, Derridean types
> who base their entire approach on various
> anti-rationalist and anti-logical positions would be
> audacious enough to start pointing out presumed
> contradictions in anyone's points. What is a
> contradiction is holding to a system critical of
> logic and reason ...
 
Main Entry: crit·i·cal 
Pronunciation: 'kri-ti-k&l
Function: adjective

[...]

c : exercising or involving careful judgment or
judicious evaluation d : including variant readings
and scholarly emendations ...

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

> but then at some point using logical terms
> (incorrectly, of course) against those challenged
> your irrational views in the first place.

The terms themsleves being not "logical," but terms OF
logic, the discourse thereof?  And "against" and
"incorrectly" are mischaracterizations here ...

> As many have noted ...

Starting perhaps with Derrida ...

> ... it would seem the Derridean can never really
> make any definitive assessment, either from
> the "grounds" (a center perhaps?) of induction,
> deduction, or aesthetics.  

Uh, duh ...

> Wouldn't that be to assert that some such thing as
> "truth", and maybe, a universal, exists?

Faulting Derrida et al. for not assuming precisely
what's being deconstructed?  Er ... anyway ...

> (remember the wickedly funny Sokal hoax?)

>From Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable
Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
(New York: Picador, 1998) ...

"... although the quotation from Derrida contained in
Sokal's parody is rather amusing, it is a one-shot
abuse; since there is no systematic misuse of (or
indeed attention to) science in Derrida's work, there
is no chapter on Derrida in this book." (p. 8)

> Also, see Changeux's debate with the clown Ricoeur
> to see how pathetic modern "philosophy " seems when
> confronted with modern cognitive science and
> neurology.

Changeux-Ricoeur: un dialogue exemplaire et deroutant

www2.unil.ch/theol/denis.muller/articles/changric.pdf

Changeux, Jean-Pierre and Paul Ricoeur.
   What Makes Us Think? A Neuroscientist and a
   Philosopher Argue about Ethics, Human Nature,
   and the Brain.  Trans. M. B. DeBevoise.
   Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2000.

http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/6921.html

Thanks, didn't know about that.  But, of course (how
French is THAT, by the way?), nationality/profession
aside, Ricoeur has nothing to do with Derrida here ...