Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

MORE ON ILLUSTRATION OF POSTMODERN CRITIQUE AND PILPUL IN A POSTMODERN CRITIQUE OF HICKS

(Ok. Seriously. When I say the postmodern mind is feminine and pre-rational, this is an excellent example of why.)

@PhilosophyCuck

A bunch of people had sent my video on “Explaining Postmodernism” to Stephen Hicks and he replied a few times saying he’ll look at it by the end of september. There hasn’t been any response yet, unfortunately

@WorMartiN

curtdoolittle made a response: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=301059973824233&id=100017606988153 …

@curtdoolittle

You didn’t come close to making an argument – just made excuses. I think you should address my response. It’s not worth hick’s time to answer that kind of ‘critique’ (Straw man). You can either make a scientific argument (not one of ‘intentions’ or ‘meaning’) or you can’t.

@PhilosophyCuck

I’m not sure what to respond to. You didn’t address a single one of my points. In fact, your response mentions NEITHER Hicks’ original claims nor my criticisms. Showing how my account is a strawman would require addressing both and showing how they conflict.

@MrKennan1948

As of warning. He’s [Curt] using very technical language and (operational) grammar. So you might get really confused at first

@PhilosophyCuck

The language is very familiar to me. What confuses me is the fact that it’s completely detached from any of my criticisms on the topic.

@curtdoolittle

Then state (summarize) your criticism, and we will walk thru it. Because that’s all i could find in your video.

@curtdoolittle

Stating he doesn’t understand (non argument) is quite different from stating his conclusions are wrong(false) – and how. And stating I don’t address your objections is different from stating my argument is false – and how.

@curtdoolittle

Example:

—“…rigorous interpretation of the text and..”—

This is Pilpul (textual justificationism) which, instead of terms, sentences, and phrases in the context of the author’s theory, and whether that theory corresponds to reality – how to find what is not there: Pilpul.

Cont. 1):

–“..respect [for] western classics…”–.

Does not include the proposition (that Hicks or I would state) that this technique (Pilpul) is what separates anglo law, philosophy, and science, from platonism and continental ‘literary philosophy’ which rebelled against it.

Cont. 2) And that just as Semitic Theology was a counter-enlightenment against Aristotelian thought, Continental was against Anglo, and Marxist,Postmodernist,Feminist a counter-enlightenment against Poincare, Maxwell, Darwin, Menger, Spencer and Nietzsche’s scientific revolution.

Cont. 3) By attempting to construct yet another set of fictions, that while internally consistent with experience, were not externally consistent with the findings of law, economics, and science: That western civ’s tradition(success) is systemically empirical and eugenic.

Cont. 4) Subjectively stated without any basis whatsoever –“Really good books (he means ‘wisdom literature’) do not cut off interpretation”—. Actually that is exactly what they do. Provide scientific explanation that is then replaced by MORE parsimony (less interpretation).

Cont. 5) “Wisdom Lit” (fairy tales, parables, myths, novels) may state the human experience in a manner that persists over time into new circumstances. Science does the opposite: It searches for constant relations that are invariant over time independent of our experience.

Cont. 6) And this is what separates Mythology (supernatural or supernormal wisdom literature), from Philosophical (sophomoric and justificationary) literature, from Critique (straw manning defense of priors), from Law, economics, science, and mathematics.

Cont. 7) And this difference between dependence upon COMPUTATION and CALCULATION and MEASUREMENT in the overthrow of bias and priors, rather than REASON and INTUITION and EXPERIENCE in justification of bias and priors. ie:continental from rousseau onward is religion by sophistry.

CLOSE 8). And that is just ONE example. I can literally tear apart every single example you give in the video as straw manning and sophistry as a means of preserving a malinvestment in “Wisdom Lit” that confirms a false prior (self overestimation, sentimental instinct), rather than Truth “Science”.

CLOSE 9) And that is why Profs generally won’t respond to sophists who are little more than scriptural fundamentalists in secular prose – each seeking to escape the painful reality that the search for truthful speech (sciences logics, and laws) demand compete by adapting to.

CLOSE 10) This is indifferent from the debate over ‘creativity in legal interpretation’ in the supreme court, versus the law says only what it obviously says in the context it was written for the purpose it was written: One Shall Not (in the jewish tradition) attempt To FIT Data.

— AFTERWARD —

Or in other words, don’t seek, like a numerologist, palm reader, tarot card reader, scriptural interpreter, rabbi or theologian, to find excuses to justify your prior (pilpul), or construct straw man arguments (critique), in what is ordinary, descriptive, argumentative, or scientific language.

The author, his loading (values), and framing (persuasion), have no bearing on whether the constant relations (identity, consistency, correspondence with reality) and the possibility (operational possibility), rationality (rational choice interest given the limited information at hand, and pressure of decision in real time), reciprocity (the only mutual test of non-criminal-physical, ethical-direct, and moral-indirect action), and completeness (within stated limits and with full accounting of content and consequence), survive falsification.

That list of tests is what separates sophism (fraud) from science (truthful speech).