Postmodernity’s Misplaced Sense of Humility

Disclaimer: References to postmodernists herein should be construed to mean laypersons whose thinking is influenced by postmodernism, not postmodernists in the strict sense.

One of the basic tenets of good thinking is that one must base their reasoning on how things are rather than how one wishes things to be. The greatest challenge that postmodernity has hurled at us is that the conception of how things are has been so thoroughly blended with how one wishes things to be that the two constructs have been rendered inextricable. Postmodernism’s consistent messaging about the purely subjective nature of truth and the impossibility of objective truths can have the undesirable effect of orienting one to believe that how one wishes things to be is actually how those things are. This misguided understanding can then be used as the basis for further misguided reasoning.

I encounter my fair share of truth relativists (often very obstinate ones) at my weekly philosophy club meetings. Despite some of their meritorious comments, I am often troubled by their blatant disregard of the facts and for cogent reasoning (good reasoning is said to be cogent). Cogent reasoning is appealing and convincing due to its methodical development stemming from its basis in evidence rather than on hasty appeals to wishful thinking or emotion. When engaging in cogent reasoning, one must evaluate the premises feeding into a given conclusion. The fundamental question one must ask oneself is: What are the reasons for thinking such premises to be valid, factual, or true? Such questions are empirical questions, the answers to which are not merely matters of opinion or arrived at by guessing. Rather, empirical questions are answered by verifying the facts. Facts are events or circumstances that actually exist or existed. They correspond with reality as best as it can be perceived through human sensory experience.

Unfortunately, the postmodernists I encounter, due to a misplaced sense of intellectual humility, are averse to empirical questions. In their view an examination of the validity, veracity, merit, or weakness of premises is not only a futile activity since these metrics lack any objective value but it also leads to intellectual conceit. While I agree that intellectual conceit and dogmatism should be challenged, I am frequently perturbed by postmodernists’ willingness to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. I do not see enough self-scrutiny regarding their approach that invariably, unabashedly assaults truth and many of their positions seem epistemologically untenable to me.