ken,

can you give me any evidence for evidence to exist (independent of someone
believing in it) ?

klaus

At 12:47 AM 8/31/01 +0100, Ken Friedman wrote:
>There is an increasingly frequent reference to postmodern assertions
>on this list. It is odd that some of us represent our field as
>innovative by using a style of argument that is considered outdated
>in many other fields.
>
>The postmodern disruption was an interesting episode in intellectual
>history. Today, serious work in other fields offer far more
>convincing accounts concerning knowledge claims than postmodernism
>does. This includes philosophy, social science, cognitive science,
>and psychology.
>
>Much of what is quoted from postmodern writers is outdated. Many
>claims fail to consider responses to the postmodern account. Being
>old does not necessarily render something of date. Hume, one of
>Einstein's favorites, remains useful centuries after he wrote. So do
>physicists like Mach, economists like Smith, and philosophers such as
>Plato or Diogenes. Nevertheless, when new evidence on an issue
>changes the frame of discourse, it should be considered.
>
>Postmodernism remains an interesting metaphorical starting point for
>art criticism and literature. It has value in imaginative exercises
>for architecture and art production. These are not the point of most
>design research.
>
>Postmodernist assertions on research issues shaped a climate of
>skeptical inquiry. That was useful to a point. Now, its value is
>exhausted.
>
>Useful postmodern claims generally involved the logic of discovery.
>They were not and are not valuable in the logic of justification.
>
>Karl Weick (1999: unpaged) puts it nicely:
>
>"We seem to be in the midst of an active shakeout. What makes this
>period feel senseless is that half of the players are just beginning
>to grasp the messages of postmodernism, while the other half -- those
>more partial to postmodernism -- are saying, essentially, "Look, it
>was a necessary episode of disruption, get over it, get on with it,
>write differently.'"
>
>I find postmodern claims unsatisfactory for four reasons.
>
>First, (1) postmodern claims are generally presented as assertions
>without evidence.
>
>For example, Sid wrote, "Evidence to support the primacy of tacit
>knowing is not insignificant (it underpins post-modernism)." He did
>not present the evidence. He claimed that it exists, and argued that
>it underpins the postmodern position. He did not demonstrate the
>case. He simply asserted it.
>
>It may not be necessary to present full citations in an incidental
>post for an email discussion.
>
>What is expected is a reasonable summary of the evidence. Here, there
>was no summary of evidence. There was merely assertion of a case.
>
>Second, (2) much of the evidence postmodernists assert involves the
>claim that there is no evidence and there are no fixed facts.
>
>Given the fact that we breath, drive cars, swim, use computers, take
>medicine when we are ill, and experience the flow of history, the
>idea that there are no fixed facts is questionable.
>
>There are few fixed facts compared with all possible facts, but some
>facts are fixed and agreed to by nearly all. We may not agree to what
>the facts mean, or how they arose, but we agree that some things are
>the case.
>
>It is often difficult to discover and demonstrate the nature of those
>few facts that we would agree are fixed. Most of us, however, would
>agree that there are at least a few facts, no matter how few.
>
>These fixed facts are not mere viewpoints or interpretations.
>
>We may not agree on what the World War meant, but we agree it took
>place. We may not agree on the nature of meaning of nuclear weapons,
>but we nearly all of us agree that they exist. They are real, and
>most of us - including even people who believe them to be useful -
>agree that nuclear weapons represent a threat. We may not agree that
>the World Trade Organization is good, but we agree that it exists and
>that the actions of the WTO affect world trade and the fate of
>nations, large and small.
>
>Many of the political argument of postmodernists deal with these
>issues and issues like them. Were there no evidence and no fixed
>facts, the arguments they raise on this issue would have no meaning
>at all.
>
>Third, (3) from the claim that there are no fixed facts,
>postmodernist thinking often adduces a wide - and wild - range of
>conclusions.
>
>The nature of my third point is particularly interesting. In
>asserting these claims (3.1), frequent reference is made to evidence.
>This evidence is stated in positive terms. It is often stated in as
>positivistic a manner as Comte himself might have done.
>
>Here arise subsidiary problems. One problem (3.2) in offering
>evidence while claiming there can be no evidence is obvious. How can
>one claim to offer evidence if no evidence is possible?
>
>Another problem (3.3) is even more dramatic. Much of postmodern
>evidence is counterfactual. The frisson of the scandal created by
>Alan Sokal's twin articles in Social Text and Lingua Franca (2000)
>did not arise from the momentary thrill of the hoax. The real scandal
>was Sokal's demonstration of the rich load of counterfactual claims
>by so many postmodern thinkers.
>
>It is one to say, "Nothing is so." It is another to say, "this is so,
>and here's my evidence." The minute one makes a statement of this
>nature, the statement can be measured against facts. That is what
>Sokal did.
>
>The book that Sokal wrote to Jean Bricmont (1998) was even more
>fascinating. They took a vast load of truth claims made by writers
>such as Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Lacan, Irigaray, and others, and
>inspected them in the light of widely available evidence.
>
>It is important to note that neither author challenged the
>metaphorical meaning of the postmodern authors, nor their beliefs on
>politics or anything else. They simply tested the claims they make in
>positing facts.
>
>While they avoided inquiring into postmodernist views on politics,
>they did wonder how anyone could believe that a "theory of space-time
>on subatomic scales could have valid political implications" (Sokal
>and Bricmont 1998: 242)
>
>I wonder about that, too. Unfortunately, I cannot distinguish between
>the political consequences of events that take place on quantum
>scales ten trillion trillion times smaller than the size of an atom
>and the political implications of events that occur on a scale a mere
>million times smaller. Perhaps it has something to do with
>differences between the Federalist position and the Jeffersonian
>position concerning the Bill of Rights. Unless it has something to do
>with an argument between Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair.
>
>I am getting far-fetched here, but no more far-fetched than the
>notion that a quantum theory of gravitation has political
>implications of any kind.
>
>Yet another problem involve the (3.4) distinction between fact and
>interpretation. The use of the fiction of Argentine writer Jorge Luis
>Borges is a case in point. He expressed some of his most important
>and striking ideas in fiction. These ideas raised powerful
>philosophical speculations, but Borges addressed these issues as
>fiction and thought experiments, not as reality.
>
>In several postmodern documents, I have seen Borges's fictions
>treated as fact. Many authors cite the example of a classification
>scheme reportedly published in a Chinese encyclopedia as proof of the
>concept that every culture views taxonomy in different ways. While
>the general notion of cultural difference may be valid, the example
>is not. It does not constitute evidence because the text in question
>is fiction. It speaks to Borges's imaginative powers, but not to any
>real culture.
>
>One of Foucault's most famous comments is based on Borges's fictional
>Chinese encyclopedia. It occurs at the beginning of The Order of
>Things. I do not have this at hand, and I cannot recall whether he
>distinguished this as fiction or simply presented it attributing it
>to Borges as though Borges had written an account of reality. In some
>cases, the idea is attributed to Borges without making clear that it
>is fiction. In other cases, it is cited again from Foucault or even
>tertiary sources, and treated as an anthropological fact.
>
>Lyotard's (1984: 55) Postmodern Condition cites another of Borges's
>ideas, one dealing with the energy consumed by a comprehensive
>mapping of states in the universe. This is an important ideas
>discussed by many scientists. It involves important problems in
>computing, information theory, and other fields. Lyotard's
>description fails to make clear that the case he offers is a
>fictional metaphor.
>
>The cavalier misuse of evidence may be expected among those who claim
>there is no evidence, but one cannot simultaneously honor the claims
>that there is no evidence while respecting the use of evidence.
>Fortunately, since evidentiary presentation is so often weak, one is
>not required to do so.
>
>The final problem of the notion that there are no fixed facts lies in
>the notion drawn from it that (3.5) all in interpretation. If this is
>so, than much of what postmodernism claims to achieve is meaningless.
>
>If all things are relative, and everything is a matter of
>interpretation, then there is no basis for claiming that one regime
>is just, another unjust. If nothing is based on reason, then the
>claim that slavery is unjust, torture immoral, or colonialism
>undemocratic is meaningless. None of us on this list believe that
>slavery is just. No one here believes that colonialism was good. Yet,
>many who assert these cases along with those of us who adduce
>arguments from reason seem to believe that nothing is more than
>interpretation.
>
>How can this be? If all is interpretative claim depending on
>viewpoint and relative position, why then, what seems injustice to
>the slave or the tortured political prisoner is merely the order of
>things to the slave owner or the jailer. The conquest of one people
>by another, the preemption of their lands, the subjugation of their
>culture and the destruction of their rights may seem unjust to those
>upon whom a foreign order is forcibly imposed. But if there are no
>rights, if there is no reason, one can just as well make the specious
>arguments offered for centuries by the colonial powers, stating that
>this regime is for the benefit of all parties involved.
>
>Can this be so?
>
>If argument is merely a matter of position and interpretation, then
>it can be so. To me, this is a profound and powerful argument against
>postmodernism. It is incredible to see those who argue for democracy
>and universal human rights using postmodernism as a foundation for
>utterly reasonable claims.
>
>Finally, (4) there is the matter of citation without evidence. In the
>Middle Ages, all one was required to do to establish an argument in
>debate was to cite Aristotle. Today, citing Foucault, Lyotard, or
>Derrida seems to serve the same purpose.
>
>Stating that something is a central postmodernist argument is also a
>power game in the mirror-world where position is everything and
>evidence has no value.
>
>Reverence for truth is the touchstone of good research. Truth
>requires evidence.
>
>Truth is sometimes difficult to discern. In some matters, it may not
>be possible to establish truth. In other cases, it is possible, but
>the effort is long. Painstaking and costly, the search for truth is
>occasionally a matter of centuries.
>
>Some postmodernists assert that they have no argument with truth, but
>with the arrogance of science.
>
>This is a questionable claim.
>
>if there is no evidence, there can be no truth. Postmodernism does,
>indeed, contest the possibility of truth more than it challenges the
>arrogance of science or of specific scientists. Postmodernists rarely
>challenge science or scientists. Far more often, science is quoted
>and misused by postmodernists who attempt to bolster political or
>literary arguments with the prestige of physics.
>
>In fact, "science" has no emotional or attitudinal states. It is
>scientists, and not science, who occasionally demonstrate arrogance.
>This arrogance is a quality demonstrated through history by princes,
>politicians, and popes, not to mention Marx, Mao, Trent Lott, and
>Dick Cheney. (If you are not an American, you may not know Trent Lott
>or Dick Cheney. Let us just say that they make Lady Thatcher and
>Berlusconi look moderate.)
>
>This is the arrogance demonstrated by Foucault, with his tendency to
>privilege personal interpretation over evidence. Irigaray, with her
>specious claims on the prestige of physics, and Lacan with his cranky
>mathematical forays fit the bill as well. If scientists are
>occasionally arrogant, many are also humble.
>
>Some scientists, like Einstein or Newton, Semmelweiss or Pasteur, are
>both. Always humble in the face of truth, always willing to amend
>their views on evidence from any source, they also stood firm against
>political pressure or opposing views when evidence supported their
>position.
>
>They were not perfect. I can recount the sins of Einstein and Newton.
>(Isaac, that is, not Sid.) Human failings notwithstanding, these
>great thinkers always respected new evidence, and reasoned argument
>from evidence was the measure of their greatness.
>
>The issue that bothers me most is the political role of postmodernism
>in the academic power game.
>
>Despite the fact that many postmodernists seek to overturn what they
>label the hegemony of grand narratives, postmodernism itself
>constitutes a grand narrative.
>
>All positions and all issues are open for debate. Good debate
>requires well-formed arguments from evidence. It is easy to use the
>postmodern language of hegemonies and harsh dichotomies. This does
>not hold up well in a world of pluralist positions and a range of
>sciences that increasingly recognize multivariate logics and shaded
>ranges of truth.
>
>Rather than assertions - what Jan Verwijnen once labeled position
>without discourse - the simplest and best approach is to state claims
>and offer evidence in warrant of the claims.
>
>Anything else is as political as the world of the imaginary sciences
>that postmodernism claims to supplant with its new grand narrative of
>disruption.
>
>-- Ken Friedman
>
>
>
>References
>
>Lingua Franca. 2000. The Sokal hoax. The sham that shook the academy.
>Edited by the editors of Lingua Franca. Lincoln, Nebraska: University
>of Nebraska Press.
>
>Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1984. The Postmodern Condition. A Report on
>Knowledge. Translation from the French by Geoff Bennington and Brian
>Massumi. Foreword by Fredric Jameson. Manchester: Manchester
>University Press.
>
>Sokal, Alan, and Jean Bricmont. 1998. Intellectual Impostures.
>London: Profile Books.
>
>Weick, Karl E. 1999. Theory construction as disciplined Reflexivity:
>Tradeoffs in the 90's Academy of Management. The Academy of
>Management Review, October 1999, Volume: 24, Issue: 4. Start Page:
>797.