The Vacuity of Postmodernist Methodology..pdfVIP

The Vacuity of Postmodernist Methodology. Nicholas Shackel This paper appears in Metaphilosophy . Vol. 36 April 2005 pps. 295-320. /10.1111/j.1467-9973.2005.00370.x Abstract: Many of the philosophical doctrines purveyed by postmodernists have been roundly refuted, yet people continue to be taken in by the dishonest devices used in proselytizing for postmodernism. I exhibit, name and analyse five favourite rhetorical manoeuvres: Troll’s Truisms, Motte and Bailey Doctrines, Equivocating Fulcra, the Postmodernist Fox-trot and Rankly Relativising Fields. Anyone familiar with postmodernist writing will recognise their pervasive hold on the dialectic of postmodernism, and come to judge that dialectic as it ought to be judged. Keywords: Postmodernism; rationality; alogosia; fallacy; rhetoric; methodology; Troll’s Truisms, Motte and Bailey Doctrines, Equivocating Fulcra, the Postmodernist Fox-trot; Rankly Relativising Fields.. Many of the philosophical doctrines purveyed by postmodernists have been roundly refuted, yet people continue to be taken in by a set of dishonest devices used in proselytizing for postmodernism. It is getting tiring to repeat refutations of the same type for each new appearance of these various manoeuvres. For this reason, then, rather than yet another set of specific refutations, I offer you instead my little museum of their rhetorical manoeuvres, each exhibit neatly labelled, each label inscribed with a name, each name adding to a vocabulary of dismissal. By “postmodernists” I mean not just self appellating postmodernists such as Lyotard and Rorty, but also post-structuralists, deconstructivists, exponents of the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge, and feminist anti-rationalists. I unite them under the term because, philosophically, they are united by a sceptica