Deep question. With regard to Linguistics, I would say anywhere we move is pretty good news! Anything but that longstanding bottleneck with two irreconciliable stands. 

A related question is why we move where we move. I suppose newer approaches to language --e.g., neurolinguistics-- play a big part, don't they? 

Technocratic Omnilism... maybe. Nihilism got boring. Pluralism didn't work out that well. Now let's try Omnilism. And because all that 'post' gets old too we simply call it technocratic. Why? Because it reflects so well the awareness that we know we are already in the information age. And we would also show some respect to transhumanism. Could be included as some nice enhancement... you know? I would also like to show some respect to constructivism. The difference: We will be even more cynical. And later on people will say: Well... in fact it was radical cynicism in order to break through the no future atmosphere. Maybe they will call us parasitic too and accuse us of amusing ourselves only at the expense of Nihilism. But the good thing is: Most Nihilists are anyway either dead or emos. So the critics won't be that harsh. And our main standpoint is: There is a soul and it can be experienced through the world wide web. Hallelujah!

Thank you both a lot,

Good point Pablo!..I'm aware of this tendency and the works of especially Lakoff...

Carmen, you are reminding me of Guittari and Deleuze whose major efforts were how to reconstruct subjectivity in a society of technological control.

I got to thank you, Brahim. Your reference to Guittari and Deleuze brought some light on some books I read years ago. Especially the connections between this reference and Carlos Castanedas books is pretty obvious. And what I need to add here: Carlos Castaneda is for sure the best example for a flawed way to produce new (and overhasty) outcomes of post modernism. It totally leads people right to a place where they already have been: Metaphysic bullshit (sorry to name a spade a spade here). It is kinda funny. Because I have seen raising up more than one crazy cult in new age scenes reffering to the material of post modernism pairing it with technocracy getting lost in an obake world. It is for sure no wasted time to take a closer look at those books in order to understand what went wrong here.

Dear Carmen,

How do you understand metaphysics? In other words what do you mean when you mention it as a term or better an episteme?

Hello Brahim,

for me metaphysics is the engagement with essential questions touching not only the horizon of knowledge but also trying to deal with what could be perceived. In other words: Making the unseen visible and playing with possibilities. I guess you are confused because I wrote "metaphysical bullshit". I said so because every possibility at least needs any experienceable connection and should be based upon reasonable explanations. But if you take a possibility and you construct a whole new world around it (obake world) you will end up like that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6az9wGfeSgM

The trouble with those "worlds" is that there is always someone who rules it, who makes the guidelines. Those worlds are highly subjective (and it is not your perception) and their rules can only be changed by their makers. You or me or any other person does play a subordinated role here. And you got no chance at all to experience anything that is not subjectivly dependend on the maker. You don't even got a chance to criticise. You see...? That's the schizophrenic thing about those worlds.

Dear Carmen,

I taste an overdose of pragmatism or even some of William James's  experimentalism. I'm not against what you say by the way. I'm like Pablo "anywhere we move is pretty good news! 

Just two things kept bothering me. Total pragmatism stifles sometimes the intellect. Second, I give you the example of quantum theory. If you try to see the particle you miss it. In other words you only reach the principle of non-locality by closing your eyes and not vice versa. But the laws of quantum mechanics are real and are at the very core of modern physics.

But you are perfectly right when you analyze mediocrity using the Faucauldian concept of power. The institutions of knowledge or "the marketing of mass media "as Adorno says robotizes the modern individual and  benumbs his /her critical capacities.. 

Hello Brahim,

I like your example of quantum theory and particles. I agree. But one also needs to understand that man is not a particle, nor is it appropriate to put anyone (especially not cultures and societies) under a microscope. As in physics micro states are pretty different from meso- and even macro states.

I also agree that too much pragmatism can be disturbant when it comes to conceptualizing theories. But if something didn't work (like the 'technique' of building up obake worlds): It is neither a crime to learn from that nor is it pragmatism. It's just a pretty normal process to deny a hypothesis that 'empiricaly' (or as a social micro-society study or let's better say subcultural experiment) simply didn't work out very well but produced the total difference from what was assumed (f.e. better life forms). One got to have the balls than to say it was wrong (to implement it as any try of a social structure).

Dear Carmen,

I am glad we have reached a no war zone. Now let us move ahead in this discussion. By us I mean you , I , Pablo and anybody interested in this highly important subject..

To my mind we can start by identifying the major figures of post-modernity and see if they are really post-modern. In other words ,it seems obvious to my mind to start from the obvious. What do you think?

Dear Stephan,

Thanks for the interesting attachments !

If you were asked to give three names that truly represent post modernity what will you give?

Ok Stephen,

I will start by myself- I am going to just give two names: Foucault and Derrida. What do you think?

That hot coffee does taste a lot better than cold coffee. Expect it's iced coffee. But let me tell you something about autumn in Germany and ice cream parlors: I remember when I was a young girl. The ice cream shops were opened from like March till September. And then closed. Ice cream parlors were mostly owned by Italians. They came to Germany in summer and went back to Italy the rest of the year. But minewhile noone does that anymore. How come?

And that's the real madness in our so called 'civilazitation'. That the choices you got are indeed pretty clear. They are so clear that you don't even got to think about your choices. But you know what: The good thing is that in your no choice situation you at least got 365 days per year iced coffee. Anyway food is the new drug of the 21st century (or how come there are so many television cookery shows?).

@Stefan: In one of his books Nietzsche wrote: "The figs are falling from the trees, good and sweet...". How come he did not say: "The figs are good and sweet falling from the trees"?

I nominate Pirsig for iced coffee challenge.

Dear Carmen,

Very individualized answer- reminds me of the existentialism of Camus mixed with the genial rumblings of Russell Crowe in "a beautiful mind".

I personally do not agree with you when you say " And that's the real madness in our so called 'civilazitation'. That the choices you got are indeed pretty clear. They are so clear that you don't even got to think about your choices. "

On the contrary, in this post modern world everything is relative hence nihilism.

Dear Brahim,

Russel Crowe? Russel Crowe is an actor acting as if he was Nash. But we don't know if Nash really did behave like that. But when it comes to Russel Crowe: Yet my walls are not full of papers that don't really have to do anything with each other but are connected nor do I search for a "theory of everything" (and for that bringing in things that don't have to do anything with each other). And I never forgot any pair of hamsters in the tub just to give them a feeling what it was like when Noah's ark was build hoping when I rescue them it will give them some understanding of the concept of G'd.

The ice cream shop is a counterexample for what Foucault called cultural accessibility. Don't you see that that accessibility and inclusion is one big fat ideological lie?

"I personally do not agree with you when you say"

I take a note of that. But it would be good if you implement some of your thoughts why you think so.

"in this post modern world everything is relative hence nihilism."

Part of your question was: "...moving towards something else?". So what's the matter here? You want to discuss in a plain way post modernism and you want to have a summarization of Foucault's thoughts? Or you want to know why 'I' (with my 'Zizekish Superego') see it different?

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/articles/the-superego-and-the-act/

Let's just hope it is not too much 'Russel Crowe' for you.

Dear Carmen,

Sorry If I hurt your intellectual ego.

Give me  some time to digest all the" Russel Crowe" you sent ( mind I think you created a new adj and me by analogy a new noun-fantastic!)

My friends made me drunk last night and all I remember is that I was arguing that if I multiply 100 per ten the answer will be 3000..I can't remember the logic behind it unfortunately.

Just one point- I meant are we moving somewhere else? Heidegger put the "da Zein" ( what is being) as a central problem in all philosophy. Derrida came and said we simply do not know .In other words you call fill the gap of the question by any answer..

My question is very simple: what if we are able to reproduce a homo-sapiens? In other words, what if post-modernity is crippling our brains?

Definitely, we are moving towards something else and if we do not ,scientists will slap us on the face and say: wake up fools...!

Shall we give the other cheek or recognize we were wrong?

Hello Brahim,

in Relativism truth is an illusion. Knowledge is no longer justified true belief. Especially Foucault and Derrida were trying to expose science as a capitalistic ideology. Yet there are other movements who made a difference between opinion and knowledge (Doxa and Epistime). Another distinction is that one made between methaphysical borders (which are not empirical testable) and cognitive inadequacies as well as technical. Giving you an example from quantum physics: It is almost impossible to charatazise the mass and weight of a photon technical also it is postulated it's weight might be zero.

If you give up the concept of opinion it is not longer possible to find arguments for or against the truth of any belief.

When it comes to knowledge expecially theories build upon social facts are pretty vulnerable. Because here Knowledge undergoes very often a process were it gets (so to say) compressed to values. Once knowledge has been compressed we got a problem here we also got in any scientific branche dealing with 'history': Sometimes you really don't know the offsprings anymore. And what makes it even more complicate: Similar facts can end up in similar outcomes. It is like when you are trying to find out what lead to the exstinction of the dinosaurs. Even here you will find a bunch of theories competing with each other.

You can only understand this problem if you understand that values are indeed compressed knowledge where something broke away here during the process of transmission. Maybe to make it less 'heavy'. It makes you straightaway ready for action without knowing any deeper facts.

But just because one is not anymore able to recreate that knowledge and from there offspings doesn't mean that there are no reasons.

Another huge problem: As I said something broke away. And I guess we can assume it is indeed reasons which explain actions. The trouble mainly starts when explanations get replaced. I give you a very, very simple example:

"Where do babies come from?"

"Well... they are born in a cabbage patch."

To replace reasons might have a cultural intention. I am not going any deeper here. But there were a lot of eye-catching movies dealing with those questions the last few years. And I can tell you that 'a beautiful mind' is for sure an essential movie for anyone to watch in order to get an understanding for mental health issues. But you better watch 'Cloud Atlas'...

To come back once more to Zizek: He speaks of a very important process that you might also count as: "The loss of values". He explains in a very profound way what he observed and named it 'Superego'. The transformation from "You can and so you must" is nothing but a different view (through direct observation) upon the very same problem: We are not any more in touch with reasons. We lost our beliefs but also trust. We don't trust structures. And recreating reasons - social reasons - leads to a big issue: That we replace trust through the ideology that only because we don't know the reasons it might be artificial and for that replaceable. And so actions are replaceable. Meanwhile we really belief if only replacing reasons we will start to behave in a total new way.

We will see if this is true. But to be honest: I highly doubt it that we can overcome human nature and recreate ourselves like phoenix from the ashes.

Dear Carmen,

three points.

The notion of Doxa and Episteme is not a recent movement or something. It is Plato who introduced these terms.

Second, you are using classical Newtonian physics to describe quantum mechanics. Apparently, you are not a specialist. in Quantum mechanics mass is simply the position of the electron according to the nucleus and its orbital and the way it spins ( counter or clock wise)

Third, You may doubt-you are free. But theoretically I can do it. I can reproduce a complex algorithm that reproduces you..

Actually if we recreate ourselves which is to my mind only a question of decades we will preserve our humanity. We are slowly changing towards a hybrid before the final evolution towards something different-call it homocyporg. This interim state of hybrid transformation may take an unknown n-years or centuries.

To my mind, Foucault's work is largely influenced by the social categorization he experienced because of his homosexuality- reminds me of Baudelaire who wrote les " Fleurs du mal" because of his syphilis.

If you are lucky, you may witness an age where Foucault, your idol I suppose, will be sold in supermarkets like tablets nowadays.

Dear Brahim,

I am honestly loosing meanwhile the interest on you.

"The notion of Doxa and Episteme is not a recent movement or something.

1) There is no such thing like THE post modernism or THE post structualism. There are different movements who were later on clasified under those topics because they have some similarities.

2) What I intented to say was that beside relativsm there are other movements which used another approach. And they fall under the aspect of post modernism too.

3) You came up with Heidegger. And I was about to give you a sharper picture.

"you are using classical Newtonian physics to describe quantum mechanics."

http://silver.neep.wisc.edu/~lakes/mu.pdf

"If you are lucky, you may witness an age where Foucault, your idol I suppose, will be sold in supermarkets like tablets nowadays."

You are the chief...

http://www.freewebs.com/ranciere2/aestheticsofknowledge.htm

Also google "bourdieus allodoxy"...

Dear Carmen,

Quantic theory is based on four numbers and four equations. anybody who tells u the opposite is wrong.

To my mind, both post structuralism and post modernism are the same. If you think I am wrong give me your arguments. Please give me your ideas not what others said..

You are beginning to lose interest- are you suggesting you are very important and if you lose interest then my intellectual world will crumble down. I taste what is called post-colonialism in this simple remark.

I am French from my mother's side and consequently read Bourdieu in French.

Dear Brahim,

I am sure you will find people who give you more proper answers that go along with your own thoughts. Good luck with your master thesis and finding some algorithms to give birth to your theoretical homunculus.

All the best!

Dear Carmen.

Thank you for your interesting posts..

All the best!