Monday Thoughts 3: Faces Continued

Very similar to the ideas of Michel Foucault are those of Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) that we encounted back in chapter 8. Kuhn, you will remember, suggested that what we perceive to be the progress of science is really a somewhat random cycle of theory replacing theory. All scientific paradigms leave some data unaccounted for. "Normal science" does its best to accommodate such data within the prevailing paradigm.

But eventually someone suggests a new paradigm. Normal science resists, often successfully for some time because it holds the power over what is allowed to be considered truth. But if the new paradigm can gain traction, can gain power, eventually those with the older paradigm may die off. Suddenly a new "truth" emerges that becomes the new normal science, and the cycle continues.

The parallels with Foucault are straightforward. In both cases, knowledge takes place within a certain paradigm, a way of structuring knowledge. But in both cases as well, that structure is not fixed or absolute. It is rather a function of power, where those who have power are able to set the terms for what is allowed to be considered as plausible or true.

Both cases also seem somewhat extreme, although they both get at certain truths that needed to be heard. We will try to appropriate their ideas within a Christian framework at the end of the chapter.

Perhaps the best known face of postmodernism of all is that of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). If Foucault doubted the way we structure knowledge and Kuhn doubted the objectivity of science, Derrida doubted the meaning of words. He is the father of deconstruction, the idea that words do not have stable meanings. Derrida believed that any attempt to "construct" understanding of words--or the world--inevitably self-destructs in the process.

If Nietzsche believed that "there are no facts, only interpretations," Derrida hardly believed that there were even interpretations. The meaning of a word is simply other words, whose meaning simply defers to yet other words. One never arrives at any definite content, only "traces" of meaning to be found in the difference between the signs, the squigglies we call words. As part of his flamboyant personality, Derrida combined these two words--"defer" and "differ" to make his own French word: différance.

Like Nietzsche, Derrida did not restrict this problem to written texts. To him, the entire world was a text, and its meaning was just as uncertain as the meaning of written texts were to him. He thus is known for saying that "There is nothing outside the text."

It is of course ironic that Derrida wrote texts and might argue with others over their meaning. Derrida does a good job of reminding us that almost any text can be misunderstood. And we saw already in chapter 4 that the meaning of words can be very stable indeed.

Nevertheless, people at least think they understand each other far more than Derrida would have us believe. He is an important footnote to meaning, and his thoughts deserve to be taken seriously. But we can only take them seriously if we disagree somewhat with them. Only if we believe that texts can be understood to some degree can we ever take the thoughts of others seriously.

The preceding discussion leads us finally to the face of Richard Rorty (1931-2007), whom we should identify with pragmatic realism. Rorty has all the doubt of all the other postmodern philosophers we have mentioned. Yet he recognized that despite our doubts about the world outside our heads, it "works" to live as if that world is real.

For an extreme postmodern, the only real test for truth is the pragmatic test we mentioned back in chapter 3. It "works" to say that some things are true about the world and other things are not. Following Rorty's lead, we might use Derrida's words--recognizing the contradiction since we are using words--and yet chalk it up to the fact that such dialog "works." We would not thereby be saying anything about their actual "truth" or meaning, only that our acts work for us.

However, surely as Christians we hope for something more certain than this scenario, especially since we are people of faith. For individuals like James K. A. Smith (1970-) and Nicholas Wolterstorff (1932-), the situation is perfect for a radical orthodoxy. Christians believe in what they believe without a rational basis to do so. For them postmodernism makes room for Christianity at a table from which they were barred under modernism.

Another more rational approach is that of critical realism. Critical realists recognize that our perspective on reality is clouded by our rational limitations. But by faith they believe that reality exists and that God in some way guarantees that our knowledge of that reality "works" in a way that is far more fixed than Rorty might acknowledge. Like Kant, we believe that the world exists and that we can only know it as it appears to us. But unlike Kant, we are far more aware of the limitations of how it appears to us.