Pragmatism, especially neo-pragmatism is what I view as the complimentary force to post-modernism and deconstruction.
Post-modernism is generally anti-foundational (deconstructs fundamental assumptions that hold up whole worldviews, narratives, etc.). But so is pragmatism. It's empirical and skeptical. So we come full circle back to Taleb! Skeptical empiricism is anti-foundational, it does not cling to some ultimate notion of something. It begins with empirical observation. Patently scientific. Also pragmatism says don't worry about ultimate justification and just take action! (it's a bit more complicated than this but don't worry about it). Very roughly speaking I suppose you can say that Taleb's empirical skepticism finds itself corresponding in the following way: empirical=pragmatism, skepticism=deconstruction.
This is a very very crude way of explaining pragmatism but ok for starters. It's sometimes called American pragmatism. But don't be fooled by the name: it's very deep, sophisticated and scientific. Like Taleb, it goes to the very heart complexity. Especially evolution. It's no accident that fractals, Black Swans, pragmatism are so illuminated by biological evolution. Biological evolution is the story of how complex life forms evolved out of simpler ones.
One very illuminating example is how animals evolved minds to package and handle the environment. This is precisely what pragmatism is! It's our ability to handle and package the environment. This ability of ours is not then about realizing some ultimate truth. It's the product of our biological evolution. This is actually an astonishing way of looking at our intellect. Indeed like Taleb it is anti-platonic. It is empiricism pitted against platonicity.
No comments:
Post a Comment