Hello there. This is a post which has been sitting half-baked for some time. This blog has been dry as the uni term finished. Let's hope (for Mell's sake) that things pick up...

Is post-modernity just a wank? I mean, I was talking to a learned and well-read colleague of mine who felt that post-modernity is both unnecessary (there are other modes of thinking which address the concerns of post-modernity more simply) and failing the test of academic philosophy departments (no western philosphy school worth its salt teaches it seriously - apparently).

Now my friend is no intellectual slouch, and he appears most aware of the limits of modernity. The 'progress' myth, the problems of 'absolute' statements and the fuzzy edges of grand narrative.
Yet he is unsure whether post-modernity, or at least post-structural reading theory, are helpful ways to 'move forward' (if you'll excuse the weasel word/term).

Up until last week I was searching for a school of philosophy or idea-organisation that might begin to cover these concerns - until critical realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_realism) seemed to fit. While not perfect (but what is?), a trust in the external ‘realness’ of an object held together with an awareness that ‘knowing’ involves the subject is nice – if it isn’t a cop out. Actually it IS a cop out from an empirical point of view, because it involves trust. Just like Descartes, it takes faith to believe that what is, is.

So I guess a Christian perspective can draw upon some bits of critical realism to acknowledge that,

i) the universe exists (God created something)

ii) that our knowledge of it is inseparable from our interaction with it (we are creatures too)

This doesn’t get us to the ‘goodness’ of God’s creation or the ordering of our actions within it – you gotta go read the Genesis and gospels for those – but it does help us to ground ourselves.

OK, ‘nuff said. Played soccer yesterday and some guy kicked my foot out from under me. It feels a bit stiff – though I guess that could be all part of the illusion. If so I am off to apply some imaginary ice anyway.