Ep. 497: The Intellectual Trump Card? (with Dr. Daniel Bonevac)

Daniel Bonevac is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He joins us today to discuss Jacques Derrida and how postmodernism manifests itself in some of the ugly developments in higher education. We also explore the potential dangers of hyper-skepticism.

Dr. Bonevac’s research focuses on the intersection of metaphysics, philosophical logic, and ethics. His first book, Reduction in the Abstract Sciences, received the Johnsonian Prize from The Journal of Philosophy. He has written four other books– Deduction, The Art and Science of Logic, Simple Logic, and Worldly Wisdom. His website is a great resource; check out all his articles, courses and books at philosophical.space

Discussed:
– Postmodernism didn’t have to turn out this way
– Jean-François Lyotard: incredulity towards meta-narratives
– no overall view of the world is possible?
– Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction
– Kant’s influence – ‘the appearances’
– Phenomenology
– Hegel and "the myth of the given"
– The missing explanation argument
– Scientific Realism
– Ayn Rand vs. postmodernism
– how did postmodernism get such a hold on academia
– Freud and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion
– why is this suspicion and skepticism so appealing?
– hyper-skepticism is ultimately boring
– the postmodern path to Marxism?

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