The Postmodern Philosophy: Materialism and Idealism

The twentieth century is past, and now we have entered a new century, the only century in which I have had actual experience. It is the time that postmodernism is explained in an accessible way to the people most affected by it — a people dispossessed by reality, a group whose very existence defies objectivity. That is all people. All people are trapped in the circle of interpretative reality that forms as a result of their own individual consciousness, and in doing so, they form a conception of reality that cannot be universalized but are themselves subject to a type of interpretative bias that creates a reality. Contextualization of reality requires the application of the social form of reality. But I have used several levels of analysis before explaining them — I shall do so now.

First, the postmodern philosophy states that reality is objective, and that a material reality does, in fact, exist. However, the reality does not have a practical purpose, in fact it is impossible to observe because of the lenses that tint the view of both society and the individual; a lens is the frame of interpretation, encompassing the key assumptions necessary for the actualization (realization) of reality. The problem with lenses is that the key assumptions that are required for the interpretation of reality are themselves limited, inherently, into the terms and forms of social constructs such as logic or reason. To understand the meaning of this, we must divorce logic from the reality of any situation. Logic is, properly understood, a social construct, an agreed upon social form of interpretation that is bound and only realized within any society that acknowledges its power. As such, Aristotelian logic becomes irrelevant in any society that does not have exposure to it, and therefore as a form of universal interpretation, Aristotelian logic becomes unusable. The problem with logic is that it follows a defined path, which is defined according to the society in which it exists. Logic exists upon another form of interpretation, that is the social level of interpretation. In this form, we must treat the individual as nothing but a function of the larger society. There are problems with this assumption, but that is necessary given the rudimentary model of reality that we are creating. We have abstracted from objective reality in that we have interpreted it, and actualized a form of social reality, that is the objective reality that is observed by a society or group of individuals. Furthermore, we have abstracted from the individual in considering only the forms of logic and reality in which the individual agrees with the group. The individual interprets the objective reality through the social lens and the individual lens, and then they observe social reality and social interpretation through the individual lens as well. Therefore, the individual reality contains some of the core assumptions of society, the social lens, and then portions of the core assumptions of the individual, that is the individual lens. As such, the practical reality of the individual is made up of not the objective reality, but the perceptions of the individual. This is the difficulty. The individual does not actually perceive the objective reality — the individual is incapable of perceiving of the objective reality because they use a form of interpretative perspective, that is an internal logic which is individualized to the single person who interprets the objective reality. Then the individual must also exist within a society (at least in modern times), which has its own internal logic that colors the interpretation of objective reality. The social perception of the world is known as philosophy, while the individual interpretation of the world must be known properly as consciousness, for to live is to interpret and see the world around oneself. There are therefore certain problems with any overarching theory of human behavior, that is that they assume that all internal logics are the same, which is directly incorrect.

The problems of interpretative reality are multiple. What are the implications of these three forms of reality? The social reality means that society cannot properly understand the full objective version of reality, and therefore that the most persuasive argument (that is the most seemingly “logical” argument) must be reality and substitutes itself for the objective form of reality through individual perspective. As such, the most persuasive social realities (or the social realities that follow the internal logic of the individual) become the realities of the individual, thus becoming both the social and individual realities. Of course, this means that the objective reality becomes completely irrelevant as arguments diverge from it using different assumptions and internal logics that operate upon different levels of abstraction and premises. The problem of any theory is that it turns the individual interpretation of reality into the objective form of reality, and only the most persuasive theories are considered real. Everything is theoretical until one can observe reality free of lenses — a prospect which itself is impossible. This creates a realistic relativism that forms different realities, different moralities, different opinions, and this is why humans are so interesting. They form different opinions given the same information and the same apparent social standing. They create reality around their base assumptions. Of course, we must abstract from the individual to truly understand the interpretations of society, which is made up of individuals, but cannot be characterized as the average views or even the most prevalent plurality of interpretations agreed upon by individuals because individuals do not explicitly agree to social reality. Social interpretation functions differently from individual interpretation, but rather than being based upon individual interpretation, it forms in the abstract agreement to reality, that is a common set of assumptions present in a population. For existence, the form of logic used by a group. This implies to an extent group voluntarism, but these groups form unconsciously, especially in the larger forms of society and larger groups. Smaller groups consciously choose to fragment from the larger society and choose their own form of interpretation because they must do so to differentiate from the larger society. This creates a rather fragmented society. Each group separates either consciously or subconsciously from the larger form of community, forming a society. The society views things through a lens that is implicitly agreed upon in admission to the group or during the process of social dissociation and differentiation.

This is why people associate, not as a collective human species, but as a nation, as an individual. The collective must be mutually bound because we think it must be collectively bound. During the Tupac Amaru rebellion, Condorcanqui declared that the Spanish must take up the traditional clothing and dress of the indigenous Inka people, at this point identifying it as the Qolla, implying a level of flexibility to the nation and collective identity that is not grounded in physical or objective characteristics, in which the Spanish varied in culture and views, as well as assumptions and religion. The flexibility of collective identity is reflected in that there is not internal logic that is universal. For instance, are there absolutes of any kind? This is unknown, we cannot indeed know because any single example would disprove a universal logic and therefore since we cannot observe all examples and instances of logical discourse, we cannot prove whether any individual logic is in fact universal. Therefore, we arrive at a philosophical impasse, where the idea of logic is upheld but the assumptions of logic cannot be. The logic, it must be explained, is seen only in social interpretation of reality, and therefore, it is not reality; logic and reason are social constructs, existing only in our interpretation which cannot be universalized. Universal internal logic is unreasonable and irrelevant because even then people would misinterpret logic, although it seems “logical.” Thus, we cannot rely upon humans to either be logical or reasonable because humans themselves defy both reasonability and logic itself, containing individualized senses of logic grouped into large schools by assumptions of how reality as a whole works. This is highly subjective, not objective, as logic purports to be, and thus we cannot understand the world through logical constructs that are themselves perceived through the individual and in some cases social lenses.

We live in a world that is not empirical. This much is apparent when you ask several people what happens in a single instance. Empiricism assumes that logic and reason are objective in structure, that all people are interested or concerned with the veracity of their information, or that they are using the most reliable sources of unmanipulated data. This is rarely the case. Empiricism is dead, and we can no longer rely upon it to explain the world. The individual is not reasonable or logical in any meaningful sense. The problem is not that we are able to use logic but choose not to, but that we are incapable of using logic because of the necessary discipline of thought. Interpretation of logic itself is a part of what it means to be human upon the earth, for without the interpretation of logic, nothing would be logical or illogical; logic functions on a social level, meanwhile individual internal logic functions on a separate level of abstraction from the social logic. This social interpretation means that objects like classes cannot be correctly interpreted, and that therefore, any analysis from a social framework must necessarily be individualized. No framework can truly be Marxist nor constructivist because each of those terms have individualized meanings. Practically, the individual cannot abstract from the social reality, and therefore all attempts to understand social frameworks or social structures must begin at the individual level. With any individual interpretation, individual lens tints the social lens(es), which tint the objective reality. The exact “tint” resulting from these conflicting interpretations of reality created at first by individual and later by social consciousnesses creates the reality that we ourselves interpret. Therefore, any primary information that formats the ways in which we observe the world must be necessarily secondary.

The fundamental difficulty of postmodernism is that the individual and the community are both important, and it attempts to address both simultaneously while also viewing the society as a function of collective individualism. What is the individual? This is simple, but the question of what society is rarely becomes prominent in other philosophies. The individual is an autonomous unit whose dynamics are those of the single human consciousness, while the group is far more difficult to conceive of. The group must necessarily be considered an amalgamation of individuals, but how each individual functions in each group is a sociological question, not a philosophical question; in this difficulty, we must abstract from the individual in order to create a collective consciousness. The individual interpretation of this consciousness can vary based upon the social interpretation which the individual uses; is it because of the contradictions of a material society? Is it because of the guarantee of individualistic rights? We cannot know. The specific definition and position we will choose to defend is not grounded in empirical fact or provable reality, but within our core assumptions and beliefs — modern philosophy describes an end, a telos to which we might aspire, but this is unreasonable. There is no rational grounding for teleological philosophy — indeed teleological philosophy assumes that all things follow the same or similar internal logics, whereas I believe that the workings of social and individual consciousnesses creates inherently different internal logics and mechanisms. The difficulty therefore is not in determining what reality is objectively, but how the most persuasive arguments are transformed into reality in the manner of internalization. We observe through our senses and consciousnesses the objective reality or sometimes even the social interpretation of objective reality, and then through this lens we internalize our knowledge, creating reality itself.

We are the only functions through which anything may truly exist; in order for any object or consciousness to exist there must be another consciousness, another spirit with which to interact by Hegelian logic, as we exist only through relation to one another. Using Hegelian logic, therefore, we may determine that we exist and therefore that we are unique, and we sublate the secondary consciousness, we transcend and absorb it. The second consciousness creates a concrete existence, and in the creation of existence it creates something which is both greater than itself (that is reality) and also lesser than itself (for it has created reality and is its master). Since all objects are therefore greater and lesser than what they are, both in their existence and the existence of other objects, we therefore have the capacity to announce that in unique relations to the material conditions and ideological conditions surrounding us, we each have a unique existence. This unique existence, because both biological and environmental conditions shape the consciousness, must therefore create a unique pathology and a unique consciousness, and therefore, any study of consciousness or reality must take into account the uniqueness of all consciousnesses, and this proves the individualist level of interpretation.

Now we must take up the issue of social levels of interpretation, and the creation of collective consciousnesses. First, we must analyze the contradictions between the individual and social levels of interpretation and how we abstract from the individual in the analysis of society and from the society in the analysis of the individual. Perhaps the greatest distinction we must make between the social and individual interpretations is the creation of common consciousness. Common consciousness is only achieved through relatively like-minded individuals which interact with one another such to create a relation between these individuals, and therefore the relation itself becomes part of the environment which affects the individual. This creates individualist feedback which will result in the shaping of the environmental influences upon the individual consciousness. As such, the relation itself transcends either individual and yet is subject to both individuals, and thus the dialectic begins to make sense. In the creation of a relation between the two, both are elevated, but without either part the relation, the sole purpose to existence according to Hegel, the whole collapses, and as such, the master may be greater than the slave, but the slave sublates the master, overcoming them in the relation which is the only true meaningful part of the relationship between the two. The problem is that labor itself and slavery becomes inconsequential. Because he ignores the material, we cannot rely upon Hegelian dialectics to represent the true representation of reality, which is created itself by a duality of material and ideal. The ideal and the material are themselves therefore irrelevant without the other. The material cannot practically be treated without the ideal consequences of the material, and the material only exists through the interpretative lens that forms the ideal, and as such, there is another dialectic between these; the material is actualized by the ideal, and the ideal is realized in the material, but neither can truly exist without the other. Social levels of interpretation and individual levels of interpretation form the idealist context which forms around the material, and which forms indeed around the ideal. The ideal is itself interpreted and analyzed through philosophy, and therefore it becomes an environmental factor in the determination of thought. This writing is merely an exercise in that interpretation and attempts to understand them.