“You’re Just Talking Like a Modernist!”
Yesterday, I referenced Greg Koukl’s latest article in Solid Ground, the newsletter of Stand to Reason. In it, he argues for the self-destructive nature of the postmodern view of truth and knowledge. One of the objections which he anticipates and answers in the article is the charge - “You’re just talking like amodernist. You’re trying to judge postmodernism by Enlightenment rules of logic. We don’t play that language game.” How should one respond to that objection.
Here’s the beginning of Koukl’s response:
Of course, this reply is not really an answer; it’s a dismissal, a dodge. It also misses a very important point: Concerns about contradiction and other rules of logic are not rooted in modernism at all. They are not arbitrary designs of Western minds anyone can opt out of, like how many jumps are allowed in a game of checkers. Their use goes back to the ancients who simply acknowledged them as inescapable features of reality.
He argues that the principles of reason, among other things, are essential to discursive thought. Even if one is not familiar with the term “law of non-contradiction”, he knows the concept. One needs not be taught such a thing, she learns it through contact with reality. When one appeals to rules of reason, argues Koukl, one is not talking like a modernist, but like a human being. So-called alternative logics are really nothing more than fantasy. Furthermore, anyone attempting to refute the laws of reason must employ them in the process.