Friday, February 15, 2013

Fuzzy Realism

Over at The Church and Postmodern Culture blog, I responded with a tongue-in-cheek reply to a post titled Postmodernism vs Critical Realism which I enjoyed reading and found helpful.  I had some fun with it.

When I first heard the term 'critical realism' and before I learned the definition I thought it was a great name for a philosophy and good PR. It appeared like an upgrade from the everyday bland form of realism. It is always great when something is new and improved. One expects that of everything these days. And if you don't sign on what are you? A naive realist? Yet, I perceive the value and virtue of epistemological humility. And while the extreme postmodernists initially threw me off with their aplomb, "The Gulf War Never Happened" and unnecessarily dense writing, I now get some of it and it has been an aid to me in breaking out of the straightjacket of modernism and its reductionist gray flat world. But yet, I'm a research and development professional. And understanding and working with the shared perception of a real world is important to serving my customers and sponsors. So I guess I still need a form of the real in the name of my philosophy. Science and technology, with a hat tip to Kuhn, still seem to work, you know, the blind see and the lame walk. But, the boundaries are blurry. I see through a glass darkly. Thus, with a little pragmatism thrown in I guess my vision and philosophy may be designated "fuzzy realism".

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