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Human Reason and its Enemies: A Rigorous Critique of Postmodernism A strong belief in inherent human rationality was the core of Enlightenment thought which reached its zenith in the 18th century. New ideas focused on more freedom for common people, self-governance, political and economic liberty. Postmodernism is an assault on everything Enlightenment stood for. It is one thing to revolt against a system of thought, but the revolt should be not just for the sake of revolt, it must offer something better. Postmodernism offers nothing as replacement, all it does is create confusion, anxiety and disillusionment among the masses.
The writer begins by saying that while reading a book, if you get a rather strange feeling, a kind of weightlessness and disorientation, then you have begun reading a book on post-modernism. That is because this movement has nothing to offer, its thinkers don’t know what they are saying, and because the foundations of postmodernism are based on contradictions and paradoxes. The movement was spearheaded by philosophers like Nietzsche, Sartre and others who hold that there are no objective moral laws, and morality itself being a kind of fiction. Ookerjee says, "Whenever a great master makes a discovery and proclaims it to the world, lesser mortals bandy it about and use it to make some points of their own and impress others. This has happened with Wittgenstein’s concept of language games. In matters of truth and knowledge, it is used to throw you off the scent in pursuing a consistent and rigorous argument. Theories, particularly scientific theories, are said to be language games, and when science moves from one theory, like the Ptolemaic, to another, like the Copernican, it is described as a change from one game to another. This sort of talk is so glib and paraded with a show of obviousness." Postmodernism is hostile to epistemology as well (a branch in philosophy that concerns knowledge) because they think knowledge is also culturally relative. The writer points out that Postmodernists do not realise the paradoxes and contradictions they create. On the one hand, they don’t believe in knowledge; on the other, they hold that there are many knowledges, each valid according to its own culture, and each incommensurable with any other. Being fundamentally and dogmatically sceptic, postmodernist thinkers oppose traditional wisdom just because they believe in opposing everything. Oorkee argues that scepticism should not paralyse the non-sceptic and stop him from investigating the basis of scepticism. Ookerjee writes with clarity and certainty, and couples it with excellent writing style. Although this book could be enjoyed by any discerning reader, it would be particularly treasured by students, research scholars and teachers.
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This is the central
argument of Sheryar Ookerjee’s Human Reason and its Enemies.
This is a no-holds-barred frontal attack on post-modern thinking,
which has plagued the intellectual and academic world for the past 100
years or so. The book has provocative chapter heads such as Philosophy:
Search for the Non-Existent Cats, Can Dinosaurs and Dragons be
Tamed’ and The Roar of the Paper Tiger.