I’m going to post my son’s thoughtful question (that appeared in comments) and my answer here as I think it has value and may be missed if left in comments.

Bryan asked:

Have you read or heard any postmodern philosophers say there are no answers? I think I’m pretty postmodern, but I haven’t done extensive reading of the philosophy. I think there’s a difference between the claim that there are no ultimate/final/absolute/objective answers and there are no answers what-so-ever. I see that distinction especially in science. We come up with theories and models to provide answers, but no scientist worth her salt would say than any model is ever the final theory. We understand that the models we have are based on a specific context, and won’t apply in other contexts or at least will continue to be modified upon further observations.

Even if there is no absolute, final viewpoint it doesn’t mean all viewpoints are the same. Some are better and more useful than others. Some make better sense of the world than others. But even the best theories and viewpoints are not the last word. We have indeed lost that certainty. It does make things harder: if we can be sure of anything, it’s that we don’t have any final answers. There is no longer the certainty of final, absolute answers, there’s only the best answers from my point of view… at least for the time being.

My Response:

I agree with the lack of certainity (as I will illustrate) but postmodernism goes far beyone that, in my opinion, to being a lack of any truth regardless of human observations. Without any truth, I asset, there cannot be meaning or morals.

I believe:

1. There are absolute truths, independent of human observation.
2. Humans can discover many of these truths by following the evidence to a very high state of probability.
3. Because the human senses and reason are not perfect, humans can never achieve 100% certainty, but that does not invalidate the existence of absolute truth.
4. Because of #3, humans can exhibit high confidence (based on the amount of evidence) in an absolute truth, yet with intellectual humility.

A great example of intellectual humility is playing right now in cosmology. The Hubble Constant HO (68 km/s/Mpc) was calculated in 1929 as a law of movement of stars away from earth, based on their distance from earth. It was established as a law, with the same level of confidence as Newtonian laws. However, with recent observations by the James Webb Telescope, actual measurements of the speed of these distance cosmological bodies were significantly different than what the Hubble Constant would predict. This has created what is now called “The Crisis in Cosmology.” A paper released this week, with much more precise measurements of the speed of these distant objects, found the value to be slightly within one stand deviation to that predicted by HO. So, it is possible that the issue was an error in observation, or it still could be that they must rethink HO. But with intellectual humility the scientists are open to the possibility that they have been wrong, but that does not say there is no truth about the speed of these objects.

Another example is in anthropology of the Americas. It has been established (based on archaeological evidence and the understanding of the cycles of glaciation), that humans first came to the Americas via the Bering Sea land bridge 12,000 years ago. However recent discoveries (dated footprints at White Sands National Park) have given evidence of human occupation 22,000 years ago. This has created a crisis within anthropology. There is wide debate, but the evidence may rewrite what was held as a near absolute.

My experience with postmodernism philosophy is observed primary with postmodern theologians such as Richard Rohr and with with pop culture. Rohr asserts (paradoxically with the confidence of an absolute) that there is no truth, that all religions (even ones with opposite fundamental tenets such as Christianity and Buddhism) are all true. He says questions are helpful for us, but without the aspiration of answers because there are no absolutes, no answers.

In pop culture, evidential truth is under attack with the assumption that all opinions are valid as there are no absolute truths. This is exemplified by the belief in the stealing of the 2020 election. While there is overwhelming evidence that the election was not stolen, those who believe it was stolen based that belief on subjective conviction.

Some call Soren Kierkegaard not only the father of existentialism but the grandfather of postmodernism. Basically, in response of the threat of the Enlightenment on Christianity, he came up with the ideal of subjective truths in contrast to objective truths.

However, more recent writers and thinkers have further defined postmodernism more as without a concept of absolute truth (with or without human observation) and no universal basis for meaning or morals. See https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy

I don’t see postmodernism as the devil as it has contributed to the deconstruction of unhealthy cultural beliefs (e.g. white men more valuable than women or people of color), but I believe has now gone too far in the same way that modernity went too far and I do believe that the present nihilism is a fruit of that loss of confidence.

Mike