h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Chris!

I've been assigned your entry on A Brief History of Postmodernism to sub

Its great work and I've been tidying it up, adding links and so on and would be grateful if you would check it out at A5140829. I make no bones of the fact that I'm no philosopher so have also broken up some of the longer sentences - if I can understand it, anyone can!

I added your posting explaining privilege on the thread as i felt it was important to define this. If you have the urge, a brief definition of the following would help (just a line or two) so that I can add them as footnotes: existentialism, structuralism, Freudian psychoanalysis, instantiation. I could add these myself, but it would be better if the whole was all your work

The last paragraph of definitions confused me slightly. These terms don't appear in the text; I was just wondering why they are relevant to the entry? As I say, I'm no philosopher!

Unless you're offsite for a while, I'll wait for you to post back before I return this to the eds.

hi Skankyrich

Just found your message the article looks fantasticI'm just dashing out to work - will attempt to provide answers to your queries when I get back.
Chris

taking your points backwards: the last paragraph I added definitions of terms people are likely to come across if they read any contemporary philosophy or social analysis (I was actually assuming people would come up with all sorts of suggestions in the comment thread then I forgot to add any more!). I tried as far as possible to avoid using any of these "technical terms" in the article so that it wouldn't come across as just another bit of postmodern waffle.

However, instantiation sneaked in - actually I tried "instance" but it doesn't quite work - it lacks the connotation of physical "coming to be" that I needed there.

Now for definitions in a few lines -oh dear...

a definition of existentialism is a logical impossibility - Sartre (the most famous existentialist writer) took as his starting point Descartes' "I think therefore I am" to mean that humans have no pre-defined essence but have to choose what they are going to be and then take full responsibility for the consequences and was influenced by Nietzsche's and Kierkegaard's reaction against Hegel's all-encompassing system to concentrate on dealing with how people actually live their lives rather than explaining "life, the universe and everything".

Structuralism is even less explicable than existentialism... several structuralist-type theories appeared in the 19th C (Marx for example thought that the truth about human existence could be understood by an analysis of economic structures). They were originally deterministic theories that hoped to give a genuinely scientific understanding of human knowledge and behaviour but as it became obvious over the years that this approach couldn't produce the sort of results that physics and chemistry had they were modified and the determinism gradually diminished.

Freud's was another of these structuralist-type theories were human behaviour is determined by an unconscious that is only accesible through psychoanalysis

hope this helps for a start - I'll come back to it when I've got a bit more time

Chris

I was thinking along the lines of:

'Existentialism is a word that philosophers and psychologists use to define a being's sense of place in the world' - something brief and succinct that the average Joe could see on the front page and just get an *idea* of what the word means. I think long complicated descriptions are worthy seperate entries, but would muddy the waters further for someone like me (my subbing viewpoint when editing entries I don't fully understand - if I get it, anyone can). Just a brief note to explain that structuralism is nothing to do with building bridges - if we started mentioning 'deterministic theories' we'd have to have a whole range of footnotes explaining each other like Russian dolls The Freudian explanation is ideal. I've added that footnote to give you idea what I'm talking about. (By the way, is it 'determined by an unconscious' or 'by a sub-conscious'?)

I'm quite keen to see this finished and sent back; obviously the quicker we tie up the loose ends, the sooner it gets on the Front Page. Hope you can give this a little time soon

back again...

in a sentence... possibly something like: "Existentialism is used to describe individual human being as it exists rather than as it compares to some pre-determined ideal"

... "Structuralism generally involves an analysis of human activity through its social context"

...Freud would be definitely unconscious rather than subconscious.

Yhat's the trouble with philosophy - you can't explain one bit without having to explain all the rest

Does that help?

Thanks for all the time and care you've taken over this

Chris

I just want to make sure it's right, mate

Just one more and then I'm happy for it to go: instantiation - in a nice, snappy, simple way. Or a few lines, if it needs to be I get the idea (from Plato?) but I think we need it described quite simply for mugs like me. Then we're rolling

Thanks for your input, mate; its a great entry and will go well on the Front Page!

Yes, Plato came up with this one. I suppose a dictionary definition would be something like ..."to bring into reality a concrete example of some abstract concept". I've just noticed that the word has been taken up by computer programmers without changing the meaning too much.

Chris

Done, and sending back to Eds shortly.

See you on the Front Page!

fantastic