Don Keninitz

“Contrasted to the Enlightenment ideal of a unified epistemology that discovers the foundational truths of physical and biological phenomena and unites them with an accurate understanding of humanity in its psychological, social, political, and aesthetic aspects, postmodern skepticism rejects the possibility of enduring universal knowledge in any area. It holds that all knowledge is local, or “situated,” the product of interaction of a social class, rigidly circumscribed by its interests and prejudices, with the historical conditions of its existence. There is no knowledge, then; there are merely stories, “narratives,” devised to satisfy the human need to make some sense of the world.”
― Paul R. Gross, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

“The confidence of the postmodern cultural critic is the confidence of a generalizer who excuses himself from many of the usual obligations of erudition. Under this dispensation, a wide variety of disciplines may be addressed and pronounced upon without requiring a detailed familiarity with the facts and logic around which they are organized.”
― Paul R. Gross, Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

“Openness used to be the virtue that permitted us to seek the good by using reason. It now means accepting everything and denying reason’s power.”
― Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind