An aside: the characterization of post-modern argument in the OP is only accurate in the most extreme and easily parodied of post-modernist thinkers. Most post-modernists would argue that social constructs are subjective narratives told on top of an objective world, and that many more things are socially constructed than most people believe. That the hypothetical about the sun is used as an example of bad post-modernist thought, instead of any of the actual arguments post-modernists make in real life, is a bit of a tip-off that it’s not engaging with a steel man.
I think Scott’s claim (back in 2014) would be that you’ve just articulated the post-modernist motte, and in fact people often do make arguments and pronouncements that (at least implicitly) depend on the thing that you see as a weakman and he sees as the bailey. (I haven’t read enough of the relevant stuff to take a position here; Scott’s cynical account rings true to me, but that could be because what rises to my attention is disproportionately the extreme and easily-parodied stuff, and then I lazily pattern-match the rest without giving it a fair chance.)
edit: to be fair, I can see a potential motte-and-bailey on the anti-pomo side. (Bailey: the sun hypothetical, although made up, is a pretty accurate characterisation of how postmodernists argue. Motte: that was just a throwaway tongue-in-cheek example, a punchy way to illustrate the main point of the post; you’re taking it too literally if you bother pushing back against it. Or alternatively, Bailey: that is how postmodernists argue. Motte: that is how a small proportion of postmodernist philosophers, and a bunch of random people inspired by postmodernism, argue.) So I think it’s fair enough to suggest that the absence of real examples is a red flag.
I think Scott’s claim (back in 2014) would be that you’ve just articulated the post-modernist motte, and in fact people often do make arguments and pronouncements that (at least implicitly) depend on the thing that you see as a weakman and he sees as the bailey. (I haven’t read enough of the relevant stuff to take a position here; Scott’s cynical account rings true to me, but that could be because what rises to my attention is disproportionately the extreme and easily-parodied stuff, and then I lazily pattern-match the rest without giving it a fair chance.)
edit: to be fair, I can see a potential motte-and-bailey on the anti-pomo side. (Bailey: the sun hypothetical, although made up, is a pretty accurate characterisation of how postmodernists argue. Motte: that was just a throwaway tongue-in-cheek example, a punchy way to illustrate the main point of the post; you’re taking it too literally if you bother pushing back against it. Or alternatively, Bailey: that is how postmodernists argue. Motte: that is how a small proportion of postmodernist philosophers, and a bunch of random people inspired by postmodernism, argue.) So I think it’s fair enough to suggest that the absence of real examples is a red flag.