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Sep 15, 2011

Jimmy rated it:

Assessing the usefulness or relevance of philosophy is a seemingly confounding endeavor. It becomes even trickier when approaching a specifically nuanced trend or style of philosophy. Since endless question-begging thought cycles are the genesis of any given philosophy, there is understandable difficulty in posing additional ones that might trump the foundation of that given philosopher's logic or reasoning. To add to that, there is the incessant theoretical backpedaling and earnest apologeti More...

29 comments like (15 people liked it)

Aug 31, 2011

Austin rated it:

In 1996 NYU physicist Alan Sokal submitted a fake essay to a postmodern literary journal. The essay (which was published) was a Trojan Horse that badly embarrassed the journal's editors. It purported to argue, in an intentionally incoherent way, that science has suffered "paradigm shifts" (in Thomas Kuhn's term) that throw doubt on the entire enterprise of rational, objective thought and on the notion of a reality that's in any way independent of cultural perspective.

As Sok More...

8 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Lane rated it:

"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their expansion: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously"

This quote, from ps More...

52 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2010

Eric_W rated it:

In 1996, Alan Sokal submitted an article to Social Text entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." If that title means little to you, that's OK because the article was, in fact, nonsense. It was part of an elaborate hoax and parody that Sokal was perpetrating on those who subscribe to "epistemic relativism," i.e., the belief that modern science is nothing more than myth, a "social construction."

This More...

4 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Dave rated it:

If you've ever had to read the postmodernist writings of Focault, Derrida, Lacan, or any of their innumerable disciples and come away with only the vaguest idea as to their meaning, you might want to read this book. But if like me, you regularly have to encounter postmodernism in the flesh and just don't get it, this is a must-read. It will reassure you that incoherent sentences mixed shameless displays of (false) erudition--although extremely humorous--cannot change the fact that reason, evid More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 29, 2011

zoot rated it:

I'm not a fan of much academic work that tends to be considered 'postmodernist' (well, maybe I agree with the conclusions often enough - I'm a fairly radical relativist on a lot of things, for example - but I can't get down with the style), and I'm definitely not a fan of academics writing at length about subjects of which they have little understanding, so this book is largely preaching to the converted with me. Still, it was kinda surprising just how utterly ridiculous some of the works discu More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 05, 2011

Daniel rated it:

This is a must read for anyone that has been exposed to so-called 'postmodern' thinkers. Personally, I think many of the ideas put forth by postmodern philosophers are intriguing, specially if not taken too seriously (which in many cases seems to actually be the intent). But I find the clueless use of mathematical and scientific jargon to appear more authorative ridiculous. It is rather entertaining to see some of the most pompous philosophers' absurd statements dissected. The book also has a su More...

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Aug 02, 2011

ABYY rated it:

Sokal and Bricmont launch a devastating critique of the pretentious and obscurantist tendencies of several authors in the pomo canon in this book. Their specific locus of attack is these philosophers' (and I use the term here in a very loose sense) misuse and deliberate abuse of scientific and mathematical concepts as a strategy to embellish and give an aura of credibility to very bad writing.

[A caveat: I'm not a philosopher, physicist, mathematician, literary theorist, psychoanalyst More...

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Mar 06, 2011

Llew rated it:

By themselves, the quotes used in this book are some of the finest examples of academic horseshit one might ever hope to come across. I still love a good meandering philosophy tome, but there is something highly important about what Sokal and company are doing here. This idea that, at a certain point, abusing science and math to continue your ideas is dumbing down the populace. That relativism may be used for cultural anthropology, but it needs to be abandoned when used in scientific understa More...

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Jul 08, 2010

Keely marked it as to-read

Why is it that whenever a theory of social science is found to be flawed, and loses the respect of the scientific community, it manages to find new success as a branch of literary criticism? Freud's theories are by this point laughable, and yet they persist as viable modes of literary analysis. Marx's tautological economic theories have gone the same way. If I had to predict, I'd say Chomsky is up next.

There is a point at which ahistoricism and structuralism are willing to accept any More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 17, 2011

Naxa rated it:

Do intellectual movements have a tendency to excess and over emphasize extremes? Yes. Did post-modernism/structuralism have a particularly large amount of excess in regards to science and mathematics? Yes.

This book was necessary as a pride busting measure in regards to some of these excesses, disinformation and mistakes made by people who are taken to be intellectuals at face value. That being said, the ironic thing is and this is alluded to somewhat at the end of the book, the atte More...

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Aug 22, 2009

Leila rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 10, 2009

Danielle rated it:

PoMo peeps always get so uptight about the hoax and this book, but they are absolutely right that if you don't know shit about science, don't fuckin' talk about it. Maybe ultimately Sokal and his friends don't get postmodernism, but the point is that they know enough to challenge PoMo's retardedness when it comes to science. Also very ironic that most PoMo will spew a lot of crap about Sokal but haven't actually read this book (because he actually doesn't hate PoMo in general at all).
Both More...

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Sep 06, 2011

Dorian rated it:

Ce livre vient donner suite à ce qu'on a appelé l'affaire Sokal. Il vient approfondir l'opinion de ce physicien qui avait déjà montré au monde scientifique son dégoût pour tout le verbiage postmoderne.

En tant que scientifique, il se permet d'analyser les passages mathématisant, physicalisant ou logicisant de certains ouvrages philosophiques influents. Il constate que le langage scientifique compliqué est souvent utilisé pour noyer les lecteurs dans une pseudo-érudition, et pour donner à un texte More...

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Apr 19, 2011

Maciej rated it:

Na początek test:

"Zdarza się, że stała-granica sama występuje jako stosunek do całości Wszechświata, któremu zostają przyporządkowane wszystkie elementy przy skończonych warunkach (ilość ruchu, siły, energii...). Brak tylko układów współrzędnych, do których odsyłają człony tej relacji: oto więc drugi sens granicy, zewnętrzne obramowanie lub zewnętrzna referencja. Te proto-granice, poza wszystkimi współrzędnymi, generują głównie odcięte prędkości, na których się wzniesie osie More...

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Apr 22, 2010

Worthless rated it:

Alan Sokal is known for having written a splendid parody known as the "Sokal Hoax", a paper submitted and published in the journal "Social Text" which criticizes certain academic trends in literary criticism, philosophy, and sociology, such trends being largely influenced by certain French philosophers. Categorizing these trends and philosophies under the regrettably vague moniker "postmodernism" (a term whose vagueness owes itself in no small part to the tendency f More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2011

David Glenn rated it:

Washington City Paper
Arts & Entertainment : Book Review

Liberté, Egalité, Obscurité
By Glenn Dixon • March 12, 1999

"If there's no math in it, it isn't science." Thus went the rejoinder propellerheads offered religious enthusiasts when, in the '80s, hinterland zealots attempted to get Genesis taught in public schools under the rubric of "creation science." But what of the inverse? If there is math in it, is science an inevitability? As any kid who s More...

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Sep 12, 2008

David rated it:

This is a very interesting follow-up to the famous "Sokal hoax", wherein physicist Alan Sokal wrote an spoof article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", and then submitted it to Social Text, a leading postmodern journal that publishes articles in the area of "science studies". As he suspected, the journal accepted the article, and what's more selected it for a special upcoming issue on the topic. In this book, More...

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Mar 29, 2008

Sami rated it:

A demolishing of the pretentions of philosophical frauds such as Lacan, Kristeva, Baudrillard and co. has been needed for some time now. Alan Sokal, perpetrator of the famous Sokal Hoax (in which a joke paper full of outrageous scientific nonsense cloaked under the guise of left-wing cant was accepted straight-faced into a trendy cultural studies journal), delivers here a scholarly dissection of the abuse of scientific concepts employed by post-modern philosophers. A professor of mathematics and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2007

Jafar rated it:

This book started off as a prank when Sokal sent an article to Social Text which was full of nonsense, but used pomo's vague and pompous style and confirmed some of their social/political beliefs. The editors, excited that a physicist has converted to their side, promptly published the article. Once caught, they refused to publish the subsequent paper in which Sokal explained the reason for his prank and how absurd the first article had been.

Richard Dawkins said it best in one of hi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 04, 2008

Marty rated it:

One of the authors of this book is Alan Sokal, who, to see just how far postmodernism had run amok, decided to submit a nonsensical article to the American cultural studies journal 'Social Text.'

The article was called "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" and as the title might lead you to believe was full of bullcrap of the highest order. Nonetheless, it was accepted to the journal.

http://www.human-nature.com/reason/books... More...

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Jun 01, 2009

Evan rated it:

An effete attempt to rescue science from important criticisms. The authors' criticisms of particular works were interesting and often valid, as was their larger criticism of obscurantism, but their defense of science as a method in the sections titled 'intermezzo' were often incorrect and missing the point.

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Aug 11, 2011

Benedict rated it:

If you ever find yourself thinking the postmodern French philosophers actually have a point. This is the book you need to read. It is simply undeniable proof that postmodern thinking is word-games, not actual theories. More sense is in these pages than most undergraduate arts degrees.

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Aug 23, 2011

Michael rated it:

Loved it. Rolling around giggling. Apparently 'epistemic relativism' means that science is only a narrative, a cultural and liguisitc construct, one of many... Actually, now I come to think of it, I have known a few academics that suffer from the problem highlighted in this book.

It would help the reader to have a passing knowledge of science, maths, and social-science theory and perhaps some exposure to the academic publications industry.

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Jul 10, 2010

Eric rated it:

I know lots of cult-studs aren't happy about Sokal or this book (actually co-authored with Jean Bricmont), but I loved it. They say at one point that abstract theoretical babbling that abuses ambiguous scientific references does nothing to advance genuine progressive political causes. Those causes are advanced by providing food (and means of producing food) to the hungry, medicine (and means of producing medicine) to the sick, etc.

Lots of superb analysis of pseudo-scientific theorizi More...

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Nov 24, 2010

Japanrick rated it:

A cautionary tale for those who are seduced by the relativism and the anti-rationality of post-modernism.

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Jan 18, 2010

Manny marked it as to-read

I've heard so much about this book, and I just can't imagine why I haven't read it!

4 comments like

Apr 07, 2008

Gerard rated it:

For the philosophically inclined. A penetrating analysis of how modern deconstructionists (many French), have taken Wittgenstein's insight on the indeterminacy of language and run with it. The insight that language is indeterminate (to an extent), emboldened many modern "philosophers" to say nothing and pretend that they actually did say something. Sokal has little patience for "philosophers" who conceal empty thoughts under the veil of complex, esoteric words and phrases. More...

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Sep 05, 2010

Behrouz rated it:

A very wonderful book. I like Sokal for his hoax!

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Sep 02, 2011

Tom rated it:

This book emphasizes just one of the many flaws that postmodernism has as a philosophy.

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