Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont -- Fashionable nonsense: postmodern intellectuals' abuse of science
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There are several smaller, but very interesting books packed inside
this one.  (1) There is a proposal for how to criticize postmodern,
structuralist, and poststructuralist philosophy, psychology, and use
of science and math.  (2) There are applications of this critical
program to several postmodern, poststructuralist thinkers and their
writings.  In this regard there are chapters on Jacques Lacan, Julia
Kristeva, Luce Irigaray,  Bruno Latour, Jean Baudrillard, and
others.  And, (3) there are two essays (Sokal and Bricmont call them
intermezzos), one on the philosophy of science and the other on
chaos theory. I'm guessing that Sokal and Bricmont feel these are
needed to counter the use of these as a wedge or entry way to
support the post structuralists' claims for the relativity of
science, in general, and social science, in particular.

In the intermezzo on supposed relativism in the philosophy of
science, Sokal and Bricmont argue against the use of two broad
claims by the post structuralists: (1) those based on Karl Popper's
use of falsifiability as the foundation for science and (2) those
based on the alternative paradigms thesis in Thomas Kuhn's "The
structure of scientific revolutions".  In general, the
postmodernists' conclusion that all scientific claims and
theories are relative to a particular culture is way too broad and
extreme.

There is another break from Sokal and Bricmont's criticism of
specific post structuralist writers: an "intermezzo" on chaos
theory.  Again, Sokal and Bricmont criticize the metaphorical use of
concepts and claims in chaos theory to make claims about philosophy
and about sociology.  They are particularly upset by the claims of
the post structuralists that all statements in sociology are
relative.  For Sokal and Bricmont this position amounts to saying
that we can make no true statements at all.

The "intermezzo" on chaos gives a critique of the post
structuralists' use of the terms linear and nonlinear and their
promotion of a new kind of thinking, nonlinear thinking.  Sokal and
Bricmont argue that the steps from the mathematical terms to the
notion of nonlinear thinking are not correct because of the lack of
understanding of those mathematical terms (there are actually two
notions of nonlinear used in mathematics) and because there really
is *no* connection between, for example, a nonlinear function (the
mathematical idea) and nonlinear thinking.  Nonlinear thinking,
according to Sokal and Bricmont, seems to be thinking that goes
beyond reason and, in order to do so, uses intuition and
subjectivity.  But, intuition and subjectivity have nothing to do
with the mathematical concept of nonlinear.  Sokal and Bricmont also
attack the argument that chaos theory, because it is postmodern
perhaps, justifies and supports this new nonlinear thought.  Sokal
and Bricmont argue that it is important to distinguish between the
use of the word "chaos" in chaos theory, where it is based on
situations that exhibit a high sensitivity to initial conditions,
and the use of "chaos" in fields like politics, history, sociology,
and theology, where it is used as a synonym for disorder.

This volume also contains a reprint of the article by Sokal that was
responsible for the "Sokal hoax": "Transgressing the boundaries:
toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity". (I've
likely misspelled a word or two in that title, at least my spell
checker tells me so.  But it's a hoax, after all; those words are
made-up ones, right?)

It's a good read, but I'll have to admit that I'm a bit miffed at
the willingness of Sokal and Bricmont to take the post- structuralists
seriously enough to give them the time for criticism. Once, you've
read a few lines of complete gibberish, shouldn't you just throw it
in the trash and go on to something that makes sense and is worth
discussing.  Call me old-fashioned, but philosophy and science
should both make sense.  Sokal and Bricmont are right when they
claim at times that it is difficult to decide whether these people
are being serious or are engaged in an extended joke pulling our leg
with such nonsensical verbiage (just as Sokal himself did, by the
way).

You also may become a bit tired of reading the same criticisms and
arguments over and over.  These *are* good arguments, but they
become a bit repetitious.

Trying to summarize a bit, Sokal and Bricmont's most common
arguments are these:  (1) The postmodernists do not understand the
science that they base their arguments on, which results in the
gibberish that they write.  (2) The postmodernists claim some
relation between specific scientific claims and sociology or
philosophy of science, but do not explain or justify that
relationship.  (3) They are vague about whether this relationship is
a metaphorical one or not, so we do not really know how to evaluate
it.  And, (4) what they write usually does not make much sense,
anyway.

A deeper objection is posed at the end of the chapter on Bruno
Latour.  Sokal and Bricmont object to the use of analogies between
sociology and scientific theory (in the case of Latour, his use of
relativity theory) for the purpose of explaining sociology to
Latour's readers.  What is wrong with that effort, they claim, is
that harder to understand than the sociology theory that Latour is
trying to use it to explain.

Actually, since so much of the sociology in this book makes so
little sense, perhaps Einstein's theories are *easier* to understand,
after all something that makes no sense is infinitely difficult to
understand.  Or, is it infinitely *easy*?

For those of you who are just here for the laughs, you might want to
jump directly to the chapter on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
(chapter 9 in my edition).  The passages quoted by Sokal and
Bricmont there are especially silly.

Wait.  Perhaps the chapter that immediately follows, is droller yet.
In it, Sokal and Bricmont include a quote which in the original
French is a single 193 word sentence.  I'll agree with their
description of it as "diarrhea of the pen".

In summary, if you believe that it is worthwhile to understand how
foolish arguments can lead to silly positions and conclusions, and I
do, then reading and thinking through this book is a valuable
exercise.

09/08/2011

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