Postmodernists Embarrased by Sokal
Noel Smith
The Linda Seebach article below, when posted a month ago in
alt.postmodern, elicited a great deal of discussion. As she says in
this article, "Living with such deception [...] is profoundly
corrupting."
TWO NEW, USEFUL POINTERS are Sokal's page, containing the _Social
Text_ article and other material, and Gavan Tredoux's excellent
Upstream pointers to material concerning the controversy:
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/physics/faculty/sokal/index.html
http://www.mosaic.co.za/gavan/Upstream/Issues/science/index.html
ALSO NEW: The National Organization of Scholars Science Newsletter
(new issues added twice-monthly) is an interesting, if biased, source:
http://www.nas.org/nassnl/contents.htm
[betinning of repost]
The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
this topic by Linda Seebach:
-*--
LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
(May 14, 1996 2:30 p.m. EDT) --
Physicist Alan Sokal of New York
University meticulously observed all the
rules of the academic game when he
constructed his article on postmodern
physics and submitted it to a prestigious
journal of cultural studies called "Social
Text."
The people he cites as authorities are the
superluminaries of the field, the quotations
he uses to illustrate his argument are
strictly accurate and the text is bristling
with footnotes.
All the rules but one, that is: Sokal's article
is a parody. Under the grandiloquent title
"Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum
Gravity," it appeared in the
Spring/Summer 1996 special issue of the
magazine, one entirely devoted to "the
science wars," as the editors term the
tension between people who actually do
science and the critics who merely theorize
about it.
Many scientists believe that the emperors
of cultural studies have no clothes. But
Sokal captured the whole royal court
parading around in naked ignorance and
persuaded the palace chroniclers to
publish the portrait as a centerfold.
Once the article was safely in print, Sokal
revealed his modest experiment. "Would a
leading journal of cultural studies," he
wrote in the May/June issue of Lingua
Franca, "publish an article liberally salted
with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and
(b) it flattered the editors' ideological
preconceptions?"
Unfortunately yes, and Sokal's deliberate
nonsense is anything but subtle. Translated
into plain English from the high-flown
language he borrowed for the occasion,
his first paragraph says that scientists "cling
to the dogma" that the external world
exists and its properties are independent of
what human beings think.
But nobody believes that old stuff any
more, right? Now we all know that
physical reality is "at bottom a social and
linguistic construct."
Is there a sound when a tree falls in the
forest and no one hears it? Under the
theory of social construction, there's not
even a tree.
There are so many red flags planted
throughout the paper that even
non-scientists should have spotted at least
one and started laughing," Sokal said
Thursday. "Either this is a parody or the
author is off his rocker."
Sokal was prompted into parody by a
1994 book, "Higher Superstition: The
Academic Left and Its Quarrels with
Science," by Paul Gross and Norman
Levitt, which ruffled a lot of postmodernist
feathers.
"I'm an academic leftist and I have no
quarrel with science," Sokal said, "so the
first thing I did was go to the library and
check their references, to see whether
(Gross and Levitt) were being fair" and
they were. In fact, he found even more
examples of scientific illiteracy, some of
them even worse.
"It would be so boring to refute them,"
Sokal said. "I picked the silliest quotes
from the most prominent people, and I
made up an argument for how they were
linked together."
Was Sokal's experiment ethical? "It's true
the author doesn't believe his own
arguments," he wrote in Lingua Franca.
"But why should that matter? If the 'Social
Text' editors find my arguments
convincing, then why should they be
disconcerted simply because I don't?"
They are disconcerted, of course, and for
reasons that transcend their private
embarrassment at being taken in. Sokal's
successful spoof calls into question the
intellectual standards of the whole field.
If you're chuckling, but inclined to think it's
just professors doing their usual
angels-on-a-pinhead thing, please do think
again. Tuition and fees at the priciest
private universities run nearly $1,000 for
each week of class. Taxpayers pick up a
big chunk of the bill for public universities.
Many of those classes are being taught, it
appears, by professors who deny the
distinction between truth and falsity and
consequently can't distinguish double-talk
from rational argument.
Maybe some of the junior professors and
the graduate students do know what
they're hearing is nonsense, but think it
would be harmful to their careers to speak
out. Living with such deception, possibly
for a lifetime, is profoundly corrupting.
Honest people just get out, leaving the
field to those who don't mind deception or
don't recognize it. It's hard to say which is
worse.
But it's easy to see why Sokal's spoof was
enticing to editors desperate for the
imprimatur of a working scientist on their
critical enterprise, and he even inserted the
evidence by quoting Andrew Ross, who
edited the special issue.
The kind of science that's needed, Ross
said, is one "that will be publicly
answerable and of some service to
progressive interests."
So that's the kind of science Sokal claimed
to be writing about.
"A liberatory science cannot be complete
without a profound revision of the canon
of mathematics," he concludes. "We can
see hints of (such emancipatory
mathematics) in the multidimensional and
nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory but
this approach is still heavily marked by its
origins in the crisis of late-capitalist
production relations." He drags in
catastrophe theory and chaos theory, too.
There is a political point to Sokal's
demonstration, but it's not the right-wing
one he's sure will be attributed to him.
He's proud to call himself a leftist, and his
resume includes a stint teaching
mathematics at the National University of
Nicaragua under the Sandinistas.
"If you take up crazy philosophies you
undermine your ability to tackle questions
of public policy, like ecology," he said. "It
really matters whether the world is
warming up."
I don't remotely share Sokal's political
views, but I agree with him that the
corruption of clear thought and clear
language is dangerous. And corruption has
to be exposed before it can be cleaned up.
(Linda Seebach is the editorial page editor of the Valley Times
(Pleasanton) and San Ramon Valley Times (Danville). Address: P.O. Box
607, Pleasanton CA 94566 Email: Vall...@aol.com)
-*--
For another take on Sokal's article, see:
http://www2.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/health/051896/health27_4591.html
In it, Sokal wrote: "It has thus become increasingly
apparent that physical 'reality,' no less than social
'reality,' is at bottom a social and linguistic
construct; that scientific 'knowledge,' far from
being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant
ideologies and power relations of the culture that
produced it."
-*--
Andrew Ross, at http://www.designsys.com/socialtext/new.html, explains
that the editors of "Social Text" thought Sokal's article flawed all
along, but published it as an example of (benighted) scientists' take
on the Science Wars.
- Noel
Ken MacIver
nsm...@eskimo.com (Noel Smith) wrote:
>The Linda Seebach article below, when posted a month ago in
>alt.postmodern, elicited a great deal of discussion. As she says in
>this article, "Living with such deception [...] is profoundly
>corrupting."
[snip of well written & interesting article by Seebach; anyone
remotely interested in the thread should call up Noel Smith's post &
read it]
The one quarrel I have with this - the only one, really - is that
Sokol's actions are also "profoundly corrupting." One rerfutes
nonsense and falsehoods - whether postmodernist claims or scientific
hoaxes - through debate, discussion, and evidence, not through the
violation of ethical standards. The casual acceptance of and praise
for Sokol's actions by some are the clearest demonstration I know that
those postmodernist critics are indeed on the same slippery slope they
claim for the pms. This justification of ethical corruption for some
greater good is utter nonsense.
Ken MacIver
Noel Smith
nsm...@eskimo.com (Noel Smith) wrote:
>wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu (Silke-Maria Weineck) wrote:
>>molinah@ wrote:
[quoted]
The objection of Science Studies and "Social Text" partisans _re_
science is, in large part, the belief that the demand for rigor is a
form of oppression--a denial of more immediate, intuitive, creative,
more instinctively _human_ responses. Those who quarrel with science
wish to argue that "other ways of knowing"--female, African,
^^^^^^
>>: All right, buddy, this popped me right out of lurker mode. I am an
>>: African Engineer who finds a lot to laugh at over postmodernism
>>: as I understand it so far in this thread, and I assure you most
>>: of my African colleagues would laugh as well. [by Uche]
>>[...] Happy
>>to know y'all doing fine in the physics world; [...]
>The section Uche quoted has the same objection to condescending
>notions of African science and engineering as he does.
>Uche added:
> In case you Americans don't know, we study Physics, Maths, and
> Invertebrate Zoology in Africa, and we do a pretty good job if my
> observations here in America serve as suitable reference.
>Absolutely. Science is the most international and objective of the
>professions, and Uche reaffirms that African science is SCIENCE--good
>science.
>>Silke
>- Noel
The source of "Those who quarrel with science wish to argue that
'other ways of knowing'--female, African,..."
^^^^^^^
which Uche objected to, above, is the following, posted online at:
http://www.nas.org/nassnl/2-2.htm
This material, which posits an African "science" different from
Western science, includes the statement that "The African concept of
causality, chance and/or probability is based upon a different logic
from that of science." It would be interesting to hear Uche's comments
on this.
[Beginning of excerpted material]
1) CONFERENCE PAPER: "African Science in the School Curriculum,"
by Brian Murfin, a paper presented at the NSTA National
Convention, Boston, 26-29 1992, contains descriptions of what
African science is and why it should be taught. Here are some
snippets, the entire text is available at:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/K-12/African_Science.html
The history of science as it has been taught in schools has
reflected an almost entirely white, European, male viewpoint.
Females and people of all cultures except Europeans have been
excluded [...] Many persons believe that science as practiced by
Africans, females and other cultures may hold the answers to some
of the intractable problems Western science has created. Molefi
Asante, the leading proponent of Afrocentrism, states that
"Western science, with its notions of knowledge of phenomena for
the sake of knowledge and its emphasis on technique and efficiency
is not deep enough for our humanistic and spiritual viewpoint"
[AFROCENTRICITY (New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1988), 80]. [...]
The following quote from Asante (p. 81) sums up the Afrocentric
attitude towards science:
The self is the center of the world,
animating it, and making it living and
personal. Neither materiality nor
spirituality are illusory. This is why the
idea in western science of progress is
troubling. Progress for the West, is not
more knowledge, but more technique.
How to do it faster, smoother, longer,
louder and with greater exploitation
becomes the pass-key to a
techno-scientific future. Progress in an
Afrocentric manner is related to the
development of human personality
because we are the source of life for
the material and the spiritual; when we
become more conscious of ourselves
we shall be advanced and make
progress.
Asante also points out that recent discoveries related to
energy, gravity, and quarks can be better explained using
non-western ideas. He gave the example of the search for
the smallest particle which has continued from atoms to electrons
to quarks and the Afrocentric realization by some scientists that
they may never find a discrete answer to this question. According
[to] Asante (p. 45) "Nothing is more right for you than the way
derived from your own historical experiences." [...]
The truth is that some phenomena are regular and some are not.
Western science selects as its subject matter those that are
regular and then finds it can predict their behavior. [...]
According to Ezeabasili (p. xii) "Western peoples have simply
absorbed only those aspects of Egyptian, Roman and Arab science
which appeal to a people with a mechanistic frame of mind...Western
science...is only a partial account of the truth.
African science [is] a way of describing and explaining nature
which has arisen within an African context and which does not rely
on the purported objectivism of Western science. An African
scientist considers the whole of a problem and does not believe it
possible to isolate and control variables in all situations.
African science accepts paradoxes and works with them. [...]
According to Ogunniyi (p. 3- 4), "The African concept of causality,
chance and/or probability is based upon a different logic from that
of science."
The belief in the laws of cause and effect is very strong in
Western culture. But the rest of the world throughout the
centuries has never bothered about these laws... the same cause
can have different effects; ...effects may be mistaken for causes;
and finally ... the mere fact of being posterior in time does not
make a thing an effect [...] Oginniyi also feels that Western
science is more concerned with things, i.e. inanimate objects,
while African science places more emphasis on people.
[End of excerpted material]
- Noel
molinah
>The source of "Those who quarrel with science wish to argue that
>'other ways of knowing'--female, African,..."
> ^^^^^^^
>which Uche objected to, above, is the following, posted online at:
>
>http://www.nas.org/nassnl/2-2.htm
>
>This material, which posits an African "science" different from
>Western science, includes the statement that "The African concept of
>causality, chance and/or probability is based upon a different logic
>from that of science." It would be interesting to hear Uche's comments
>on this.
Warning: I haven't been to the site. I don't see why I should waste my
time. all I have to go by is the quoted fragment.
I did say that the name "Africa" has been hoisted onto a great many
quixotic standards, but it may comfort you to know that as with other
peoples, our kooks are in the minority. Molefi Asante is a familiar
and tiresome name. I am very proud of my African heritage, but I
see no need to villify ancient Greeks or modern Jews in order to
maintain this pride. There are too many black scholars who are
doing just the above in the service of "Afrocentrism," and I do not
ally myself with any of them. I do not, for instance, see an need
to extrapolate on the role of ancient Egyptians, who are not really
my ancestors, or Islam, which has had as contentious an association
with black Africa as Christianity. The achievements of these two
cultures stand, and will be enlarged in good time by rigorous historical
study, not jingoistic bluster.
Do I think that there has been a thread of institutionalized racism in
science? Yes, but not much more than any other social phenomenom.
After all, Scientists are human, but overall science have been a lot less
culpable in this matter than religion or politics. Do I think that there
are cultural differences in perception of nature between Africans and
Europeans? Of course. What could be more natural? But just as
science encompasses differences in perception between Communist
Russians and Capitalist Americans, it can encompass differences
between African and Western world views, and there is no need to
pitch a separate tent unless one fears himself incapable of excelling
under accepted standards-- a fear with which I am not afflicted,
and neither are many of my native African colleagues.
Science has its faults, but for all of them, I think it is the greatest
unifying force in the modern world, and so I don't look highly on
ideas of "African Science" just as I wouldn't look highly on
"European Science" or "Asian Science".
--Uche
David Salvador Flores
In article <DtB59...@eskimo.com>, Noel Smith <nsm...@eskimo.com> wrote:
>The Linda Seebach article below, when posted a month ago in
>alt.postmodern, elicited a great deal of discussion. As she says in
>this article, "Living with such deception [...] is profoundly
>corrupting."
>
[deletia]
>[betinning of repost]
>The Nando Times Voices recently published the following article on
>this topic by Linda Seebach:
>
> -*--
>
>
>LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>
>(May 14, 1996 2:30 p.m. EDT) --
>Physicist Alan Sokal of New York
>University meticulously observed all the
>rules of the academic game when he
>constructed his article on postmodern
>physics and submitted it to a prestigious
>journal of cultural studies called "Social
>Text."
>
>The people he cites as authorities are the
>superluminaries of the field, the quotations
>he uses to illustrate his argument are
>strictly accurate and the text is bristling
>with footnotes.
Which the editors asked that Sokal remove, since
they appeared to be largely irrelevant "name dropping"
meant only to certify that the author had, in
fact, done some reading concerning social critques
of science and wasn't just blindly speculating.
The editors felt that the article was most interesting
as a non-specialists approximation to the field in
general, and thus the notes were superfluous. Sokal
declined, and the editors allowed the article to
be published unchanged.
>
>All the rules but one, that is: Sokal's article
>is a parody. Under the grandiloquent title
>"Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a
>Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum
>Gravity," it appeared in the
>Spring/Summer 1996 special issue of the
>magazine, one entirely devoted to "the
>science wars," as the editors term the
>tension between people who actually do
>science and the critics who merely theorize
>about it.
Or how about: tensions between people who
speculate on the epistomological and social
bases of science, and those who merely
practice the discipline without much
concern for its philosophical underpinnings.
After all, one can be an effective speaker
of a language without being a grammarian.
Does the existence of novelists make the
existence of grammmarians unjustified and
superfluous?
>
>Many scientists believe that the emperors
>of cultural studies have no clothes. But
>Sokal captured the whole royal court
>parading around in naked ignorance and
>persuaded the palace chroniclers to
>publish the portrait as a centerfold.
Sokal misrepresented his article as one scientist's
honest take on postmodernist approaches to science,
and got the editors to agree to publish his
piece.
Was the article also signed by all the editors? No?
How then, do you know that they accepted it whole
heartedly and without reservation? How many
philosophical journals publish only articles
with which their editors agree wholeheartedly
and without reservation?
>
>Once the article was safely in print, Sokal
>revealed his modest experiment. "Would a
>leading journal of cultural studies," he
>wrote in the May/June issue of Lingua
>Franca, "publish an article liberally salted
>with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and
>(b) it flattered the editors' ideological
>preconceptions?"
Sure, if (1) They took it to be an honest
representation of the author's views,
and (2) The author status as an outsider
to the field made his appraisal of the
field interesting in and of itself.
>
>Unfortunately yes, and Sokal's deliberate
>nonsense is anything but subtle. Translated
>into plain English from the high-flown
>language he borrowed for the occasion,
>his first paragraph says that scientists "cling
>to the dogma" that the external world
>exists and its properties are independent of
>what human beings think.
Gosh, a philosophical jurnal publishing an
article that argues for Idealism. Shame, shame.
Lets close down all publishing houses that dare
publish the works of Berkeley and Kant, and
burn all copies of Berkeley's _Dialogues._
>
>But nobody believes that old stuff any
>more, right? Now we all know that
>physical reality is "at bottom a social and
>linguistic construct."
>
>Is there a sound when a tree falls in the
>forest and no one hears it? Under the
>theory of social construction, there's not
>even a tree.
Have you been reading Lennin again? Your
portrayal of current cultural studies
reminds one of his caricature of
Empirocriticism.
[deletia]
>"I'm an academic leftist and I have no
>quarrel with science," Sokal said, "so the
>first thing I did was go to the library and
>check their references, to see whether
>(Gross and Levitt) were being fair" and
>they were. In fact, he found even more
>examples of scientific illiteracy, some of
>them even worse.
>
>"It would be so boring to refute them,"
>Sokal said. "I picked the silliest quotes
>from the most prominent people, and I
>made up an argument for how they were
>linked together."
If an honest attempt to engage the issues
at hand is too "boring" then perhaps
Mr. Sokul should simply leave the task
to others.
>
>Was Sokal's experiment ethical? "It's true
>the author doesn't believe his own
>arguments," he wrote in Lingua Franca.
>"But why should that matter? If the 'Social
>Text' editors find my arguments
>convincing, then why should they be
>disconcerted simply because I don't?"
And why does the article's publication entail
that the editors found his arguments convincing?
Did the editors sign his paper as one might
a declaration of principals, or a manifesto?
No.
Once again, academic journals in the humanities
do not publish only those articles with which
all editors agree. They exist in part as forums,
to stimulate discussion and air interesting
proposals and arguments. On occasion, as in this
case, special circumstances surrounding the
author's background make his article interesting
in and of itself.
>
>They are disconcerted, of course, and for
>reasons that transcend their private
>embarrassment at being taken in. Sokal's
>successful spoof calls into question the
>intellectual standards of the whole field.
Only to those unacquainted with the field.
>
>If you're chuckling, but inclined to think it's
>just professors doing their usual
>angels-on-a-pinhead thing, please do think
>again. Tuition and fees at the priciest
>private universities run nearly $1,000 for
>each week of class. Taxpayers pick up a
>big chunk of the bill for public universities.
>Many of those classes are being taught, it
>appears, by professors who deny the
>distinction between truth and falsity and
>consequently can't distinguish double-talk
>from rational argument.
How interesting that these "revelations" are
the product, not of "rational argument" butressed
by the rigors of scientific experimentation,
but rather, are the result of a whole lot of fierce
rhetoric surrounding the publication of an
article which the author himself has qualified
as empty rhetoric.
One is tempted to say that this entire debate
is, thus, a prime example of a socially
constructed reality... if it weren't for the
fact that reality is real, dammit, and not
socially constructed.
>
>Maybe some of the junior professors and
>the graduate students do know what
>they're hearing is nonsense, but think it
>would be harmful to their careers to speak
>out.
A blatant lie from one who, apparently, has had no
dealings with academia in the recent past. I just
sat in on a course with Rorty (the great Satan himself)
and believe me, there was plenty of dissent.
Living with such deception, possibly
>for a lifetime, is profoundly corrupting.
>Honest people just get out, leaving the
>field to those who don't mind deception or
>don't recognize it. It's hard to say which is
>worse.
Its hard to dsay which is worse, you misunderstanding
of the current state of academis, or your apparent
willingness to misrepresent it in such a way as to
justify your ideological project.
>
>But it's easy to see why Sokal's spoof was
>enticing to editors desperate for the
>imprimatur of a working scientist on their
>critical enterprise, and he even inserted the
>evidence by quoting Andrew Ross, who
>edited the special issue.
Just make sure you forget to mention that the
editors asked that Sokal remove most of his
citations.
>
>The kind of science that's needed, Ross
>said, is one "that will be publicly
>answerable and of some service to
>progressive interests."
Whereas everyone knows that scientists should
be made philosopher kings, answerable to no one,
their creations of service only to regressive
interests.
>
>So that's the kind of science Sokal claimed
>to be writing about.
Foolish of the editors to take this assertion
at face value, wasn't it?
>"A liberatory science cannot be complete
>without a profound revision of the canon
>of mathematics," he concludes. "We can
>see hints of (such emancipatory
>mathematics) in the multidimensional and
>nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory but
>this approach is still heavily marked by its
>origins in the crisis of late-capitalist
>production relations." He drags in
>catastrophe theory and chaos theory, too.
How foolish of the editors of a philosophical journals
to print unusual claims regarding mathematics
by an individual with specialized mathematical
training.
Its interesting to note, actually, that the above
claims are really quite nebulous and non-specific.
The author claims that fuzzy logic (pioneered
by a couple of philosophers BTW) is a first
step in the process of a "profound revision of
the cannon of mathematics." He also claims that
it is "marked by its origins in..." late capitalist
society.
The author is making a number of speculations whose
"extravagance" is a product exclusively of the
rhetorical trappings in which it is enveloped.
Its certainly plausible, for instance that fuzzy
logic could be considered a "revision" of the
cannon of mathematics. Whether it is a "profound"
revision is a question more of rhetorical, than
mathematical importance. Is it "marked by its
origins in..." late capitalist society? Well,
if by late Capitalist society you mean the 1990's
in the US, then the question that remiains is
simply: What does the author mean by the term "marked?"
Frankly, it can mean pretty much anything. Thus
its significance is, here again, merely rhetorical.
There are no claims above of the nature: "In the future
PI will be shown to be a rational prime" which would
easily and inevitably raise a cautionary flag with
a competent editor.
>
>There is a political point to Sokal's
>demonstration, but it's not the right-wing
>one he's sure will be attributed to him.
>He's proud to call himself a leftist, and his
>resume includes a stint teaching
>mathematics at the National University of
>Nicaragua under the Sandinistas.
>
>"If you take up crazy philosophies you
>undermine your ability to tackle questions
>of public policy, like ecology," he said. "It
>really matters whether the world is
>warming up."
>
>I don't remotely share Sokal's political
>views,
Big surprise there.
but I agree with him that the
>corruption of clear thought and clear
>language is dangerous. And corruption has
>to be exposed before it can be cleaned up.
corruption of clear thought being anything that
disagrees with your particular ideological agenda,
of course.
If I were to hazard a guess, I'd wager that to you,
clear language is something like: Common sense speaking,
the kinds of things that any fellah, like you and me can
understand, not all that intellectual mumbo jumbo you
gotta have a college degree to understand.
Gotcha, now when is it you'd like to be made Duche?
>
>(Linda Seebach is the editorial page editor of the Valley Times
>(Pleasanton) and San Ramon Valley Times (Danville). Address: P.O. Box
>607, Pleasanton CA 94566 Email: Vall...@aol.com)
>
-Dave
David Wilkins
In article <DtJJ8...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> ds...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (David Salvador Flores) writes:
>>LINDA SEEBACH: Scientist trolls for gullible academic fish
>>
>>The people he cites as authorities are the
>>superluminaries of the field, the quotations
>>he uses to illustrate his argument are
>>strictly accurate and the text is bristling
>>with footnotes.
>
>Which the editors asked that Sokal remove, since
>they appeared to be largely irrelevant "name dropping"
>meant only to certify that the author had, in
>fact, done some reading concerning social critques
>of science and wasn't just blindly speculating.
>The editors felt that the article was most interesting
>as a non-specialists approximation to the field in
>general, and thus the notes were superfluous. Sokal
>declined, and the editors allowed the article to
>be published unchanged.
>
The point is that Sokal would naturally be reluctant to
remove the footnotes. Some of the most amusing parts
of the parody are to be found there, and removing them
would weaken the points that Sokal was trying to make.
Sokal clearly intended his parody to be read by people
outside the field of cultural studies: people such as
physicists and mathematicians. In very many of the footnotes
Sokal has extracted what he considers to samples of the most
egregious misunderstandings of scientific facts and ideas,
or the most obscure and incomprehensible prose, from the works
of the superluminaries cited. Others are highly amusing nonsense
concocted by Sokal himself. A typical example is note 104 on
`examples of sexism and militarism in mathematics'. Can you see
the significance of the first example, taken from the theory of
branching processes?
Also Sokal needed to ensure that a physicist or
mathematician reading the article would cotton on to the
fact that it was a genuine spoof. See for example note 86:
Markley (1992, 264). A minor quibble: It is not clear to me
that complex number theory, which is a new and still quite speculative
branch of mathematical physics, ought to be accorded the same
epistemological status as the three firmly established sciences
cited by Markley.
Leading lights in the development of `complex number theory' include
Cardano (1501-1576), Gauss (1777-1855), Cauchy (1759-1857),
Hamilton (1805-1865)...
Noel Smith
Uche wrote:
>>The source of "Those who quarrel with science wish to argue that
>>'other ways of knowing'--female, African,..."
>> ^^^^^^^
>>which Uche objected to, above, is the following, posted online at:
>>http://www.nas.org/nassnl/2-2.htm
>>This material, which posits an African "science" different from
>>Western science, includes the statement that "The African concept of
>>causality, chance and/or probability is based upon a different logic
>>from that of science." It would be interesting to hear Uche's comments
>>on this.
Uche:
Warning: I haven't been to the site. I don't see why I should
waste my time. all I have to go by is the quoted fragment.
As Uche wrote below:
Science has its faults, but for all of them, I think it is
the greatest unifying force in the modern world, and so I don't
look highly on ideas of "African Science" just as I wouldn't
look highly on "European Science" or "Asian Science".
This is the point NASSNL meant by reposting the Africanist article
(they understand that it speaks for itself), but it's seldom been
stated with more clarity and brevity.
Uche:
>-Uche
Well done.
- Noel
Ethan Vishniac
I strongly disagree.
Sokal's hoax lasted just long enough to get the article into print,
at which point he came clean. This couldn't possibly be described
as inserting a falsehood into public discourse, since anyone who
knows about the article also knows he publicly disavowed it.
IMHO, Sokal took the appropriate course of action when an honest,
two way conversation has become impossible, which is to demonstrate
that fact in a public manner. I would regard this as being in
the same category as a similar deception by the Amazing Randi several
years ago, in which he demonstrated that the experimental protocols
being used by some ESP researchers were inadequate by sending two
bogus psychics through their lab. It's worth noting that the amazing
Randi tried to point out their experimental deficiencies directly to
the researchers, without success. In this case, any number of people
have tried to point out that the excesses of litcrit are such as to
destroy any possibility of meaningful discourse.
"Quis tamen tale studium, quo ad primam omnium rerum causam evehimur,
tamquam inutile aut contemnendum detractare ac deprimere ausit?"-Bridel
Ethan T. Vishniac ---> http://grendel.as.utexas.edu/Welcome.html
Dept. of Astronomy also Associate Professor of Astrophysiology
The University of Texas G.G. Simpson Hereditable Chair of Evilution
Austin, Texas, 78712 University of Ediacara
et...@astro.as.utexas.edu `Knowledge, Wisdom, Beer'
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4qeesa$q...@news-old.tiac.net>, nanken@tiac (Ken MacIver) writes:
>The one quarrel I have with this - the only one, really - is that
>Sokol's actions are also "profoundly corrupting." One rerfutes
>nonsense and falsehoods - whether postmodernist claims or scientific
>hoaxes - through debate, discussion, and evidence, not through the
>violation of ethical standards. The casual acceptance of and praise
>for Sokol's actions by some are the clearest demonstration I know that
>those postmodernist critics are indeed on the same slippery slope they
>claim for the pms. This justification of ethical corruption for some
>greater good is utter nonsense.
What ethical corruption are you referring to?? The editors for SOCIAL
TEXT decided for themselves that the paper was up to their standards.
Nowhere did Sokal include fraudulent data. He plagiarized nobody.
Ever claim was documented (at least by ST's standards). And so on.
A crackpot who sends his circle squaring gibberish to a mathematics
journal is not being _unethical_, now is he?
Do you mean Sokal was supposed to include a disclaimer, "oh, by the way,
anyone with utterly minimal ability to speak coherently about science
in the first place--which you editors claim to have in spades--will
have no trouble recognizing this paper as total tripe"?
Judging by many of the other papers published in the same issue, total
tripe is A-OK by SOCIAL TEXTS standards, so there's no need for such
in the first place.
Really, I have no idea of what you mean.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
David Salvador Flores
In article <4qogo4$g...@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie>,
David Wilkins <dwil...@maths.tcd.ie> wrote:
>In article <DtJJ8...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> ds...@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (David Salvador Flores) writes:
>>>
>>>The people he cites as authorities are the
>>>superluminaries of the field, the quotations
>>>he uses to illustrate his argument are
>>>strictly accurate and the text is bristling
>>>with footnotes.
>>
>>Which the editors asked that Sokal remove, since
>>they appeared to be largely irrelevant "name dropping"
>>meant only to certify that the author had, in
>>fact, done some reading concerning social critques
>>of science and wasn't just blindly speculating.
>>The editors felt that the article was most interesting
>>as a non-specialists approximation to the field in
>>general, and thus the notes were superfluous. Sokal
>>declined, and the editors allowed the article to
>>be published unchanged.
>>
>
>remove the footnotes. Some of the most amusing parts
>of the parody are to be found there, and removing them
>would weaken the points that Sokal was trying to make.
Of course it would weaken the point he weas trying to
make. It would show that the editors were (1) not publishing
it just because he was quoting them an awful lot (as he
has charged) and (2) that the editors considered these
aspects important to the argument as a whole.
Again, the editors have pointed out that they thought the
article worthy of publication mostly because they took
it to be an honest appraisal of contemporary post-modern
critiques of science by a working scientist.
When one considers just how divided the two disciplines
really are, any attempt to cross over reflects an event of
some significance.
One would have preferred, of course, that Sokal offer
the kind of honest critique that he felt would prove
too "boring."
Actually, one would have preferred that Sokal talk this through
first with someone who is actually actively engaged in the
field. After a few afternoons at his favorite Cafe perhaps
he'd be in a better position to engage the arguments and
enter into the debate.
-Dave
Travis C. Porco
>The one quarrel I have with this - the only one, really - is that
>Sokol's actions are also "profoundly corrupting." One rerfutes
>nonsense and falsehoods - whether postmodernist claims or scientific
>hoaxes - through debate, discussion, and evidence, not through the
>violation of ethical standards.
The notion that Sokal's article for Social Text was somehow
unethical seems to occasionally surface.
As Sokal himself put it in his _Lingua Franca_ article,
"...I'm not oblivious to the ethical issues involved in my
rather unorthodox experiment. Professional communities
operate largely on trust; deception undercuts that trust.
But it is important to understand exactly what I did. My
article is a theoretical essay based entirely on publicly
available sources, all of which I have meticulously
footnoted. All works cited are real, and all quotations are
rigorously accurate; none are invented. Now it's true that
the author doesn't believe his own argument. But why should
that matter? The editors' duty as scholars is to judge the
validity and interest of ideas, without regard for their
provenance. ... If the _Social Text_ editors find my
arguments convincing, then why should they be disconcerted
simply because I don't? Or are they more deferent to the
so-called `cultural authority of technoscience' than they
would care to admit?" (page 64, May/June 1996, _Lingua Franca_)
Had the article been good, someone could have convincingly
quoted his article back at Sokal, and refuted his
recantation.
>The casual acceptance of and praise
>for Sokol's actions by some are the clearest demonstration I know that
>those postmodernist critics are indeed on the same slippery slope they
>claim for the pms.
This is a mistake. Sokal continued:
"...I resorted to parody for a simple pragmatic reason. The
targets of my critique have by now become a
self-perpetuating academic subculture that typically ignores
or disdains criticisms from the outside. In such a
situation, a more direct demonstration of the subculture's
intellectual standards was required...Satire is by far the
best weapon..." page 64.
The subculture has _already_ abandoned the "high ground" and the
usual conventions. Reasoned debate has not been successful.
It is very important to realize that Sokal's satire is not
simply a ridiculing of someone's ideas, but rather has relied
on a considerable body of argument and prior criticism.
He is providing more evidence that in "some precincts of the
academic humanities", sound argument is neglected. By
exhibiting this in a clear and unmistakable way, Sokal has
provided a striking _defense_ of clear argument by making
the clear arguments audible above the rhetoric.
There is nothing wrong with using rhetorical methods to
counter rhetoriticians.
>This justification of ethical corruption for some
>greater good is utter nonsense.
This is a mistaken view. Corruption is far too strong a word
to describe Sokal's use of rhetoric in defense of clear
standards in this particular case.
--Travis Porco
speaking for myself
Austin Cline
In article <4qeesa$q...@news-old.tiac.net>, nan...@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) wrote:
<snip
>The one quarrel I have with this - the only one, really - is that
>Sokol's actions are also "profoundly corrupting."
How so? Please be specific.
One rerfutes
>nonsense and falsehoods - whether postmodernist claims or scientific
>hoaxes - through debate, discussion, and evidence, not through the
>violation of ethical standards.
Please list which specific ethical standards were violated - either the
ethical standards of the journal in question or the ethical standards to
which scientists like Sokol are generally supposed to adhere to, whether
publishing in a journal or not.
Last I heard, submitting a bunch of garbage to a journal for publication
was a waste of time and a bit foolhardy, but not a "violation of ethical
standards."
The casual acceptance of and praise
>for Sokol's actions by some are the clearest demonstration I know that
>those postmodernist critics are indeed on the same slippery slope they
>claim for the pms. This justification of ethical corruption for some
>greater good is utter nonsense.
Please provide specific details of the "ethical corruption" (supported by
precisely which "ethical standards" were violated) which is being
justified. Explain, in detail, how and why Sokol participated in "ethical
corruption" for submitting a stupid article to an even more stupid journal
for publication.
If I submit an article for publication and I don't actually agree with the
conclusions of that article, am I being unethical?
What is the point of having editors in a journal if not to make sure that
their journal doesn't publish anything stupid?
Austin Cline; German Department; Princeton University
--- All great things bring about their own destruction through an act of
self-overcoming... In this way Christianity *as a dogma* was destroyed by its
own morality... After Christian truthfulness has drawn one inference after
another, it must end by drawing *its most striking* inference, its inference
*against* itself; this will happen, however, when it poses the question
"*What is the meaning of all will to truth?*" [Nietzsche; Genealogy of
Morality (III, 27)]
Gordon Fitch
arc...@phoenix.princeton.edu (Austin Cline):
| ....
| ethical standards of the journal in question or the ethical standards to
| which scientists like Sokol are generally supposed to adhere to, whether
| publishing in a journal or not.
|
| Last I heard, submitting a bunch of garbage to a journal for publication
| was a waste of time and a bit foolhardy, but not a "violation of ethical
| standards."
et...@grendel.as.utexas.edu (Ethan Vishniac):
| ...
| Sokal's hoax lasted just long enough to get the article into print,
| at which point he came clean. This couldn't possibly be described
| as inserting a falsehood into public discourse, since anyone who
| knows about the article also knows he publicly disavowed it.
| ...
Sokal's hoax probably exceeds the normal game rules for
conflict within academia. These would be an ethical
protocol which preserved the general power and efficacy of
the system. Probably, subgroups may be attacked but
generally not destroyed. If "postmodernism" in the form of
such things as _Social_Text_ was effectively disabled, this
would lead to a situation in which the "postmodernism" of
the streets would develop unobserved, unregulated, and
uncoopted -- an undesirable and therefore unethical
outcome.
Sokal said that his hoax was necessary because
straightforward criticism of "postmodernism" was ignored
or surpressed. However, it seems to me that that is
like saying that criticism of witchcraft was ignored or
suppressed in 17th-century Salem, with this difference:
the Salemites knew what witchcraft was.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4qr6ir$m...@panix2.panix.com>, gcf@panix (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>Sokal's hoax probably exceeds the normal game rules for conflict
>within academia. These would be an ethical protocol which preserved
>the general power and efficacy of the system. Probably, subgroups
>may be attacked but generally not destroyed. If "postmodernism" in
>the form of such things as _Social_Text_ was effectively disabled,
>this would lead to a situation in which the "postmodernism" of the
>streets would develop unobserved, unregulated, and uncoopted -- an
>undesirable and therefore unethical outcome.
Why is that undesirable? That is where it belongs, no?
>Sokal said that his hoax was necessary because straightforward
>criticism of "postmodernism" was ignored or surpressed. However, it
>seems to me that that is like saying that criticism of witchcraft was
>ignored or suppressed in 17th-century Salem, with this difference:
>the Salemites knew what witchcraft was.
No, no, no. It is more like laughing at Gordon being a self-made idiot.
Ken MacIver
In article <4qeesa$q...@news-old.tiac.net>, Ken MacIver
nan...@tiac.net> wrote:
>The one quarrel I have with this - the only one, really - is that
>Sokol's actions are also "profoundly corrupting." One rerfutes
>nonsense and falsehoods - whether postmodernist claims or scientific
>hoaxes - through debate, discussion, and evidence, not through the
>violation of ethical standards. The casual acceptance of and praise
>for Sokol's actions by some are the clearest demonstration I know that
>those postmodernist critics are indeed on the same slippery slope they
>claim for the pms. This justification of ethical corruption for some
>greater good is utter nonsense.
>At the CSICOP Conference in Buffalo, Steven Jay Gould said pretty much
the same thing. The integrity of scholarship and science
has apparently been wounded, grievously so, it seems. It's obvious
that the prestige of his postmodernist buddies were badly
wounded by this hoax.
>Gould gave the example of a good paper
he recently heard at a palentologists' conference, whose title
sounded like silly jibberish. He was trying to make the point that
some things we judge as jibberish may really have value.
But his argument (as usual) was
rather specious, as he himself informs us that the paper did not
consist entirely of jibberish, only its title. A better analogy
would be: a paper accepted at a conference, which consisted of
nothing but jibberish.
The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
for those whose oxen have been gored).
Or except for those who believe, as do I, that trust is at the heart
of the editor-writer relationship.
>Robert Sheaffer - Robert....@siemensrolm.com - Skeptical to the Max!
Ken MacIver
extremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
for those whose oxen have been gored).
Or except for those who believe that trust is at the heart of the
editor-writer relationship.
>Robert Sheaffer - Robert....@siemensrolm.com - Skeptical to the Max!
Ken MacIver
Jonathan W. Hendry
<snip>
: Or except for those who believe that trust is at the heart of the
: editor-writer relationship.
What about the trust that is at the heart of the reader-editor
relationship?
--
Jonathan W. Hendry Views expressed herein do
Steel Driving Software, Inc. not represent those of
stee...@ix.netcom.com Steel Driving Software, Inc.
j...@exnext.com or Lexis-Nexis
Patrick Juola
>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>
>of the editor-writer relationship.
I beg your pardon, Mr. MacIver. Did you just state that the fact
under discussion (*) is *not valuable* if you believe that trust is at
the heart of the editor-writer relationships?
I think I lack the casuistry to dismiss a piece of information as
"not valuable" on an ethical basis. I could understand an objection
to relevance or to accuracy, but to *ethics*?
Patrick
(*) "High-grad postmodernist papers cannot readily be distinguished
from jibberish[sic]."
moggin
[...]
>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>extremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>for those whose oxen have been gored).
Would you kindly explain how Sokal's hoax demonstrates that
about "postmodernist papers" in general, and "high-grade" ones, in
particular? After all, the information would only be valuable if it
was accurate, and so far you haven't given any reason to think it is.
-- moggin
Claudia HCQ Sorsby
In article <4qu4tm$c...@news-old.tiac.net>, Ken MacIver <nan...@tiac.net> wrote:
>
>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>
>Or except for those who believe, as do I, that trust is at the heart
>of the editor-writer relationship.
Oh, horse-hockey. I am an editor, and I think you've confused "trust" with
"blind faith."
Please remember, writers are notoriously sloppy. This is why publishers hire
fact-checkers, copy editors, and proofreaders. Or should they not bother, in
the name of "trust"?
In this case, Sokal submitted an article which, on its face, made little to
no sense. The editors published it anyway. Now, a good editor would not have
said, "Oh, I trust this guy, whom I don't know and have never met.
Academics are always intelligent and he's using the right buzzwords, so it
must make sense." A good editor would either have been able to read it and
understand it himself, or would have gone out and found someone in the
relevant field to help him understand it. The fact that the editors of
Social Text failed to do this does not make Sokal's actions unethical.
Look at it another way. What if a writer submitted a serious piece to a
publisher, not realizing there was a major flaw in it? Most writers would
hope that their editors would be on the ball enough to catch the mistake,
and thus prevent them from embarrassing themselves. The writer is "trusting"
the editor, in that case, to act as a backstop, another layer of checking.
An editor who just lets stuff run "on trust," without bothering to
understand it, is not doing anyone any favors.
If I were to correct your spelling of the word "jibberish," above, to the
proper "gibberish," would I then have violated some trust? If I were your
editor, I'd say I'd be violating your trust if I didn't.
I worked at a financial magazine once. There was a writer on staff who was
legendary for his factual errors. Basically, it was a safe assumption that
any facts presented in his article were wrong. He was the kind of guy who
could -- and often did -- interview someone for hours, bring home their
business card, and then spell their name wrong. (He was kept on because he
had fabulous contacts, not for his writing ability.) The editors, having
accepted the responsibility of working with him, then committed themselves
to the work of checking his stuff extra extra carefully. Believe me, "trust"
was not part of the equation.
Claudia
Travis C. Porco
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
>shea...@italy.eng.sc.rolm.com (Robert Sheaffer):
>[...]
>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>extremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
> Would you kindly explain how Sokal's hoax demonstrates that
>about "postmodernist papers" in general, and "high-grade" ones, in
>particular? After all, the information would only be valuable if it
>was accurate, and so far you haven't given any reason to think it is.
Let's go through it again. If I claimed to be an expert on
wine, but could not tell a pint of bobcat piss from a bottle of
fine California Pinot Noir, my credibility as a wine expert
would drop, to say the least. You might not trust the "wine"
from my cellar after such a demonstration.
Suppose someone claimed to be a physician but couldn't tell
a common cold from gout. Would _you_ go to such a "physician"?
Said "physician's" credibility takes a hit.
Suppose someone claimed to be able to supernaturally read
Egyptian scrolls using divine guidance and something called
the Urim and Thummim. Then suppose one of his confidently
prepared translations was shown to be _utterly_ and _totally_
mistaken. Sad to say, this has actually happened; said "prophet's"
credibility has to go down.
Similarly, the credibility of the editors of Social Text has
dropped, because they were unable to distinguish the most
utter piffle from sound reasoning. Their credibility takes a
hit. Since they can't tell nonsense when it walks up and
kisses them on the nose, maybe they can't tell it at all.
Maybe a good bit of the pretentiously presented pomostuff is
just plain vacant.
Of course, Sokal's hoax does not _prove_ that ST and
postmodernism consist even largely of piffle, but it sure is
consistent with that theory, and sure illustrates it very well.
Combine it with such books as Gross & Levitt, and it's time for
pomoids to turn out the lights and put up the chairs.
Clifford O. Thompson
C. Porco) writes:
[...]
|>
|> Suppose someone claimed to be a physician but couldn't tell
|> a common cold from gout. Would _you_ go to such a "physician"?
|> Said "physician's" credibility takes a hit.
But medicine does not, just said physician
|>
|> Suppose someone claimed to be able to supernaturally read
|> Egyptian scrolls using divine guidance and something called
|> the Urim and Thummim. Then suppose one of his confidently
|> prepared translations was shown to be _utterly_ and _totally_
|> mistaken. Sad to say, this has actually happened; said "prophet's"
|> credibility has to go down.
Last time I checked, said prophet seemed to be credible with plenty of
people. Been a while since I've been to Salt Lake City, though...
|>
|> Similarly, the credibility of the editors of Social Text has
|> dropped, because they were unable to distinguish the most
|> utter piffle from sound reasoning. Their credibility takes a
|> hit. Since they can't tell nonsense when it walks up and
|> kisses them on the nose, maybe they can't tell it at all.
|> Maybe a good bit of the pretentiously presented pomostuff is
|> just plain vacant.
See above comment about your physician analogy.
|>
|> Of course, Sokal's hoax does not _prove_ that ST and
|> postmodernism consist even largely of piffle, but it sure is
|> consistent with that theory, and sure illustrates it very well.
|> Combine it with such books as Gross & Levitt, and it's time for
|> pomoids to turn out the lights and put up the chairs.
Or maybe you should spend time on things you enjoy, rather than
things you're irritated by.
|>
|> --Travis Porco
|> speaking for myself
|>
Cliff, who could care less, but finds all this worrying about pomo
to be somewhat anal-retentive...
--
"That's like hypnotizing chickens."
--- Iggy Pop, "Lust for Life"
Ken MacIver
>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote:
><snip>
>: Or except for those who believe that trust is at the heart of the
>: editor-writer relationship.
>What about the trust that is at the heart of the reader-editor
>relationship?
It's a question of intent, I think. If you are suggesting that the
editors knew Sokol's piece was a hoax and ran it to put one over on
the readers then I would agree that this, if true, was also a
violation of trust as stated above.
Ken
Silke-Maria Weineck
: In article <4qugn3$g...@bessel.nando.net>,
: moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
: > Would you kindly explain how Sokal's hoax demonstrates that
: >about "postmodernist papers" in general, and "high-grade" ones, in
: >particular? After all, the information would only be valuable if it
: >was accurate, and so far you haven't given any reason to think it is.
[...]
: Similarly, the credibility of the editors of Social Text has
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: dropped, because they were unable to distinguish the most
: utter piffle from sound reasoning. Their credibility takes a
: hit. Since they can't tell nonsense when it walks up and
: kisses them on the nose, maybe they can't tell it at all.
: Maybe a good bit of the pretentiously presented pomostuff is
: just plain vacant.
Need I say more?
: Of course, Sokal's hoax does not _prove_ that ST and
: postmodernism consist even largely of piffle, but it sure is
: consistent with that theory, and sure illustrates it very well.
Ah, I need to -- but frankly, Travis, it's too much to ask.
Silke
Sourcerer
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>Of course, Sokal's hoax does not _prove_ that ST and
>postmodernism consist even largely of piffle, but it sure is
>consistent with that theory, and sure illustrates it very well.
>pomoids to turn out the lights and put up the chairs.
I assume you refer to Higher Superstition...which gives me the
opportunity to ask if you read Jeffery Shallit's review in The Skeptic
(http://204.245.15.41/03.1.shallit-higher.html), and if so what you
thought of it.
--
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O
\../ |OO|||O|||O|| When all is debt
|| OO|||OO||O||O all is usury
Matthew P Wiener
The suggestion on the floor--you're remarkably dense for not noticing--
is that the readers trust the editors to screen out the piffle ahead of
time. Of course, perhaps ST's readers expect the editors to screen out
the reasonable and intelligent first, and no one told Sokal that, and
thus this discussion has been moot all along.
Dave Halliwell
>uhe...@meaddata.com (Jonathan W. Hendry) wrote:
>>Ken MacIver (nan...@tiac.net) wrote:
>>: Or except for those who believe that trust is at the heart of the
>>: editor-writer relationship.
>>What about the trust that is at the heart of the reader-editor
>>relationship?
>It's a question of intent, I think. If you are suggesting that the
>editors knew Sokol's piece was a hoax and ran it to put one over on
>the readers then I would agree that this, if true, was also a
>violation of trust as stated above.
The reader, selecting a journal as a source of new information about a
topic of interest, generally assumes that the editors know more about the
topic. As a result, the reader is entrusting the editors to do some sort
of pre-screening, so that the reader doesn't have to wade through every
whacko idea that comes along. The editors select material that they feel
has passed some form of scrutiny, and then the material is released to
the discipline-at-large for further scrutiny.
An editor that can't provide useful screening wastes the time of the
readers. Editors make mistakes, though, so readers still have to take
everything they read with a grain of salt. Editors that make more
frequent or more important mistakes betray the trust that readers [may]
have in them.
In the words of Colonel Sigfreid, the editors of _Social_Text_ "made
one *veerrry* big mistake!"
--
Dave Halliwell I don't speak for my employers, and you
Edmonton, Alberta shouldn't expect them to speak for me.
Ken MacIver
>In article <4qu4tm$c...@news-old.tiac.net> nan...@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) writes:
>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>>
>>Or except for those who believe, as do I, that trust is at the heart
>>of the editor-writer relationship.
>I beg your pardon, Mr. MacIver. Did you just state that the fact
>under discussion (*) is *not valuable* if you believe that trust is at
>the heart of the editor-writer relationships?
Yes. However, this is in the context of the whole discussion and not
just the two paragraphs you quoted, only one of which I wrote.
>I think I lack the casuistry to dismiss a piece of information as
>"not valuable" on an ethical basis. I could understand an objection
>to relevance or to accuracy, but to *ethics*?
> Patrick
Your quoted parts above dont mention ethics. If you are referring to
earlier posts, there I talked about ethics and trust as they relate to
obligations of writers and expectations of editors concerning the
submission of articles. Nothing whatsoever was metnioned about "not
valuable" in that post.
Ken
Ken MacIver
In article <4qu4tm$c...@news-old.tiac.net>, Ken MacIver
nan...@tiac.net> wrote:
>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>for those whose oxen have been gored).
This is not my post.
This is:
Or except for those who believe, as do I, that trust is at the heart
of the editor-writer relationship.
>Oh, horse-hockey. I am an editor, and I think you've confused "trust" with
>"blind faith."
>Please remember, writers are notoriously sloppy. This is why publishers hire
>fact-checkers, copy editors, and proofreaders. Or should they not bother, in
>the name of "trust"?
I too am an editor and when I say trust what I mean is an expectation
that the author of a submitted article is not trying to play a trick
on me. That may be naive on my part these days but I dont like a
world where, as you seem to suggest, an editor must treat every author
as an enemy trying to trick him. That is very different from
editorial responsibilities such as evaluating the quality of an
article, checking its basic facts, line editing and the like.
On the other hand, I would pay serious money to see a game of
horse-hockey.
>In this case, Sokal submitted an article which, on its face, made little to
>no sense. The editors published it anyway. Now, a good editor would not have
>said, "Oh, I trust this guy, whom I don't know and have never met.
>Academics are always intelligent and he's using the right buzzwords, so it
>must make sense." A good editor would either have been able to read it and
>understand it himself, or would have gone out and found someone in the
>relevant field to help him understand it. The fact that the editors of
>Social Text failed to do this does not make Sokal's actions unethical.
That is true enough. What makes, in my opinion, Sokol's actions
unethical is his admitted intent to play a hoax on the journal's
editors. Worse, Sokol was apparently a known author, as stated
elsewhere in this thread, which gave him more credibility than an
uncredentialed unknown.
>Look at it another way. What if a writer submitted a serious piece to a
>publisher, not realizing there was a major flaw in it? Most writers would
>hope that their editors would be on the ball enough to catch the mistake,
>and thus prevent them from embarrassing themselves. The writer is "trusting"
>the editor, in that case, to act as a backstop, another layer of checking.
>An editor who just lets stuff run "on trust," without bothering to
>understand it, is not doing anyone any favors.
You are correct. I did not, however, suggest that an editor run
something on trust, only that he should have an expectation of trust
in his writer's intent.
>If I were to correct your spelling of the word "jibberish," above, to the
>proper "gibberish," would I then have violated some trust? If I were your
>editor, I'd say I'd be violating your trust if I didn't.
Not my spelling, someone else's post. You have it exactly backwards
here: my trust as a writer in the editor would lead to me expect the
spelling correction. OTOH, if the editor left the world misspelled
intentionally and sent you the page proofs to see how observant a
writer you were, would you feel let down if the editor then said,
"What a stupid writer. She didn't even pick my an obvious error I
left for her to check."
->I worked at a financial magazine once. There was a writer on staff
who was
>legendary for his factual errors. Basically, it was a safe assumption that
>any facts presented in his article were wrong. He was the kind of guy who
>could -- and often did -- interview someone for hours, bring home their
>business card, and then spell their name wrong. (He was kept on because he
>had fabulous contacts, not for his writing ability.) The editors, having
>accepted the responsibility of working with him, then committed themselves
>to the work of checking his stuff extra extra carefully. Believe me, "trust"
>was not part of the equation.
If your staff writer intentionally submitted pieces to try to trick
the magazine into printing something false, then I doubt he would keep
if job long, at least not if he admitted it!
>Claudia
Ken
Travis C. Porco
Clifford O. Thompson <cl...@marasai.mfg.sgi.com> wrote:
>In article <4qvagr$2...@agate.berkeley.edu>, po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis
>C. Porco) writes:
>[...]
>|> Suppose someone claimed to be a physician but couldn't tell
>|> a common cold from gout. Would _you_ go to such a "physician"?
>|> Said "physician's" credibility takes a hit.
>But medicine does not, just said physician
Just so. Which is why substantial criticisms such as that by
Gross and Levitt have such an important role to play.
The next step is to demonstrate that the pomofield is
analogous to faith-healing or some other form of quackery.
>|> Suppose someone claimed to be able to supernaturally read
>|> Egyptian scrolls using divine guidance and something called
>|> the Urim and Thummim. Then suppose one of his confidently
>|> prepared translations was shown to be _utterly_ and _totally_
>|> mistaken. Sad to say, this has actually happened; said "prophet's"
>|> credibility has to go down.
>Last time I checked, said prophet seemed to be credible with plenty of
>people. Been a while since I've been to Salt Lake City, though...
Yes. The point is that some people are always willing to be
deceived, and that even a substantial and intelligent audience can
be fooled. But the credibility of the prophet does go down.
>|> Similarly, the credibility of the editors of Social Text has
>|> dropped, because they were unable to distinguish the most
>|> utter piffle from sound reasoning. Their credibility takes a
>|> hit. Since they can't tell nonsense when it walks up and
>|> kisses them on the nose, maybe they can't tell it at all.
>|> Maybe a good bit of the pretentiously presented pomostuff is
>|> just plain vacant.
>See above comment about your physician analogy.
See above response to comment about my physician analogy.
>|> Of course, Sokal's hoax does not _prove_ that ST and
>|> postmodernism consist even largely of piffle, but it sure is
>|> consistent with that theory, and sure illustrates it very well.
>|> Combine it with such books as Gross & Levitt, and it's time for
>|> pomoids to turn out the lights and put up the chairs.
>Or maybe you should spend time on things you enjoy, rather than
>things you're irritated by.
I do, of course. One of the things I most enjoy is seeing
nonsense criticized :-)
>Cliff, who could care less, but finds all this worrying about pomo
>to be somewhat anal-retentive...
I don't think so. For that matter, the Freudian expression
that something is "anal-retentive" is little more than an
sophisticate's [or as likely, a pseudosophicate's] way of
calling somebody an "asshole". So you're not concerned about
postmodernism. I'm concerned about it a little. There are a
lot of things I'm much more worried about than postmodernism.
But since the Sokal hoax, pomoquackery is topical.
Kenneth Almquist
me...@ohsu.edu (Alex Merz) writes:
> In article <4qeesa$q...@news-old.tiac.net>, Ken MacIver <nan...@tiac.net> wrote:
>> nsm...@eskimo.com (Noel Smith) wrote:
>> The one quarrel I have with this - the only one, really - is that
>> Sokol's actions are also "profoundly corrupting." One rerfutes
>
> or dishonest, given that he came clean with everyone immediately?
In his May 19 New York Times article, Stanley Fish explains:
Alan Sokal put forward his own undertakings as reliable, and he took
care, as he boasts, to surround his deception with all the marks of
authenticity, including dozens of "real" footnotes and an introductory
section that enlists a roster of the century's greatest scientists in
support of a line of argument he says he never believed in. He
carefully packaged his deception so as not to be detected except by
someone who began with a deep and corrosive attitude of suspicion that
may now be in full flower in the offices of learned journals because
of what he has done.
In a 1989 report published in The Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science, fraud is said to go "beyond error to erode the foundation
of trust on which science is built." That is Professor Sokal's
legacy, one likely to be longer lasting than the brief fame he now
enjoys for having successfully pretended to be himself.
If one believes that it is unreasonable to expect journal editors to
carefully read every article they publish, then Fish's point is
persuasive. Fish is executive director of the Duke University Press
and thus is in a better position than I am to discuss the editing of
journals published by the Duke University Press. The problem with
Fish's argument is that Duke University Press is only a small part
of the publishing world. In fact most academic journals do evaluate
the quality of the arguments in the articles they publish, rather
than just judging articles by their packaging. And they do this not
because their editors have deep and corrosive attitudes of suspicion,
but because the editors have a commitment to publishing well-reasoned
articles.
Professor Sokal's actions may indeed have eroded some of the trust (or
should I say gullibility) upon which Duke University Press's success
is built. But science works best when arguments are critically
evaluated rather than being blindly accepted.
Kenneth Almquist
Dan M.
>Look at it another way. What if a writer submitted a serious piece to a
>publisher, not realizing there was a major flaw in it? Most writers would
>hope that their editors would be on the ball enough to catch the mistake,
>and thus prevent them from embarrassing themselves. The writer is "trusting"
>the editor, in that case, to act as a backstop, another layer of checking.
>An editor who just lets stuff run "on trust," without bothering to
>understand it, is not doing anyone any favors.
>
>proper "gibberish," would I then have violated some trust? If I were your
>editor, I'd say I'd be violating your trust if I didn't.
>
>legendary for his factual errors. Basically, it was a safe assumption that
>any facts presented in his article were wrong. He was the kind of guy who
>could -- and often did -- interview someone for hours, bring home their
>business card, and then spell their name wrong. (He was kept on because he
>had fabulous contacts, not for his writing ability.) The editors, having
>accepted the responsibility of working with him, then committed themselves
>to the work of checking his stuff extra extra carefully. Believe me, "trust"
>was not part of the equation.
>
I'm happy to see an experienced opinion weigh in here. Besides my
natural prefference for data as an experimentalist, this makes a lot of
sense.
Dan M.
moggin
>> nan...@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) writes:
>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>>Or except for those who believe, as do I, that trust is at the heart
>>of the editor-writer relationship.
>I beg your pardon, Mr. MacIver. Did you just state that the fact
>under discussion (*) is *not valuable* if you believe that trust is at
>the heart of the editor-writer relationships?
>I think I lack the casuistry to dismiss a piece of information as
>"not valuable" on an ethical basis. I could understand an objection
>to relevance or to accuracy, but to *ethics*?
> Patrick
>(*) "High-grad postmodernist papers cannot readily be distinguished
>from jibberish[sic]."
"The fact under discussion"? Where? Robert Sheaffer (not Ken
MacIver) made an unsupported assertion, you repeat it, and now somehow
it's turned into a "fact." What's this -- science?
-- moggin
moggin
>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>extremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
moggin:
> Would you kindly explain how Sokal's hoax demonstrates that
>about "postmodernist papers" in general, and "high-grade" ones, in
>particular? After all, the information would only be valuable if it
>was accurate, and so far you haven't given any reason to think it is.
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>>|> Suppose someone claimed to be a physician but couldn't tell
>>|> a common cold from gout. Would _you_ go to such a "physician"?
>>|> Said "physician's" credibility takes a hit.
Clifford O. Thompson <cl...@marasai.mfg.sgi.com>:
>>But medicine does not, just said physician
Travis:
>Just so. Which is why substantial criticisms such as that by
>Gross and Levitt have such an important role to play.
>The next step is to demonstrate that the pomofield is
>analogous to faith-healing or some other form of quackery.
Now we have some clarity. You begin with the preconception
that post-modernism is "quackery" and "gibberish." Your "next step"
is to find evidence to support your prejudice -- or rather it would
be, if you took it; but since you haven't, you're in the position of
condemning medicine because you found a physician who you believe is
a quack. What were you saying about "intellectual standards"? (Or
was that someone else?)
-- moggin
Patrick Juola
>Patrick Juola <pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> nan...@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) writes:
>
>>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>
>>>of the editor-writer relationship.
>
>>I beg your pardon, Mr. MacIver. Did you just state that the fact
>>under discussion (*) is *not valuable* if you believe that trust is at
>>the heart of the editor-writer relationships?
>
>>I think I lack the casuistry to dismiss a piece of information as
>>"not valuable" on an ethical basis. I could understand an objection
>>to relevance or to accuracy, but to *ethics*?
>
>> Patrick
>
>>(*) "High-grad postmodernist papers cannot readily be distinguished
>>from jibberish[sic]."
>
> "The fact under discussion"? Where? Robert Sheaffer (not Ken
>MacIver) made an unsupported assertion, you repeat it, and now somehow
>it's turned into a "fact." What's this -- science?
Mr. Sheaffer characterized it as a "piece of information." Neither
Mr. MacIver nor I challenged its characterization. If you had the
reading skill of a grapefruit(*), you'd see my (tacit) acceptance of
the validity of a challenge to accuracy (e.g. facthood); I was (and
still am) expressing surprise that Mr. MacIver felt that somehow ethics
is more important than accuracy in the evaluation of "pieces of
information."
(*) Hint for the citric-acid challenged : What part of "I could understand
an objection... to relevance" did you miss?
Patrick
Patrick Juola
"accuracy" in the quote above.
-P.
moggin
:>>>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
:>>>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
:>>>>xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
:>>>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
nan...@tiac.net (Ken MacIver):
:>>>Or except for those who believe, as do I, that trust is at the heart
:>>>>of the editor-writer relationship.
Patrick Juola <pat...@gryphon.psych.ox.ac.uk>:
:>>>I beg your pardon, Mr. MacIver. Did you just state that the fact
:>>>under discussion (*) is *not valuable* if you believe that trust is at
:>>>the heart of the editor-writer relationships?
:>>>I think I lack the casuistry to dismiss a piece of information as
:>>>"not valuable" on an ethical basis. I could understand an objection
:>>>to relevance or to accuracy, but to *ethics*?
:>>>(*) "High-grad postmodernist papers cannot readily be distinguished
:>>>from jibberish[sic]."
moggin:
:>> "The fact under discussion"? Where? Robert Sheaffer (not Ken
:>>MacIver) made an unsupported assertion, you repeat it, and now somehow
:>>it's turned into a "fact." [...]
Patrick:
:>Mr. Sheaffer characterized it as a "piece of information." Neither
:>Mr. MacIver nor I challenged its characterization. If you had the
:>reading skill of a grapefruit(*), you'd see my (tacit) acceptance of
:>the validity of a challenge to accuracy (e.g. facthood); I was (and
:>still am) expressing surprise that Mr. MacIver felt that somehow ethics
:>is more important than accuracy in the evaluation of "pieces of
:>information."
:>(*) Hint for the citric-acid challenged : What part of "I could understand
:>an objection... to relevance" did you miss?
:Whups. Cut and pasted the wrong bit. "Relevance" should have been
:"accuracy" in the quote above.
Seems to me that your "(tacit) acceptance of a challenge to
accuracy (e.g. facthood)" rested on the even more tacit assumption
that Mr. Shaeffer's "piece of information" was accurate. Nice that
you allow it to be challenged, on whatever grounds, but I take Mr.
Shaeffer's phrase, "an extremely valuable piece of information" to
mean (tacitly), "an accurate piece of information." Your reference
to "the fact under discussion" carries the same implication: that the
discussion concerns a _fact_, until such a time as it's successfully
challenged. But the "fact" in question is Mr. Shaeffer's concoction,
or, if you want to be neutral about it, his hypothesis, assertion, or
speculation. All fine terms you could have used, if you _weren't_
positing a spurious "fact" and you had the writing ability of a kiwi.
-- moggin
Robert Ashcroft
Clifford O. Thompson <cl...@marasai.mfg.sgi.com> wrote:
>In article <4qvagr$2...@agate.berkeley.edu>, po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis
>C. Porco) writes:
>
>[...]
>
>|>
>|> a common cold from gout. Would _you_ go to such a "physician"?
>|> Said "physician's" credibility takes a hit.
>
Though in this case, the physicians were rather prominent in the field,
which does give one pause. Especially as other prominent physicians
have rallied to the defense of the indefensible, rather than casting
out the quacks.
RNA
Robert Ashcroft
Charles Blair <c-b...@staff.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> It's unclear to me that Sokal gave the journal editors/referees
> a fair chance to know what he was doing. There was a quote from
> Derrida about the gravitational constant not being constant that
> sounded silly, but Sokal's article says his quotes were genuine.
Sokal's quotes are genuine. No one disputes this. He also repeatedly
asked the editors for editorial comments, but got none.
> I would be curious as to what the referee reports, if any, on
> Sokal's submission said.
Unrefereed journal, which is apparently standard for the field.
> It seems clear that it was assumed, without independent checking,
> that stuff from a physics professor wouldn't be flagrant nonsense.
> This is scholarly sloppiness, but such things happen in
> journals in ``solid'' fields.
Sokal's article is bilge from stem to stern. Anyone with an undergrad
scientific background would know it in an instant. But not these
"science critics".
RNA
Claudia HCQ Sorsby
In article <4r1c70$c...@news-old.tiac.net>, Ken MacIver <nan...@tiac.net> wrote:
>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>
>This is not my post.
"This is not my beautiful wife..."
You are of course correct; I fell into the fatal error of trusting my
software. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Please accept my apologies.
>>Please remember, writers are notoriously sloppy. This is why publishers
hire
>>fact-checkers, copy editors, and proofreaders. Or should they not bother,
in
>>the name of "trust"?
>
>I too am an editor and when I say trust what I mean is an expectation
>that the author of a submitted article is not trying to play a trick
>on me. That may be naive on my part these days but I dont like a
>world where, as you seem to suggest, an editor must treat every author
>as an enemy trying to trick him.
Perhaps I don't see it in the moral terms you do. I don't think a trickster
is necessarily an "enemy," for example. People submit things for all sorts
of reasons, and it's just part of an editor's job to sort through them as
much as possible. Would you run a nasty review of a book written by the
author's ex-spouse? Would you accept a manuscript trashing a company without
checking to see if the author was a disgruntled employee? I'm afraid I do
consider an editor naive if he accepts incoming material at face value.
>That is very different from
>editorial responsibilities such as evaluating the quality of an
>article, checking its basic facts, line editing and the like.
Is it? I don't think you can separate the editorial responsibilities so
neatly. I worked at a computer magazine once, where somebody wrote a column
analyzing the quarterly report of a major company: MegaBucks Inc. has
declared a loss of X, and what does that mean for the industry, etc.
Unfortunately, he got one key fact wrong: MegaBucks had not declared a
*loss* of X, but rather a *profit* of X. Oops.
Here, the editor who read the piece was asleep at the switch. The author was
perfectly sincere, mind, but it wouldn't have mattered if he weren't.
Whether an error is sincere or not, it's the editor's job to catch it, and
he didn't.
>On the other hand, I would pay serious money to see a game of
>horse-hockey.
Hee, hee...I think I can arrange this for you. Your trial subscription to
_Social Text_ will begin soon.
>That is true enough. What makes, in my opinion, Sokol's actions
>unethical is his admitted intent to play a hoax on the journal's
>editors. Worse, Sokol was apparently a known author, as stated
>elsewhere in this thread, which gave him more credibility than an
>uncredentialed unknown.
No. Sokal is a grown-up 6th grader, who bet everyone in the class that if he
wrote nothing but "Nyah nyah nyah" on the second-to-last page of his term
paper, the teacher would be too lazy to notice. His intent was to see if the
journal's editors were doing their job, not to deceive. If they'd done their
job properly, and actually understood his article, they would never have
published it because he wouldn't have deceived them.
Remember, Sokal included tons of stuff in his manuscript that showed its
silliness. If he'd truly been trying to do something unethical, he'd have
made the article as convincing as possible, like a counterfeiter. Instead,
he designed the piece so that even a science or math undergraduate could
tell it was crap.
In the real world, a teacher who failed so blatantly at his job would get
fired. In this case, no one's gonna fire Andrew Ross, but we can sure laugh
at him. He wasn't tricked; he was just too damn lazy to do his job properly,
and he got burned.
Or try this analogy. Let's say I trick a doctor into doing something that
displays his incompetence, and I then go public about it. Would you say I
had done something unethical, or that I had helped to protect the community
from malpractice?
Moreover, I think the part about Sokal being a known author is a red
herring. I don't care if the author submitting a piece is God; if it's bad,
it's bad, and it's still my job as an editor to say so (although if the
author were God, that editorial conference might be interesting -- and let's
not even start with the omnipotence/omniscience arguments).
>[...] OTOH, if the editor left the world misspelled
>intentionally and sent you the page proofs to see how observant a
>writer you were, would you feel let down if the editor then said,
>"What a stupid writer. She didn't even pick my an obvious error I
>left for her to check."
I don't know any editor who would do such a thing. Everyone knows most
writers can't spell.
Claudia
Charles Blair
a fair chance to know what he was doing. There was a quote from
Derrida about the gravitational constant not being constant that
sounded silly, but Sokal's article says his quotes were genuine.
I would be curious as to what the referee reports, if any, on
Sokal's submission said.
It seems clear that it was assumed, without independent checking,
Travis C. Porco
>>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>>extremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>moggin:
>> Would you kindly explain how Sokal's hoax demonstrates that
>>about "postmodernist papers" in general, and "high-grade" ones, in
>>particular? After all, the information would only be valuable if it
>>was accurate, and so far you haven't given any reason to think it is.
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>>>|> Suppose someone claimed to be a physician but couldn't tell
>>>|> a common cold from gout. Would _you_ go to such a "physician"?
>>>|> Said "physician's" credibility takes a hit.
>Clifford O. Thompson <cl...@marasai.mfg.sgi.com>:
>>>But medicine does not, just said physician
>Travis:
>>Just so. Which is why substantial criticisms such as that by
>>Gross and Levitt have such an important role to play.
>>The next step is to demonstrate that the pomofield is
>>analogous to faith-healing or some other form of quackery.
> Now we have some clarity. You begin with the preconception
>that post-modernism is "quackery" and "gibberish." Your "next step"
>is to find evidence to support your prejudice -- or rather it would
>be, if you took it; but since you haven't, you're in the position of
>condemning medicine because you found a physician who you believe is
>a quack. What were you saying about "intellectual standards"? (Or
>was that someone else?)
I don't think I've used the word "gibberish"; I prefer "quackery".
How does one come to the idea that a semidiscipline like
postmodern thought is quackery? You hear lots of silly
things from its proponents, most especially, their attacks on the
possibility of reliable knowledge raise suspicions; basically
it is just the latest refurbishment of very old skeptical
positions. And the more you investigate, the worse it gets.
Now what I'm describing to you is the process of building an
argument. So my "next step" is the next step in presenting a
case for the relevance of the Sokal hoax.
Sokal's hoax, just in and of itself, does not prove that
"postmodern thought" is vacant. But the hoax is a telling
part of a larger story; it certainly renders more credible the
notion that there is something seriously wrong with
_Social_Text_.
Now could it really be that there is a legitimate discipline
that is being badly practiced by the editors of _Social_Text_,
as implied by the criticism of the physician analogy? Perhaps
Ross et al are just _bad_ postmodern thinkers, unlike the good
ones somewhere else.
The first problem there is that we are dealing with luminaries
of the field. These folks are by no means held in disdain by
their colleagues. It would be as if a standing board of the
American College of Physicians and Surgeons had been unable to
distinguish a toothache from a broken wrist. Then, the hoax
begins to discredit not just the authors, but the good
judgment of colleagues who have held their abilities and work
in high esteem.
Add to that the convincing and well-reasoned arguments of
Gross & Levitt, and others. Then we begin to see a scenario
more akin to that of Creationism or Astrology, where even the
luminaries of the "field" make outrageous gaffes or are unable
to make predictions better than random chance, and where there
exists a substantial body of convincing argument that these
creationists or astrologers are making mistakes.
Add to that one's own experience trying to read some of the
"postmodern" works. One searches in vain, for the most part,
for something resembling a clear, logical, and reasoned
argument. You start to find out that clear reasoned argument
is one of the things that they are against, and that
sounds like a the whine of losers who have no arguments.
Innuendo, sophistry, insults, and political hackwork take
over the discussions where argument is abandoned.
Viewing this moonscape of sophistry and relativism, the
visitor to postmodern territory concludes that they have
indeed stumbled into a discipline bereft of reason and run by
quacks.
William Grosso
Porco) writes:
>
>I don't think I've used the word "gibberish"; I prefer "quackery".
>
>How does one come to the idea that a semidiscipline like
>postmodern thought is quackery?
>
What is a "semidiscipline" ? Silke has been saying that
there is no such thing as "postmodernism"; that what
"postmodernism" refers to is really a grab-bag of
weakly related areas.
Would that be the same thing as a semi-discipline ?
>Sokal's hoax, just in and of itself, does not prove that
>"postmodern thought" is vacant. But the hoax is a telling
>part of a larger story; it certainly renders more credible the
>notion that there is something seriously wrong with
>_Social_Text_.
Agreed. Most people who have posted to this thread, including
Silke and Moggin, have agreed with some variant of this
statement. Something was wrong at _Social Text_.
Can we move past this ?
>Now could it really be that there is a legitimate discipline
>that is being badly practiced by the editors of _Social_Text_,
>as implied by the criticism of the physician analogy? Perhaps
>Ross et al are just _bad_ postmodern thinkers, unlike the good
>ones somewhere else.
>
>The first problem there is that we are dealing with luminaries
>of the field.
Are we really ? Moggin posted a 3 page article (in the
"Math as pornography" thread) of important articles in
post-structuralism.
Andrew Ross was not mentioned.
In fact, in this entire never-ending debate, Ross was never
mentioned until Sokal's article came out. Gavan and Noel and
the guy from the guy from the John Hopkins magazine and
all the other people who periodically wander in and let
us all know that modern literary theory is tripe never bothered
to splatter _Social Text_ with their invective.
And, of course, as has been pointed out repeatedly, that
_Social Text_ published Sokal's article does not mean that
the editors of ST believed it.
Given the political nature of some of the charges leveled
against "post-modernism," one wonders why the "antis"
are so quick to dismiss ulterior motives in favor of the
"it must be that the field is full of garbage" conclusion.
Maybe "post-modernism" is full of crap, maybe the editors
decided to publish for other reasons, maybe ....maybe
we shouldn't all jump to conclusions quite so quickly ?
Me, I have no idea. I don't even have an opinion about
whether post-structuralism makes sense (I'm still trying
to figure out if Structuralism does-- some of it does and,
then again, I don't get large chunks of Levi-Strauss yet).
The only conclusion I've reached is that Sokal's article
was pretty darn funny.
But, as I've watched the debate play out, I've been rather
astonished by one thing: the incredible amount of arrogance
that a lot of the critiquers display.
Suppose somebody from the humanities were to spend an
afternoon reading a physics paper (or attending a seminar) and
fail to understand it.
Would he then be justified in proclaiming that all physics
is crap ? Citing, perhaps, the cold-fusion controversy
of a few years back as evidence that scientists themselves
are uncertain of what constitutes good science (for
a meatier example, he could cite Rene Thom's Catastrophe
Theory from the seventies) ?
Of course not. We'd think him a total ass. In fact, the
above scenario is precisely the charge that some people
level against "postmodern critiques of science."
Namely: the people critiquing science haven't the authority
to do so. Because they haven't mastered the theories. Because
the critiquers havent taken the courses, done the homework,
bother to *understand* the subject under discussion.
Yet scientists apparently feel quite at home walking into
other academic disciplines and criticizing what they see.
Without, of course, bothering to first obtain a mastery of
the discipline.
Evidence ?
Among the reactions to Sokal's article was an article in the
Notices of the AMS. Entitled something like "A Mathematician
reads Social Text." Wherein a mathematician passes judgement
on each and every article.
With what background ? With what authority ? Apparently, the
mere fact of being a mathematician with a deadline sufficed.
Ditto for Gross and Levitt. Go look at the review (somebody
posted the web page). The reviewer saw the same thing I remembered--
G & L make the explicit claim that a science faculty, given
prep time, could teach the humanities. But that a humanities
faculty could not, even given prep time, cobble together a
science curriculum.
Nice starting point for an unbiased investigation. "We're
smarter than you, we could master your subject with ease,
now stand back and watch us judge."
As a side note, one thing I've wondered. Why did Sokal
reveal the hoax so quickly ? Wouldn't it have been a
better test to see if the people who read the journal
spotted the hoax ? If they did, Sokal was in no danger
of being accused of believing the foolishness (the footnotes
show conclusively that he knew the article was fraudulent).
And if it wasn't spotted, well ... *that* would have been
solid evidence against the readers of _Social Text_.
Cheers,
Andy
Gordon Fitch
apul...@ix.netcom.com(William Grosso):
| ...
| Silke and Moggin, have agreed with some variant of this
| statement. Something was wrong at _Social Text_.
|
| Can we move past this ?
It will be very difficult for the science campers to move
past _Social_Text_ because the act of catching _Social_
_Text_ with its pants down is the equivalent of Luther's
throwing his inkpot at the Devil and hitting him in the eye.
You'll notice that almost everyone who believes that
Sokal's hoax is significant believes in "objective
reality." This is a religious notion, unnecessary to the
practice of science, but obviously of great emotional
appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead or
permanently out to lunch. Even our devils have been dying
off.
Since the science campers have a coherent religious
ideology, which I call "scientism", they project a similar
structure on others, especially those who seem to be
attacking the Faith. In Sokal's paper, and in the current
discussion, this imagined antagonistic ideology is called
"postmodernism." The fact that no generally-applicable
specifics can be given for the ideology is held by some to
indicate, not that the ideology is imaginary, but that it
is a conspiracy which conceals itself. In other words,
nothing like evidence or the lack of it is allowed to stand
in the way of this idea. And that is because, as the shadow
of the "objective reality" Faith, it is critically needed.
It is part of the working-out of of a religious crisis.
So it will probably be with us for a long time, unless
something better comes along.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Austin Cline
In article <4r5uij$f...@panix.com>, g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) wrote:
<snip>
>You'll notice that almost everyone who believes that
>Sokal's hoax is significant believes in "objective
>reality."
Really? How did you determine this? Did you conduct a survey? Do you know
them all personally?
> This is a religious notion, unnecessary to the
>practice of science, but obviously of great emotional
>appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead or
>permanently out to lunch. Even our devils have been dying
>off.
Please define "religious" in a coherent way such that your statement above
starts to make sense.
>Since the science campers have a coherent religious
>ideology, which I call "scientism",
Same as above - define "religious."
<snip - nothing>
Austin Cline; German Department; Princeton University
--- The connotation of courage, which we now feel to be an indispensible
quality of the hero, is in fact already present in a willingness to act and speak at
all, to insert one's self into the world and begin a story of one's own.
[Hannah Ardent; The Human Condition, p. 186]
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4r5uij$f...@panix.com>, gcf@panix (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>It will be very difficult for the science campers to move past
>_Social_Text_ because the act of catching _Social_ _Text_ with its
>pants down is the equivalent of Luther's throwing his inkpot at the
>Devil and hitting him in the eye.
No. Because it is hysterically funny.
>You'll notice that almost everyone who believes that Sokal's hoax is
>significant believes in "objective reality." This is a religious
>notion, unnecessary to the practice of science, but obviously of
>great emotional appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead
>or permanently out to lunch. Even our devils have been dying off.
Also of appeal to anyone who intends to live for any length of time.
>Since the science campers have a coherent religious ideology, which I
>call "scientism",
Which tells the whole world absolutely nothing.
> they project a similar structure on others,
The only projection is obviously done by *you*. Since you are loaded
down with totally retarded beliefs, you can't help but put them in the
mouth of others.
>especially those who seem to be attacking the Faith. In Sokal's
>paper, and in the current discussion, this imagined antagonistic
>ideology is called "postmodernism."
Eh? What the heck is that? I think you're drooling.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4r5iu9$m...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, apuleius@ix Grosso) writes:
>Among the reactions to Sokal's article was an article in the Notices
>of the AMS. Entitled something like "A Mathematician reads Social
>Text." Wherein a mathematician passes judgement on each and every
>article.
No. On three articles. (Note: I only read the original draft--perhaps
it was expanded.) Sokal's was a gas, one seemed OK, one was clearly
retarded gibberish.
>With what background ? With what authority ? Apparently, the mere
>fact of being a mathematician with a deadline sufficed.
Yes. The NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY is a "moderated
journal" for mathematicians to chitchat about larger things that interest
mathematicians. It's a mix of opinion and facts.
Methinks you're having a pointless reaction to something you have never
read.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4r4m6c$g...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, c-blair@staff (Charles Blair) writes:
> It's unclear to me that Sokal gave the journal editors/referees
> a fair chance to know what he was doing.
That's right. He submitted a paper to them, and forget to tell them
that the contents are "crackpot gibberish mockery of their field".
Darn rude of him. I mean, how were they to know?
> It seems clear that it was assumed, without independent checking,
> that stuff from a physics professor wouldn't be flagrant nonsense.
Why would anyone assume that? Perhaps Abian could submit to SOCIAL
TEXT, and discuss the social impact of reorbiting Venus or time is
mass, or something?
Sheesh.
Matthew P Wiener
In article <4r1c70$c...@news-old.tiac.net>, nanken@tiac (Ken MacIver) writes:
>I too am an editor and when I say trust what I mean is an expectation
>that the author of a submitted article is not trying to play a trick
>on me. That may be naive on my part these days but I dont like a
>world where, as you seem to suggest, an editor must treat every author
>as an enemy trying to trick him. That is very different from
>editorial responsibilities such as evaluating the quality of an
>article,
In the case of the Sokal article, the quality was dogdoo.
They did not notice.
>>In this case, Sokal submitted an article which, on its face, made little to
>>no sense. The editors published it anyway. Now, a good editor would
>>not have said, "Oh, I trust this guy, whom I don't know and have
>>never met. Academics are always intelligent and he's using the
>>right buzzwords, so it must make sense." A good editor would either
>>have been able to read it and understand it himself, or would have
>>gone out and found someone in the relevant field to help him
>>understand it. The fact that the editors of Social Text failed to do
>>this does not make Sokal's actions unethical.
>That is true enough. What makes, in my opinion, Sokol's actions
>unethical is his admitted intent to play a hoax on the journal's
>editors.
Since he did not lie about anything, since it was up to the editors of
the journal to decide if this paper was suitable intellectual material
or raving crackpot gibberish, or somewhere in between, what does his
intent matter?
> Worse, Sokol was apparently a known author, as stated
>elsewhere in this thread, which gave him more credibility than an
>uncredentialed unknown.
He has no publications in the journal's field in question.
>You are correct. I did not, however, suggest that an editor run
>something on trust, only that he should have an expectation of trust
>in his writer's intent.
Which is utterly irrelevant, since if the editors of the journal were
indeed qualified at the level they claimed to be, they themselves would
have figured out that the article was gibberish.
Gordon Fitch
| >Sokal's hoax is significant believes in "objective
| >reality."
arc...@phoenix.princeton.edu (Austin Cline):
| Really? How did you determine this? Did you conduct a survey? Do you know
| them all personally?
In the context of the Net discussion, of course, which has
included material introduced from the mass media and other
publications. I assume people mean roughly what they say
and I think my statement verges on the tediously obvious.
If you're not aware of this, you haven't been following much
of the discussion -- an understandable oversight.
Sokal himself, interestingly, refers not to "objective
realities" rather than "objective reality." One wonders
what the plural can mean. Perhaps he will burned at the
stake for this error, after the faithful have gotten done
with the "postmodernists."
Notice, however, that I left myself a convenient cop-out by
saying "almost." _I_ believe that Sokal's hoax is
significant, although I am skeptical of the One True Truth
of "objective reality"; but I think it is significant for
what it reveals about its fans, not what it reveals about
its targets.
gcf:
| > This is a religious notion, unnecessary to the
| >practice of science, but obviously of great emotional
| >appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead or
| >permanently out to lunch. Even our devils have been dying
| >off.
arc...@phoenix.princeton.edu (Austin Cline):
| Please define "religious" in a coherent way such that your statement above
| starts to make sense.
Beliefs about the ultimate nature of things, the "really
real", the Ground of Being, and the like. Orthodox
Christians believe that God (as identified by them, the
Trinity) is the Ground of Being, for instance.
gcf:
| >Since the science campers have a coherent religious
| >ideology, which I call "scientism",
arc...@phoenix.princeton.edu (Austin Cline):
| Same as above - define "religious."
Scientism (as I used the word) is the construal of science
as a unique method for finding and getting in touch with
the above-mentioned Ground of Being, which is taken to be a
particular thing called "objective reality" about which
various facts are known through faith ("the evidence of
things unseen") such as that it is absolutely independent,
(like many prior gods, especially the monotheoi) of human
observation or will.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
John McCarthy
I object to the word "scientism" on the grounds that it doesn't have a
corresponding word for an adherent (like me) of the doctrine. The
word "scientist" has been pre-empted for a different meaning than an
adherent of scientism. How about "sciencism" for the doctrine and
"sciencist" for its adherents?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r5iu9$m...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>,
William Grosso <apul...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <4r5bge$j...@agate.berkeley.edu> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C.
>Porco) writes:
>>I don't think I've used the word "gibberish"; I prefer "quackery".
>>How does one come to the idea that a semidiscipline like
>>postmodern thought is quackery?
>What is a "semidiscipline" ? Silke has been saying that
>there is no such thing as "postmodernism"; that what
>"postmodernism" refers to is really a grab-bag of
>weakly related areas.
That's the point. I'm tired of trying to debate whether or
not "postmodernism" "exists"; I just want to refer to this
loose aggregate.
...
>>Sokal's hoax, just in and of itself, does not prove that
>>"postmodern thought" is vacant. But the hoax is a telling
>>part of a larger story; it certainly renders more credible the
>>notion that there is something seriously wrong with
>>_Social_Text_.
>Agreed. Most people who have posted to this thread, including
>Silke and Moggin, have agreed with some variant of this
>statement. Something was wrong at _Social Text_.
>Can we move past this ?
Read on.
>>Now could it really be that there is a legitimate discipline
>>that is being badly practiced by the editors of _Social_Text_,
>>as implied by the criticism of the physician analogy? Perhaps
>>Ross et al are just _bad_ postmodern thinkers, unlike the good
>>ones somewhere else.
>>The first problem there is that we are dealing with luminaries
>>of the field.
>Are we really ? Moggin posted a 3 page article (in the
>"Math as pornography" thread) of important articles in
>post-structuralism.
Let's restrict it to "postmodern science studies", since
"science studies" was the topic of the ST issue. I should
have been clearer to start with.
Why science studies? Because the Sokal hoax is a fake paper
drawing conclusions from physics, printed in a journal devoted
to science studies.
>Andrew Ross was not mentioned.
...in a list of poststructuralists listed by Moggin. Big deal.
>In fact, in this entire never-ending debate, Ross was never
>mentioned until Sokal's article came out. Gavan and Noel and
>the guy from the guy from the John Hopkins magazine and
>all the other people who periodically wander in and let
>us all know that modern literary theory is tripe never bothered
>to splatter _Social Text_ with their invective.
But specifically when it comes to "science studies", these
folks (Aronowitz, Ross, and their claque of supporters)
were known and criticized before the Sokal incident.
>And, of course, as has been pointed out repeatedly, that
>_Social Text_ published Sokal's article does not mean that
>the editors of ST believed it.
We can't possibly debate what they privately thought, since we
have no idea. However, Ross, Aronowitz, and others have
printed and written a good bit of strange and silly nonsense
already. I suspect they passed the Sokal counterfeit with
nary a clue, just as they have passed a good bit of
counterfeit argument before.
Again, remember that Sokal's article was an _utterly_
preposterous _parody_! They mistook a _parody_ of their field
for a scholarly article in _their_own_field_ of "postmodern science
studies".
>Given the political nature of some of the charges leveled
>against "post-modernism," one wonders why the "antis"
>are so quick to dismiss ulterior motives in favor of the
>"it must be that the field is full of garbage" conclusion.
I explained earlier how one gets the idea that a field is full
of garbage.
>Maybe "post-modernism" is full of crap, maybe the editors
>decided to publish for other reasons, maybe ....maybe
>we shouldn't all jump to conclusions quite so quickly ?
Everyone has made clear what sort of things you can say as a
result of the Sokal hoax. It is not a refutation in itself of
poststructuralism or any of the rest of it. But for those of
us who suspect that the humanities have become a fever swamp
of relativism, it is hilarious to see prominent science
bashers unable to spot a parody of their own "field".
>Me, I have no idea. I don't even have an opinion about
>whether post-structuralism makes sense (I'm still trying
>to figure out if Structuralism does-- some of it does and,
>then again, I don't get large chunks of Levi-Strauss yet).
>The only conclusion I've reached is that Sokal's article
>was pretty darn funny.
Yes, it was! The funniest part of it was the quotes from
Derrida, Lacan, etc. That alone makes the article valuable
even beyond its hoax status.
>But, as I've watched the debate play out, I've been rather
>astonished by one thing: the incredible amount of arrogance
>that a lot of the critiquers display.
We've received an incredible amount of arrogance from the
other side for a long time. The shoe is just on the other
foot for a while.
>Suppose somebody from the humanities were to spend an
>afternoon reading a physics paper (or attending a seminar) and
>fail to understand it.
>Would he then be justified in proclaiming that all physics
>is crap ? Citing, perhaps, the cold-fusion controversy
>of a few years back as evidence that scientists themselves
>are uncertain of what constitutes good science (for
>a meatier example, he could cite Rene Thom's Catastrophe
>Theory from the seventies) ?
This is more or less EXACTLY what has happened! That is why
the attacks have come the way they have. Most if not
practically all scientists seem to have been more than willing
to leave the postmodernists alone since it was outside the
field of the scientists. And many people have felt initially
that Sokal was out of line--until they read the article
itself.
And people who have criticised the postmodern science study
types have been ridiculed as reactionaries, as oppressors who
want to deny the unique extralogical ways of knowing that
third-worlders have, and so on.
>Of course not. We'd think him a total ass. In fact, the
>above scenario is precisely the charge that some people
>level against "postmodern critiques of science."
Bingo.
>Namely: the people critiquing science haven't the authority
>to do so. Because they haven't mastered the theories. Because
>the critiquers havent taken the courses, done the homework,
>bother to *understand* the subject under discussion.
Can happen.
>Yet scientists apparently feel quite at home walking into
>other academic disciplines and criticizing what they see.
This is not so. Scientists have on the whole been very
reluctant to enter the debate, even when it involves their own
work.
>Without, of course, bothering to first obtain a mastery of
>the discipline.
>Evidence ?
>Among the reactions to Sokal's article was an article in the
>Notices of the AMS. Entitled something like "A Mathematician
>reads Social Text." Wherein a mathematician passes judgement
>on each and every article.
I read that and thought he was very fair and reasonable.
Those were hardly technical articles.
>With what background? With what authority?
The authority of a literate intelligent person who knows how
to follow an argument. That's all the authority anyone needs.
>Apparently, the
>mere fact of being a mathematician with a deadline sufficed.
>Ditto for Gross and Levitt. Go look at the review (somebody
>posted the web page). The reviewer saw the same thing I remembered--
>G & L make the explicit claim that a science faculty, given
>prep time, could teach the humanities. But that a humanities
>faculty could not, even given prep time, cobble together a
>science curriculum.
>Nice starting point for an unbiased investigation. "We're
>smarter than you, we could master your subject with ease,
>now stand back and watch us judge."
I think their point was that scientists on average are quite
interested in and have on average put a lot more time into the
humanities than you think. Whereas many humanists practically
are proud of their ignorance of science. Example: look at the
preface of Ross's abysmal book, _Strange_Weather_.
>As a side note, one thing I've wondered. Why did Sokal
>reveal the hoax so quickly ? Wouldn't it have been a
>better test to see if the people who read the journal
>spotted the hoax ? If they did, Sokal was in no danger
>of being accused of believing the foolishness (the footnotes
>show conclusively that he knew the article was fraudulent).
>And if it wasn't spotted, well ... *that* would have been
>solid evidence against the readers of _Social Text_.
No. He quite rightly revealed it essentially instantly when
the magazine appeared. It would have really been jackassery
to let it sit there. That's where I would draw the ethical
line. Also, Sokal's physics colleagues would have subjected
him to ridicule, and then revealing the hoax would have looked
like changing his mind under pressure. He would have no
credibility.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r5uij$f...@panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>apul...@ix.netcom.com(William Grosso):
>| Agreed. Most people who have posted to this thread, including
>| Silke and Moggin, have agreed with some variant of this
>| statement. Something was wrong at _Social Text_.
>| Can we move past this ?
>| ...
...
>You'll notice that almost everyone who believes that
>Sokal's hoax is significant believes in "objective
>reality." This is a religious notion, unnecessary to the
>practice of science, but obviously of great emotional
>appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead or
>permanently out to lunch.
I thought we went through this before. "Objective reality" is
not a religious notion. It depends on what you mean by
unnecessary to the practice of science. Emotional appeal is
not what determines whether something is religious or not.
...
>Since the science campers have a coherent religious
>ideology, which I call "scientism", they project a similar
>structure on others, especially those who seem to be
>attacking the Faith.
There is no religious ideology; what there is in many cases is
simply enthusiasm for science and its achievements, and a
distaste for unreason and sophistry.
>In Sokal's paper, and in the current discussion, this
>imagined antagonistic ideology is called "postmodernism."
It's been made clear what is meant by "postmodernism" or
"postmodernists".
>The fact that no generally-applicable
>specifics can be given for the ideology is held by some to
>indicate, not that the ideology is imaginary, but that it
>is a conspiracy which conceals itself.
No one needs to assume that there is a coherent postmodern
ideology, just a claque of folks who read certain authors and
spout relativism and skepticism.
>In other words,
>nothing like evidence or the lack of it is allowed to stand
>in the way of this idea. And that is because, as the shadow
>of the "objective reality" Faith, it is critically needed.
>It is part of the working-out of of a religious crisis.
How's the weather on Pluto?
>So it will probably be with us for a long time, unless
>something better comes along.
Ostrich, head in the sand.
Silke-Maria Weineck
Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
[...]
: No one needs to assume that there is a coherent postmodern
: ideology, just a claque of folks who read certain authors and
: spout relativism and skepticism.
Now we're getting somewhere -- this isn't about "postmodernism" at all --
it's about abolishing all of philosophy on the basis of Sokal's article.
Thank you, Travis.
Silke
moggin
Travis:
>Sokal's hoax, just in and of itself, does not prove that
>"postmodern thought" is vacant. But the hoax is a telling
>part of a larger story; it certainly renders more credible the
>notion that there is something seriously wrong with
>_Social_Text_.
Obviously Sokal's hoax could make you feel doubtful about
_Social Text_. But that doesn't show that it's "a telling part of
a larger story" -- that's still merely the story you want to tell.
>Now could it really be that there is a legitimate discipline
>that is being badly practiced by the editors of _Social_Text_,
>as implied by the criticism of the physician analogy? Perhaps
>Ross et al are just _bad_ postmodern thinkers, unlike the good
>ones somewhere else.
>The first problem there is that we are dealing with luminaries
>of the field. These folks are by no means held in disdain by
>their colleagues. It would be as if a standing board of the
>American College of Physicians and Surgeons had been unable to
>distinguish a toothache from a broken wrist. Then, the hoax
>begins to discredit not just the authors, but the good
>judgment of colleagues who have held their abilities and work
>in high esteem.
If you informed yourself before reaching your conclusions,
rather than putting it off for sometime in the future, you might be
less apt to fall into errors like this one. Derrida qualifies as a
"luminary." Ross doesn't. Even if Ross was considered a demi-god,
the hoax would still say nothing about either his work as a critic
or the work of anyone else in the field. So the "problem" is false.
>Add to that the convincing and well-reasoned arguments of
>Gross & Levitt, and others.
You have nothing to add _to_, and you aren't adding anything
except some unspecified arguments from people you can't even recall.
>Then we begin to see a scenario
>more akin to that of Creationism or Astrology, where even the
>luminaries of the "field" make outrageous gaffes or are unable
>to make predictions better than random chance, and where there
>exists a substantial body of convincing argument that these
>creationists or astrologers are making mistakes.
You don't specify the supposed similarities to creationism and
astrology or produce the "body of convincing argument," you're wrong
about the "luminaries," you haven't addressed _anyone's_ work (Ross or
Derrida's or anything in between), and of course you haven't supported
your assertion that Ross' gaffe is representative.
>Add to that one's own experience trying to read some of the
>"postmodern" works. One searches in vain, for the most part,
>for something resembling a clear, logical, and reasoned
>argument. You start to find out that clear reasoned argument
>is one of the things that they are against, and that
>sounds like a the whine of losers who have no arguments.
>Innuendo, sophistry, insults, and political hackwork take
>over the discussions where argument is abandoned.
This is something that we could discuss. Who and what have
you read? How far did you get? Just where did you run into problems?
Until you get more specific, you won't have said anything. "There are
some good arguments against postmodernism." "Postmodern works have no
arguments." Those are empty statements, and they'll stay empty unless
you fill them in. Ditto for your observation about innuendo, etc. If
you have any arguments, you certainly haven't advanced them; innuendo,
etc. are all that you've supplied.
>Viewing this moonscape of sophistry and relativism, the
>visitor to postmodern territory concludes that they have
>indeed stumbled into a discipline bereft of reason and run by
>quacks.
So where have you visited? What did you see? How does it
justify your conclusion? What makes you certain your observations
apply to the entire territory? How much have you covered? Answer
those questions, and your comments might mean something. As it is,
you're just bullshitting. You certainly haven't demonstrated that
"the pomofield is analogous to faith-healing or some other forms of
quackery" or that "postmodern thought is quackery," as you claimed.
-- moggin
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r6mm6$g...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
>[...]
An absurd, almost hysterical, misrepresentation. However, let's
go through it again.
Sokal's article illustrates well the fact that some of what is
called postmodern science studies is in fact based on very
poor scholarship and minimal understanding of the science the
practitioners purport to be criticising.
Again, the usual "damned if you do, damned if you don't" word
game right on schedule. If you say there is a coherent
postmodernism, Gordon Fitch hails from Pluto to tell you it
doesn't exist (rightly in happens, in spite of Pluto). If you
agree that there isn't, then what is it you're against?
The loose aggregate of relativistic or skeptical writings that
purports to find only power and politics at the basis of
every judgment, dismisses "western linear logic", etc. This
fluff hardly constitutes "all of philosophy". Nor have I ever
claimed that anything whatever ought to be abolished just
because of the Sokal hoax. As you perfectly well are aware.
Silke-Maria Weineck
Hey, Travis -- glad I could flush you out...
Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
: In article <4r6mm6$g...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
: >Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
: >[...]
: >: No one needs to assume that there is a coherent postmodern
: >: ideology, just a claque of folks who read certain authors and
: >: spout relativism and skepticism.
: >Now we're getting somewhere -- this isn't about "postmodernism" at all --
: >it's about abolishing all of philosophy on the basis of Sokal's article.
: >Thank you, Travis.
: An absurd, almost hysterical, misrepresentation. However, let's
: go through it again.
: Sokal's article illustrates well the fact that some of what is
: called postmodern science studies is in fact based on very
: poor scholarship and minimal understanding of the science the
: practitioners purport to be criticising.
I find the editors of Social Text guilty of too little skepticism.
: Again, the usual "damned if you do, damned if you don't" word
: game right on schedule. If you say there is a coherent
: postmodernism, Gordon Fitch hails from Pluto to tell you it
: doesn't exist (rightly in happens, in spite of Pluto). If you
: agree that there isn't, then what is it you're against?
Travis, there may or may not be postmodernism -- I think the general
feeling is that you aren't the best judge of it since it appears that you
haven't read even the most elementary texts of poststructuralism, let
alone the most widely received texts of continental philosophy that
inform it. Therefore, it appears, it ill behooves you to speak of "bad
scholarship and minimal understanding" in other people.
: The loose aggregate of relativistic or skeptical writings that
: purports to find only power and politics at the basis of
: every judgment, dismisses "western linear logic", etc. This
: fluff hardly constitutes "all of philosophy". Nor have I ever
: claimed that anything whatever ought to be abolished just
: because of the Sokal hoax. As you perfectly well are aware.
I am well aware of your hostility to skepticism and relativism -- you
have invoked them in a blanket statement. Now show me some philosophy
that isn't either skeptical or relativist. Actually, just show me one
that isn't skeptical. We'll talk.
Silke
Gordon Fitch
Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
| >You'll notice that almost everyone who believes that
| >Sokal's hoax is significant believes in "objective
| >reality." This is a religious notion, unnecessary to the
| >practice of science, but obviously of great emotional
| >appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead or
| >permanently out to lunch.
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| I thought we went through this before. "Objective reality" is
| not a religious notion. It depends on what you mean by
| unnecessary to the practice of science. Emotional appeal is
| not what determines whether something is religious or not.
No, unprovability through observation is. If one firmly
believes in something one can't perceive and demonstrate
convincingly to others, that by me is a religious position
or conviction. (Although some may prefer a term like
"metaphysical.") In any case, claims are being made about
absolute truth, etc. etc., which seem religious to me --
and, as I pointed out, the response to contradiction, i.e.
heresy or unbelief, is similar to that encountered in the
case of a number of other religions.
| ...
gcf:
| >In Sokal's paper, and in the current discussion, this
| >imagined antagonistic ideology is called "postmodernism."
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| It's been made clear what is meant by "postmodernism" or
| "postmodernists".
It has?
gcf:
| >The fact that no generally-applicable
| >specifics can be given for the ideology is held by some to
| >indicate, not that the ideology is imaginary, but that it
| >is a conspiracy which conceals itself.
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| No one needs to assume that there is a coherent postmodern
| ideology, just a claque of folks who read certain authors and
| spout relativism and skepticism.
I was referring to Noel Smith's contention that
postmodernism _was_ a coherent ideology, but one which
concealed itself. I've seen this idea in other places.
If you wish to consign Gautama, Hume, Nietzsche, and a
bunch of French guys to a "claque" (a group of hired
applauders) and call it "postmodernism" I don't suppose
anyone can stop you. It doesn't seem like a very useful
term, though, unless one is doing propaganda. And how
can so loose a definition rope the undesirables together
tightly enough so that they can all be tainted by Sokal's
hoax? After all, as far as we know, Mr. Shakyamuni
didn't sit on the editorial board of _Social_Text_.
And how can we get Heidegger into it?
| ...
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r6pbe$r...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
>Travis:
>>Sokal's hoax, just in and of itself, does not prove that
>>"postmodern thought" is vacant. But the hoax is a telling
>>part of a larger story; it certainly renders more credible the
>>notion that there is something seriously wrong with
>>_Social_Text_.
> Obviously Sokal's hoax could make you feel doubtful about
>_Social Text_. But that doesn't show that it's "a telling part of
>a larger story" -- that's still merely the story you want to tell.
Of course it is. And it fits in very well thank you very
much. This only says that the Sokal hoax is being offered
as evidence for what I'm saying. Obvious.
>>Now could it really be that there is a legitimate discipline
>>that is being badly practiced by the editors of _Social_Text_,
>>as implied by the criticism of the physician analogy? Perhaps
>>Ross et al are just _bad_ postmodern thinkers, unlike the good
>>ones somewhere else.
>>The first problem there is that we are dealing with luminaries
>>of the field. These folks are by no means held in disdain by
>>their colleagues. It would be as if a standing board of the
>>American College of Physicians and Surgeons had been unable to
>>distinguish a toothache from a broken wrist. Then, the hoax
>>begins to discredit not just the authors, but the good
>>judgment of colleagues who have held their abilities and work
>>in high esteem.
> If you informed yourself before reaching your conclusions,
>rather than putting it off for sometime in the future, you might be
>less apt to fall into errors like this one. Derrida qualifies as a
>"luminary." Ross doesn't. Even if Ross was considered a demi-god,
>the hoax would still say nothing about either his work as a critic
>or the work of anyone else in the field. So the "problem" is false.
If Ross, as it seems, cannot distinguish parody from serious
work, then Ross's credibility goes down a great deal. But
more to the point, it looks as if parody of that field is
distinguishable only from much serious work in that field largely
by being at least funnier.
>>Add to that the convincing and well-reasoned arguments of
>>Gross & Levitt, and others.
> You have nothing to add _to_, and you aren't adding anything
>except some unspecified arguments from people you can't even recall.
Absurd. Do we need to list the entire collection in every post?
>>Then we begin to see a scenario
>>more akin to that of Creationism or Astrology, where even the
>>luminaries of the "field" make outrageous gaffes or are unable
>>to make predictions better than random chance, and where there
>>exists a substantial body of convincing argument that these
>>creationists or astrologers are making mistakes.
> You don't specify the supposed similarities to creationism and
>astrology or produce the "body of convincing argument," you're wrong
>about the "luminaries," you haven't addressed _anyone's_ work (Ross or
>Derrida's or anything in between), and of course you haven't supported
>your assertion that Ross' gaffe is representative.
Similarities to creationism: distortion of well-known
scientific principles and the resorting to cheap ridicule to
score points with an uninformed audience. I've directed you
to convincing arguments in the form of specific books such as
that by Gross&Levitt, as well as philosophers like Quine who
really do have something to say on the limits of language and
who are not the absolutists you seem to be worried about.
Certainly I've discussed Ross's _Strange_Weather_ several
times, with many quotations from the book. From what I've
seen of Derrida's work, it looks like strange assertions about
the primacy of writing over speech, silly puns, the occasional
clever zing, and basically a lot of contentious sophistry, but
I'm still reading it. We'll see. As far as Ross's gaffe, we
have an n=1 sample. Nevertheless, the Sokal hoax sounds no
better or worse than some of the other stuff we see in print,
many examples of which have been given here. It has looked
for a long time that a good deal of what was written, like
some of the Harding stuff, was piffle; Sokal gave a very funny
illustration that even the editors of a significant journal
couldn't spot piffle.
>>Add to that one's own experience trying to read some of the
>>"postmodern" works. One searches in vain, for the most part,
>>for something resembling a clear, logical, and reasoned
>>argument. You start to find out that clear reasoned argument
>>is one of the things that they are against, and that
>>sounds like a the whine of losers who have no arguments.
>>Innuendo, sophistry, insults, and political hackwork take
>>over the discussions where argument is abandoned.
> This is something that we could discuss. Who and what have
>you read? How far did you get? Just where did you run into problems?
>Until you get more specific, you won't have said anything. "There are
>some good arguments against postmodernism." "Postmodern works have no
>arguments." Those are empty statements, and they'll stay empty unless
>you fill them in. Ditto for your observation about innuendo, etc. If
>you have any arguments, you certainly haven't advanced them; innuendo,
>etc. are all that you've supplied.
I'm going to start with Ross's _Strange_Weather_, which I am
closely reading in my copious free time; I'm about 60% of the
way through it. However, much of what I claim has been
thoroughly documented by Ellis, Crews, Gross&Levitt, and Sokal.
>>Viewing this moonscape of sophistry and relativism, the
>>visitor to postmodern territory concludes that they have
>>indeed stumbled into a discipline bereft of reason and run by
>>quacks.
> So where have you visited? What did you see? How does it
>justify your conclusion? What makes you certain your observations
>apply to the entire territory? How much have you covered? Answer
>those questions, and your comments might mean something. As it is,
>you're just bullshitting. You certainly haven't demonstrated that
>"the pomofield is analogous to faith-healing or some other forms of
>quackery" or that "postmodern thought is quackery," as you claimed.
Well, it is possible that there are some hidden oases here or
there.
And actually, some of the articles in the Docherty book
_Postmodernism: a reader_ are by no means as bad as I had
feared they would be. Though they are uneven; there is too
much Freud, and in general too much apocalyptic chatter.
This same thing happens in the Norris book, _Deconstruction,
Theory and Practice_, where these sentences occur:
"But it [structuralist theory] was...subject to various
domesticating pressures which effectively sealed off its more
disturbing implications." page 15
"The concept of structure is easily kidnapped by a tame
methodology which treats it as a handy organizing theme and
ignores its unsettling implications." pg. 31
So we hear lots of bloviating about disturbing, unsettling,
deconstructive violence, etc. In the end, it comes down to
little more than a determination to quibble over rhetorical
usages here or there to indicate that no one can really say
what they think they are saying. Occasionally, one runs
across what sounds like it might be a reflected glimmer of
something Wittgenstein or Quine might have said, but on the
whole it sounds like an unpromising line of self-trumpeting
quibbles. But as I say, we'll see.
From what I can tell, the major characters that seem to keep
coming up in these discussions of postmodernism are:
1. the ineffable and obscure Derrida, with strange theories
about the primacy of writing, and who seems to be deliberately
trying to avoid characterization;
2. Lacan, whose psychoanalysis methods are not based on any
scientific method;
3. Foucault; I've only read the Birth of the Clinic and I
don't feel qualified to comment about Foucault at this time;
4. Marx, who wrote some interesting books early on, but whose
economic theories were based on a discredited labor theory of
value, as well as on Hegelian dialectic (a pernicious form of
nonsense, as has been demonstrated, for instance, by Popper.)
5. Freud, whose psychoanalysis is also unscientific and
largely false;
6. Nietzsche, who _is_ substantial, especially in his more
positivistic works like Daybreak, but who introduces notions
like eternal recurrence, which was supposed to figure
prominently in his later books, but which was unfortunately
based on false arguments. Nietzsche also made a number of
scientific mistakes, such as not understanding Darwinism.
Aside from some of Marx's writings (esp. the earliest stuff)
and of course Nietzsche, these writers are just not the most
interesting writers out there. Given limited time, why not
read Darwin, Einstein, Mach, Frege, Russell, Quine,
Wittgenstein, the quantum mechanics, Popper, Carnap,
or B.F. Skinner, or contemporary writers like Noam Chomsky,
Bernard Baars, Michael Dummett, Daniel Dennett, etc.? There
is such an ocean of good stuff by folks like this that it is
kind of a shame to wallow around in Freud's myths or Hegel's
strange sentences.
Ed Faith
Gordon Fitch wrote:
> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
> | I thought we went through this before. "Objective reality" is
> | not a religious notion. It depends on what you mean by
> | unnecessary to the practice of science. Emotional appeal is
> | not what determines whether something is religious or not.
>
> No, unprovability through observation is. If one firmly
> believes in something one can't perceive and demonstrate
Maybe you can clarify this claim. Objects can be perceived.
What do you mean by saying they can't? What are the senses
for? Or is objective reality something else to you? What
might that be?
moggin
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU>:
>>>How does one come to the idea that a semidiscipline like
>>>postmodern thought is quackery?
Travis again:
>Let's restrict it to "postmodern science studies", since
>"science studies" was the topic of the ST issue. I should
>have been clearer to start with.
You were perfectly clear -- you said, "postmodern thought is
quackery." But you couldn't back it up, so now you're pretending you
only meant "science studies."
>We can't possibly debate what they privately thought, since we
>have no idea. However, Ross, Aronowitz, and others have
>printed and written a good bit of strange and silly nonsense
>already. I suspect they passed the Sokal counterfeit with
>nary a clue, just as they have passed a good bit of
>counterfeit argument before.
Then the hoax is irrelevant, except for public relations
purposes. Your efforts should be devoted to revealing the "silly
nonsense" that they publish. But instead of bringing out the flaws
that you see in their work, you're _still_ going on about the hoax!
William Grosso:
>>Maybe "post-modernism" is full of crap, maybe the editors
>>decided to publish for other reasons, maybe ....maybe
>>we shouldn't all jump to conclusions quite so quickly ?
Travis:
>Everyone has made clear what sort of things you can say as a
>result of the Sokal hoax. It is not a refutation in itself of
>poststructuralism or any of the rest of it.
"Everyone" hasn't made clear anything. Alot of very foolish
people have loudly claimed that Sokal's hoax demonstrated everything
from the fraudulence of _Social Text_ to the decay of the humanities.
You've been among the loudest -- only now you're changing your tune.
Travis:
>But for those of
>us who suspect that the humanities have become a fever swamp
>of relativism, it is hilarious to see prominent science
>bashers unable to spot a parody of their own "field".
But this is the same old song again -- "innuendo and insults"
regarding the humanities, and remarks about your hilarity instead of
substantial criticism of the "science bashers."
-- moggin
moggin
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>The ones who suffer from the Sokal hoax are Ross, Aronowitz,
>Fish, and the clucks who take them seriously.
So from contending that the hoax shows "postmodern thought is
quackery," you've been reduced to arguing that it reflects badly on
these three, plus some anonyous clucks. Not quite the same, is it?
And of course you still haven't demonstrated how it does say anything
about the work that they've done over the years. Why does it matter?
If there are defects in the work of any or all of them, you can point
that out: there was never any need to argue about Sokal's hoax did or
didn't show. But you're still going on about Sokal, and ignoring the
contents of their work.
-- moggin
William Grosso
In <4r73l4$9...@agate.berkeley.edu> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C.
Porco) writes:
>
>Aside from some of Marx's writings (esp. the earliest stuff)
>and of course Nietzsche, these writers are just not the most
>interesting writers out there. Given limited time, why not
>read Darwin, Einstein, Mach, Frege, Russell, Quine,
>Wittgenstein, the quantum mechanics, Popper, Carnap,
>or B.F. Skinner, or contemporary writers like Noam Chomsky,
>Bernard Baars, Michael Dummett, Daniel Dennett, etc.? There
>is such an ocean of good stuff by folks like this that it is
>kind of a shame to wallow around in Freud's myths or Hegel's
>strange sentences.
>
B.F. Skinner ? Does anybody actually pay attention to
Skinner these days ? Didn't Chomsky (an early article,
late 50's, I believe) and Dennet ("Skinner Skinned",
reprinted in [I think] _Brainstorms_) bring down the
curtain on Skinner ?
As a side note, a question almost completely from ignorance,
why Quine and Carnap ? In particular, what did Carnap write ?
I'm blanking on him. Part of my mind says "Logical Positivist"
but that can't be right. Although it does fit in with Skinner
to some extent.
Who are Baars and Dummet ? And why no Heidegger or Sartre on
the big list ?
Cheers,
Andy
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r6vl3$m...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>Hey, Travis -- glad I could flush you out...
>Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>: In article <4r6mm6$g...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
>: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>: >Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>: >[...]
>: >: No one needs to assume that there is a coherent postmodern
>: >: ideology, just a claque of folks who read certain authors and
>: >: spout relativism and skepticism.
>: >Now we're getting somewhere -- this isn't about "postmodernism" at all --
>: >it's about abolishing all of philosophy on the basis of Sokal's article.
>: >Thank you, Travis.
>: An absurd, almost hysterical, misrepresentation. However, let's
>: go through it again.
>: Sokal's article illustrates well the fact that some of what is
>: called postmodern science studies is in fact based on very
>: poor scholarship and minimal understanding of the science the
>: practitioners purport to be criticising.
>I find the editors of Social Text guilty of too little skepticism.
>: Again, the usual "damned if you do, damned if you don't" word
>: game right on schedule. If you say there is a coherent
>: postmodernism, Gordon Fitch hails from Pluto to tell you it
>: doesn't exist (rightly in happens, in spite of Pluto). If you
>: agree that there isn't, then what is it you're against?
>Travis, there may or may not be postmodernism -- I think the general
>feeling is that you aren't the best judge of it since it appears that you
>haven't read even the most elementary texts of poststructuralism, let
>alone the most widely received texts of continental philosophy that
>inform it. Therefore, it appears, it ill behooves you to speak of "bad
>scholarship and minimal understanding" in other people.
This is not true. The main concern I have, which is
why I've been discussing the issue, is with the idea that
science cannot give reliable information about the world, and
that it needs to be demystified and removed from its position
as privileged discourse or whatever. I am interested in what
calls itself postmodernism only in so far as it is related to
this question.
Now it happens that I've wasted way too much time
over the years reading philosophy of all kinds. For instance,
I once spent a great deal of time reading Marx, but after
reading Karl Popper's _The Open Society and its Enemies_ and
the relevant essays in _Conjectures and Refutations_, I just
haven't been able to take the dialectic seriously.
Of course, claims about the nature of truth, the reliability
of experience, and the limits of language have been discussed
for a long time, and very clearly in the analytical
tradition.
I don't claim to be a scholar of postmodernism. It is just
that writers like Quine, Popper, or Chomsky, who have a lot to say
about the limits and nature of language or knowledge, haven't
found much in the Derrida claque. And often when I _do_ read
something postmodernistic, it is full of stuff about
the insecurities of the bourgeois self or something of that
sort...something elusive and unspecifiable. Something very
far removed from observation or common sense. And when some
of the postmodernists such as Ross have taken to declamations about
subjects in science that I _have_ spent a long time reading
about, they seem to get it wrong and people send them quack
manuscripts they can't tell from substantive ones. For that
matter, reading Ross is just a painful experience.
Now there may be some postmodern thought that is sensible. For
instance, I'm looking now in the Docherty reader. And it is
not all piffle by any means; consider this sentence from the
article by Ernesto Laclau:
"Postmodernity does not imply a _change_ in the values of
Enlightenment modernity but rather a particular weakening of
their absolutist character."
That would count me and a lot of other people in as postmodernists,
depending on what the "particular" means.
>: The loose aggregate of relativistic or skeptical writings that
>: purports to find only power and politics at the basis of
>: every judgment, dismisses "western linear logic", etc. This
>: fluff hardly constitutes "all of philosophy". Nor have I ever
>: claimed that anything whatever ought to be abolished just
>: because of the Sokal hoax. As you perfectly well are aware.
>I am well aware of your hostility to skepticism and relativism -- you
>have invoked them in a blanket statement. Now show me some philosophy
>that isn't either skeptical or relativist. Actually, just show me one
>that isn't skeptical. We'll talk.
Bertrand Russell is not a skeptic or a relativist.
Willard Quine is not a skeptic or a relativist.
We could go down the list. That does not mean, incidentally,
that they are not skeptical about some things, they are just
not skeptics in the philosophical sense. And Quine actually
_is_ a relativist when it comes to fundamental ontology. But
he is still not a relativist or a skeptic in the sense
that would say that nothing is meaningful, language always
defeats itself, nothing can really be known, and this sort of
thing.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r714a$8...@panix2.panix.com>, Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>Gordon Fitch <g...@panix.com> wrote:
>| >You'll notice that almost everyone who believes that
>| >Sokal's hoax is significant believes in "objective
>| >reality." This is a religious notion, unnecessary to the
>| >practice of science, but obviously of great emotional
>| >appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead or
>| >permanently out to lunch.
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| I thought we went through this before. "Objective reality" is
>| not a religious notion. It depends on what you mean by
>| unnecessary to the practice of science. Emotional appeal is
>| not what determines whether something is religious or not.
>No, unprovability through observation is. If one firmly
>believes in something one can't perceive and demonstrate
>convincingly to others, that by me is a religious position
>or conviction. (Although some may prefer a term like
>"metaphysical.")
Humpty-dumpty sat on a wall.
>In any case, claims are being made about
>absolute truth, etc. etc., which seem religious to me --
>and, as I pointed out, the response to contradiction, i.e.
>heresy or unbelief, is similar to that encountered in the
>case of a number of other religions.
Bad analogy.
I am confident that my spaghetti will boil when I turn the
stove on, but I do not adhere to any spaghetti religion.
>gcf:
>| >In Sokal's paper, and in the current discussion, this
>| >imagined antagonistic ideology is called "postmodernism."
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| It's been made clear what is meant by "postmodernism" or
>| "postmodernists".
>It has?
See the earlier posts in which it was defined for the sake of
argument.
>gcf:
>| >The fact that no generally-applicable
>| >specifics can be given for the ideology is held by some to
>| >indicate, not that the ideology is imaginary, but that it
>| >is a conspiracy which conceals itself.
>po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
>| No one needs to assume that there is a coherent postmodern
>| ideology, just a claque of folks who read certain authors and
>| spout relativism and skepticism.
And not even Rorty is going to be able to save them from this
charge. Because they don't have to say, "I hearby declare my
relativism". They just have to say relativistic things on
cue, and they merit the description the same way a cat never
has to declare his or her cathood.
>I was referring to Noel Smith's contention that
>postmodernism _was_ a coherent ideology, but one which
>concealed itself. I've seen this idea in other places.
>If you wish to consign Gautama, Hume, Nietzsche, and a
>bunch of French guys to a "claque" (a group of hired
>applauders) and call it "postmodernism" I don't suppose
>anyone can stop you.
For the most part, just the French guys, and their claque of
admirers on this side of the ocean.
The ones who suffer from the Sokal hoax are Ross, Aronowitz,
Fish, and the clucks who take them seriously. Incidentally,
Aronowitz has written some things better than _Science_as_
Power_; he reminds me more of someone like Hoyle who made more
substantial contributions to some area earlier, but then who
started sinking later.
>It doesn't seem like a very useful
>term, though, unless one is doing propaganda.
Then tell that to the authors, publishers, and speakers who
use the term.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r76td$e...@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>,
William Grosso <apul...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <4r73l4$9...@agate.berkeley.edu> po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C.
>Porco) writes:
>>Aside from some of Marx's writings (esp. the earliest stuff)
>>and of course Nietzsche, these writers are just not the most
>>interesting writers out there. Given limited time, why not
>>read Darwin, Einstein, Mach, Frege, Russell, Quine,
>>Wittgenstein, the quantum mechanics, Popper, Carnap,
>>or B.F. Skinner, or contemporary writers like Noam Chomsky,
>>Bernard Baars, Michael Dummett, Daniel Dennett, etc.? There
>>is such an ocean of good stuff by folks like this that it is
>>kind of a shame to wallow around in Freud's myths or Hegel's
>>strange sentences.
>B.F. Skinner ? Does anybody actually pay attention to
>Skinner these days ? Didn't Chomsky (an early article,
>late 50's, I believe) and Dennet ("Skinner Skinned",
>reprinted in [I think] _Brainstorms_) bring down the
>curtain on Skinner ?
There are still some things you can learn from the radical
behaviorists and their philosophical counterparts like Quine
and Ryle. Sure Chomsky and Dennett are opposed to radical
behaviorist ways of viewing language and intention. Rightly.
>As a side note, a question almost completely from ignorance,
>why Quine and Carnap ? In particular, what did Carnap write ?
Because Quine is deep, great, and magnificent. Probably the
outstanding living philosopher (he's in his 80's now). Carnap
was one of the premier logical positivists until he abandoned
it with just about everyone else. One of his books is called
the Logical Structure of the World, reprinted together with
Pseudoproblems in Philosophy. Also Meaning and Necessity.
There is also a volume of Quine-Carnap correspondence that has
come out recently; I have not read it yet, though it looked
interesting.
>I'm blanking on him. Part of my mind says "Logical Positivist"
>but that can't be right. Although it does fit in with Skinner
>to some extent.
I kind of sympathize with the old logical positivist
metaphysical demolition squad, even if they did blow
themselves up at the end.
>Who are Baars and Dummet ? And why no Heidegger or Sartre on
>the big list ?
Bernard Baars is the author of _A_Cognitive_Theory_of_
Consciousness_ and also a book of interviews with Skinner,
Chomsky, and others called _The Cognitive [something or
other] in Psychology_. Finally, someone is actually trying to
really scientifically understand that part of the world which
is consciousness.
Dummett is a philosopher and interpreter of Frege. A book of
his articles, _The Seas of Language_ just came out, but I have
not had time to read it, and probably won't get to it for at
least a year and a half it looks like.
As for Sartre and Heidegger, I don't know why they should be
on such a list, but I could be mistaken.
>Cheers,
>Andy
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r7e42$1...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU>:
>>>>How does one come to the idea that a semidiscipline like
>>>>postmodern thought is quackery?
>Travis again:
>>Let's restrict it to "postmodern science studies", since
>>"science studies" was the topic of the ST issue. I should
>>have been clearer to start with.
> You were perfectly clear -- you said, "postmodern thought is
>quackery." But you couldn't back it up, so now you're pretending you
>only meant "science studies."
Well, it's not worth the trouble to back it up in that level
of generality, though I think a good case can be made for
disregarding Derrida, Lacan, Foucault et al. I'd rather retreat
to the pomo science studies than have to dig up information
about Lacan. Also there may well be some pomo writer out
there who has made some effort to make sense; I'd rather eat a
microgram of crow than unjustly condemn someone's work.
>>We can't possibly debate what they privately thought, since we
>>have no idea. However, Ross, Aronowitz, and others have
>>printed and written a good bit of strange and silly nonsense
>>already. I suspect they passed the Sokal counterfeit with
>>nary a clue, just as they have passed a good bit of
>>counterfeit argument before.
> Then the hoax is irrelevant, except for public relations
>purposes. Your efforts should be devoted to revealing the "silly
>nonsense" that they publish. But instead of bringing out the flaws
>that you see in their work, you're _still_ going on about the hoax!
We'll have to debate what they did; the idea that they may
have secretly thought it was false and not have told anyone
cuts no ice.
And certainly I'm doing the latter; I'm spending a lot of my
personal leisure time, that could be better spent drinking or
playing cards, in reading Ross's _Strange_Weather_, Norris _On
Deconstruction_, Aronowitz's horrible _Science_as_Power_, and
Derrida's asphyxiating and pretentious _Of Grammatology_.
>William Grosso:
>>>Maybe "post-modernism" is full of crap, maybe the editors
>>>decided to publish for other reasons, maybe ....maybe
>>>we shouldn't all jump to conclusions quite so quickly ?
>Travis:
>>Everyone has made clear what sort of things you can say as a
>>result of the Sokal hoax. It is not a refutation in itself of
>>poststructuralism or any of the rest of it.
> "Everyone" hasn't made clear anything. Alot of very foolish
>people have loudly claimed that Sokal's hoax demonstrated everything
>from the fraudulence of _Social Text_ to the decay of the humanities.
>You've been among the loudest -- only now you're changing your tune.
On the contrary; I've seen no reason to change my tune. You
read only what you want to read, and think it means only what
you think it means. The Sokal hoax certainly illustrates the
decay of the
humanities, but it does _not_ demonstrate it. Something I've
said from the beginning.
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r7el7$2...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>>The ones who suffer from the Sokal hoax are Ross, Aronowitz,
>>Fish, and the clucks who take them seriously.
> So from contending that the hoax shows "postmodern thought is
>quackery," you've been reduced to arguing that it reflects badly on
>these three, plus some anonyous clucks. Not quite the same, is it?
>And of course you still haven't demonstrated how it does say anything
>about the work that they've done over the years. Why does it matter?
>If there are defects in the work of any or all of them, you can point
>that out: there was never any need to argue about Sokal's hoax did or
>didn't show. But you're still going on about Sokal, and ignoring the
>contents of their work.
The Sokal hoax is an impressive illustration of the bankruptcy
of postmodern science studies. You can't weasel them out of
it, Moggin. The Sokal hoax was a brilliant masterstroke that
called attention to the incompetence and arrogance of a group
of folks who have exempted themselves from rational argument.
moggin
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>>>The ones who suffer from the Sokal hoax are Ross, Aronowitz,
>>>Fish, and the clucks who take them seriously.
moggin:
>> So from contending that the hoax shows "postmodern thought is
>>quackery," you've been reduced to arguing that it reflects badly on
>>these three, plus some anonyous clucks. Not quite the same, is it?
>>And of course you still haven't demonstrated how it does say anything
>>about the work that they've done over the years. Why does it matter?
>>If there are defects in the work of any or all of them, you can point
>>that out: there was never any need to argue about Sokal's hoax did or
>>didn't show. But you're still going on about Sokal, and ignoring the
>>contents of their work.
Travis:
>The Sokal hoax is an impressive illustration of the bankruptcy
>of postmodern science studies. You can't weasel them out of
>it, Moggin. The Sokal hoax was a brilliant masterstroke that
>called attention to the incompetence and arrogance of a group
>of folks who have exempted themselves from rational argument.
I have no reason to even _try_ and "weasel them out of it" --
my argument was with your attempt to use Sokal's hoax as a basis for
absurd generalizations like "postmodern thought is quackery." Given
your retreat from that position, my work here is done. But even your
narrow conclusions require more support than the hoax can provide --
if you want to show that Ross & Co. are "incompetent" or "bankrupt,"
it's fine with me, but you'll have to provide stuff like evidence and
reasoning (y'know, the things that go into "rational argument"). You
can't rely on Sokal to do your work for you -- he could illustrate an
argument, but you've exempted yourself from supplying one.
-- moggin
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r7mfc$e...@bessel.nando.net>,
>>>>The ones who suffer from the Sokal hoax are Ross, Aronowitz,
>>>>Fish, and the clucks who take them seriously.
>moggin:
>>> So from contending that the hoax shows "postmodern thought is
>>>quackery," you've been reduced to arguing that it reflects badly on
>>>these three, plus some anonyous clucks. Not quite the same, is it?
>>>And of course you still haven't demonstrated how it does say anything
>>>about the work that they've done over the years. Why does it matter?
>>>If there are defects in the work of any or all of them, you can point
>>>that out: there was never any need to argue about Sokal's hoax did or
>>>didn't show. But you're still going on about Sokal, and ignoring the
>>>contents of their work.
>Travis:
>>The Sokal hoax is an impressive illustration of the bankruptcy
>>of postmodern science studies. You can't weasel them out of
>>it, Moggin. The Sokal hoax was a brilliant masterstroke that
>>called attention to the incompetence and arrogance of a group
>>of folks who have exempted themselves from rational argument.
> I have no reason to even _try_ and "weasel them out of it" --
>my argument was with your attempt to use Sokal's hoax as a basis for
>absurd generalizations like "postmodern thought is quackery."
No, the generalization is actually quite plausible. A good
bit of it seems very much to be quackery, and more of it seems
to be more like theatrically overstating a case to get
attention, the way Jeff Johnson did when he said he didn't
believe in reason. However, what I'm most interested in is
the notion that science cannot provide solid and reliable
knowledge, or that it needs to be "demystified" and its status
as privileged discourse revoked, or whatever. That's why I
didn't want to get into the long discussion about moral
relativism with Russell Turpin, though my careless usage
brought on his criticism.
>Given your retreat from that position, my work here is done.
That position was hardly important, and I clarified it
immediately. Why do I keep talking about the Sokal incident?
Because people keep attacking Alan Sokal for his courageous
and principled act.
>But even your
>narrow conclusions require more support than the hoax can provide --
>if you want to show that Ross & Co. are "incompetent" or "bankrupt,"
>it's fine with me, but you'll have to provide stuff like evidence and
>reasoning (y'know, the things that go into "rational argument"). You
>can't rely on Sokal to do your work for you -- he could illustrate an
>argument, but you've exempted yourself from supplying one.
On the contrary. There will indeed be some discussion I hope
about Ross's _Strange_Weather_ to start with. Better get your
Dictionary of Twisted Definitions and Verbal Obfuscations
handy, because you've got a lot of distorting and squirming to
do if you want to get Ross off the hook.
moggin
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU>:
>>>>>How does one come to the idea that a semidiscipline like
>>>>>postmodern thought is quackery?
Travis again:
>>>Let's restrict it to "postmodern science studies", since
>>>"science studies" was the topic of the ST issue. I should
>>>have been clearer to start with.
moggin:
>> You were perfectly clear -- you said, "postmodern thought is
>>quackery." But you couldn't back it up, so now you're pretending you
>>only meant "science studies."
Travis:
>Well, it's not worth the trouble to back it up in that level
>of generality, though I think a good case can be made for
>disregarding Derrida, Lacan, Foucault et al. I'd rather retreat
>to the pomo science studies than have to dig up information
>about Lacan. Also there may well be some pomo writer out
>there who has made some effort to make sense; I'd rather eat a
>microgram of crow than unjustly condemn someone's work.
Funny you didn't make that qualification before -- until now
you've gone on about what crap it all is, without stopping to worry if
you might be wrong. I'm not going to hand out an assignment and tell
you that you have to read Lacan or the others -- if you don't want to,
then by all means don't. But it _is_ a bit late to be saying they're
not worth the trouble of dealing with, since you've already made a few
dozen remarks labelling post-modernism "quackery," equating it with
faith-healing, and so on. I pointed out early on that you didn't know
what you were talking about; it's nice to see you're finally admitting
it, but this is where you should have begun (only without the bullshit
about the "good case," since we both know you'll never deliver one).
Travis:
>>>We can't possibly debate what they privately thought, since we
>>>have no idea. However, Ross, Aronowitz, and others have
>>>printed and written a good bit of strange and silly nonsense
>>>already. I suspect they passed the Sokal counterfeit with
>>>nary a clue, just as they have passed a good bit of
>>>counterfeit argument before.
moggin:
>> Then the hoax is irrelevant, except for public relations
>>purposes. Your efforts should be devoted to revealing the "silly
>>nonsense" that they publish. But instead of bringing out the flaws
>>that you see in their work, you're _still_ going on about the hoax!
Travis:
>We'll have to debate what they did; the idea that they may
>have secretly thought it was false and not have told anyone
>cuts no ice.
Doesn't matter much -- if you want to claim that they wrote
"strange and silly nonsense," you need to produce the material and
support your judgement. For all I know, you're absolutely right --
but you haven't given any reason for me or anyone else to think so.
>And certainly I'm doing the latter; I'm spending a lot of my
>personal leisure time, that could be better spent drinking or
>playing cards, in reading Ross's _Strange_Weather_, Norris _On
>Deconstruction_, Aronowitz's horrible _Science_as_Power_, and
>Derrida's asphyxiating and pretentious _Of Grammatology_.
When you come up with something...
William Grosso:
>>>>Maybe "post-modernism" is full of crap, maybe the editors
>>>>decided to publish for other reasons, maybe ....maybe
>>>>we shouldn't all jump to conclusions quite so quickly ?
Travis:
>>>Everyone has made clear what sort of things you can say as a
>>>result of the Sokal hoax. It is not a refutation in itself of
>>>poststructuralism or any of the rest of it.
moggin:
>> "Everyone" hasn't made clear anything. Alot of very foolish
>>people have loudly claimed that Sokal's hoax demonstrated everything
>>from the fraudulence of _Social Text_ to the decay of the humanities.
>>You've been among the loudest -- only now you're changing your tune.
Travis:
>On the contrary; I've seen no reason to change my tune.
Let's be more specific -- you had no reason to sing it in the
first place, since you're only now getting around to reading even some
of the material. And since you now admit that your points don't apply
beyond "science studies," you're plainly whistling a different melody.
Travis:
>You
>read only what you want to read, and think it means only what
>you think it means. The Sokal hoax certainly illustrates the
>decay of the humanities, but it does _not_ demonstrate it.
>Something I've said from the beginning.
From beginning to end you've been spouting nonsense about
post-modernism without even attempting to back it up. I was right to
say didn't know what the hell you were talking about, and now you've
grudgingly admitted that's true. You'll probably get back to talking
shit again in a day or two, but we'll see.
-- moggin
Gvwm...@netcom.com
>B.F. Skinner ? Does anybody actually pay attention to
>Skinner these days ? Didn't Chomsky (an early article,
>late 50's, I believe) and Dennet ("Skinner Skinned",
>reprinted in [I think] _Brainstorms_) bring down the
>curtain on Skinner ?
haha.
everyone knows that behavioral conditioning works. if you supply
something a person wants when they do something, the next time they
want that something, they'll do the same thing again.....
Gordon Fitch
| ....
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| ...
| The ones who suffer from the Sokal hoax are Ross, Aronowitz,
| Fish, and the clucks who take them seriously. Incidentally,
| Aronowitz has written some things better than _Science_as_
| Power_; he reminds me more of someone like Hoyle who made more
| substantial contributions to some area earlier, but then who
| started sinking later.
gcf:
| >It doesn't seem like a very useful
| >term, though, unless one is doing propaganda.
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco):
| Then tell that to the authors, publishers, and speakers who
| use the term.
I have. On several occasions, I've pointed out to people
who appeared to be doing it to themselves that the
construal of oneself into a pseudo-ideology like
"postmodernism" is repressive. If the point is to organize
party politics and repress the other guys, at least it's
practical though bad, but there's nothing like this going
on with "postmodernism" as far as I can tell. I suppose in
the present case the feeling is that being in a cage
instead of out on the street is better, if one has a nice
label on the cage.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
moggin
Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU>:
>>>>>The ones who suffer from the Sokal hoax are Ross, Aronowitz,
>>>>>Fish, and the clucks who take them seriously.
moggin:
>>>> So from contending that the hoax shows "postmodern thought is
>>>>quackery," you've been reduced to arguing that it reflects badly on
>>>>these three, plus some anonyous clucks. Not quite the same, is it?
>>>>And of course you still haven't demonstrated how it does say anything
>>>>about the work that they've done over the years. Why does it matter?
>>>>If there are defects in the work of any or all of them, you can point
>>>>that out: there was never any need to argue about Sokal's hoax did or
>>>>didn't show. But you're still going on about Sokal, and ignoring the
>>>>contents of their work.
Travis:
>>>The Sokal hoax is an impressive illustration of the bankruptcy
>>>of postmodern science studies. You can't weasel them out of
>>>it, Moggin. The Sokal hoax was a brilliant masterstroke that
>>>called attention to the incompetence and arrogance of a group
>>>of folks who have exempted themselves from rational argument.
moggin:
>> I have no reason to even _try_ and "weasel them out of it" --
>>my argument was with your attempt to use Sokal's hoax as a basis for
>>absurd generalizations like "postmodern thought is quackery."
Travis:
>No, the generalization is actually quite plausible.
You have no idea whether it's "plausible" or not, since by
your own admission you're unaquainted with the topic, and you plan
to "disregard" most of it except for "science studies."
>A good bit of it seems very much to be quackery, and more of it seems
>to be more like theatrically overstating a case to get attention, the
>way Jeff Johnson did when he said he didn't believe in reason.
That may well be how it seems to you, but the impressions you
get, most of them at second-hand, are no basis for your generalizing.
>However, what I'm most interested in is
>the notion that science cannot provide solid and reliable
>knowledge, or that it needs to be "demystified" and its status
>as privileged discourse revoked, or whatever.
Then deal with it, already -- as somebody else said, haul out
Latuour, or Winner, or Aronowitz, or Ross, or whoever you have a bone
to pick with, and criticize their work.
moggin:
>>Given your retreat from that position, my work here is done.
>That position was hardly important, and I clarified it
>immediately. Why do I keep talking about the Sokal incident?
>Because people keep attacking Alan Sokal for his courageous
>and principled act.
Seemed awfully important to you until now, and I don't recall
any immediate clarifications. I don't care why you keep talking about
Sokal -- thing is, you're not talking about Ross, or Aronowitz, or any
of the "science studies" crowd that you say you want to critique. And
until you do, you haven't provided the argument that you claim Sokal's
hoax illustrates.
moggin:
>>But even your
>>narrow conclusions require more support than the hoax can provide --
>>if you want to show that Ross & Co. are "incompetent" or "bankrupt,"
>>it's fine with me, but you'll have to provide stuff like evidence and
>>reasoning (y'know, the things that go into "rational argument"). You
>>can't rely on Sokal to do your work for you -- he could illustrate an
>>argument, but you've exempted yourself from supplying one.
Travis:
>On the contrary. There will indeed be some discussion I hope
>about Ross's _Strange_Weather_ to start with. Better get your
>Dictionary of Twisted Definitions and Verbal Obfuscations
>handy, because you've got a lot of distorting and squirming to
>do if you want to get Ross off the hook.
Why would I want to do that? I've already said that I don't
know his work: I might even agree with you about it. But it's moot,
if you never make any concrete criticisms -- and so far you haven't.
-- moggin
Silke-Maria Weineck
: >: >[...]
Says who? It entirely depends on what kind of reliance you're looking
for. It can't give reliable information about lots of things in the
world, as no doubt you wouldn't deny. This is merely another straw target.
and
: that it needs to be demystified and removed from its position
: as privileged discourse or whatever. I am interested in what
: calls itself postmodernism only in so far as it is related to
: this question.
You're throwing the word around a lot, then.
: Now it happens that I've wasted way too much time
: over the years reading philosophy of all kinds. For instance,
: I once spent a great deal of time reading Marx, but after
: reading Karl Popper's _The Open Society and its Enemies_ and
: the relevant essays in _Conjectures and Refutations_, I just
: haven't been able to take the dialectic seriously.
: Of course, claims about the nature of truth, the reliability
: of experience, and the limits of language have been discussed
: for a long time, and very clearly in the analytical
: tradition.
And non-analytical traditions which are a bit more pertinent here.
: I don't claim to be a scholar of postmodernism. It is just
: that writers like Quine, Popper, or Chomsky, who have a lot to say
: about the limits and nature of language or knowledge, haven't
: found much in the Derrida claque. And often when I _do_ read
: something postmodernistic, it is full of stuff about
: the insecurities of the bourgeois self or something of that
: sort...something elusive and unspecifiable. Something very
: far removed from observation or common sense.
If you had read as much philosophy as you claim, you'd know that "common
sense" is not a very good criterium to invoke in discussions like these.
And when some
: of the postmodernists such as Ross have taken to declamations about
: subjects in science that I _have_ spent a long time reading
: about, they seem to get it wrong and people send them quack
: manuscripts they can't tell from substantive ones. For that
: matter, reading Ross is just a painful experience.
That's fine, I find reading Ross equally painful, for different reasons.
It just doesn't tell me anything about the value of Lacan or Derrida or
Barthes or Foucault. Let me tell you what's _really_ painful to read:
Pavlov's pain studies. If I made my inferences about science from there,
I'd outlaw your whole outfit.
[...]
: >I am well aware of your hostility to skepticism and relativism -- you
: >have invoked them in a blanket statement. Now show me some philosophy
: >that isn't either skeptical or relativist. Actually, just show me one
: >that isn't skeptical. We'll talk.
: Bertrand Russell is not a skeptic or a relativist.
?????
: Willard Quine is not a skeptic or a relativist.
: We could go down the list. That does not mean, incidentally,
: that they are not skeptical about some things, they are just
: not skeptics in the philosophical sense. And Quine actually
: _is_ a relativist when it comes to fundamental ontology. But
: he is still not a relativist or a skeptic in the sense
: that would say that nothing is meaningful, language always
: defeats itself, nothing can really be known, and this sort of
: thing.
Nobody says "nothing is meaningful" -- straw, straw, straw.
Silke
Richard Harter
apul...@ix.netcom.com(William Grosso) wrote:
>Ditto for Gross and Levitt. Go look at the review (somebody
>posted the web page). The reviewer saw the same thing I remembered--
>G & L make the explicit claim that a science faculty, given
>prep time, could teach the humanities. But that a humanities
>faculty could not, even given prep time, cobble together a
>science curriculum.
Note: the selection of this particular point does not imply any
comment on the many excellencies of the other parts of your post.
Within limits the G&L claim is probably true for reasons pointed out
long ago by C.P. Snow. The humanities are more broadly taught (the
quality of the teaching thereof I decline to comment on), are part of
the general stock of experience of educated people, and are more
accessible to the someone who is not in the field.
If one wanted to put together a curriculum of the basics, let us say,
for example, some courses on English literature, an introduction to
philosophy, a history course or two, introductory psychology, a survey
of art, whatever, the science faculty could put together those courses
because they have taken those courses and include those subjects among
their interests -- not all members of the faculty, of course, but
many.
On the other hand if one wanted to put together a curriculum of
science basics, say for example, calculus, basic Newtonian physics,
basic chemistry, and a biology course or two, a humanities faculty
would be hard pressed to put together such a curriculum because,
by and large, they have not mastered the basics. They have been given
and have accepted watered pablum instead of substance. With rare
exceptions one cannot teach French if one does not speak French and
one cannot teach Calculus if one does not understand Calculus.
All of this changes when one moves beyond the basics. If one were to
teach, for example, a course on Derrida (to take a relevant example)
one would need a good grounding not merely on Derrida wrote but also
in the cultural context from which he writes.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
If a poster won't behave put that poster in the grave.
Kill him quick for life is short. Silence is the best retort.
Libertarius
John McCarthy
half time in the Philosophy Department and is teaching standard
philosophy courses including, I think, a course about Aristotle.
I suppose the results are satisfactory.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
John McCarthy
Science isn't like the humanities, and one doesn't "bring down the
curtain on Skinner". Skinner did a lot of experimental valuable
research, and I'll bet it is still referenced today.
His extreme behaviorism as a methodology has indeed been rejected by
almost all cognitive scientists. Newell and Simon did the most to
supersede Skinner, perhaps without ever explicitly criticizing him,
when their _information processing models_ took over cognitive
psychology. AI research also helped, but they worked directly on
problems that interested psychologists.
I remember a well-known Stanford psychologist telling me that he
regretted the dominance of information processing models over
behaviorist work. I suppose he did behaviorist work.
I should think that worthwhile S-R experimental and theoretical
studies are still done today, because some phenomena fit the
behaviorist model.
Robert Ashcroft
In article <4r8u56$4...@news-old.tiac.net>, Richard Harter <c...@tiac.net> wrote:
>apul...@ix.netcom.com(William Grosso) wrote:
>
>>Ditto for Gross and Levitt. Go look at the review (somebody
>>posted the web page). The reviewer saw the same thing I remembered--
>>G & L make the explicit claim that a science faculty, given
>>prep time, could teach the humanities. But that a humanities
>>faculty could not, even given prep time, cobble together a
>>science curriculum.
>
>Note: the selection of this particular point does not imply any
>comment on the many excellencies of the other parts of your post.
>
>Within limits the G&L claim is probably true for reasons pointed out
>long ago by C.P. Snow. The humanities are more broadly taught (the
>quality of the teaching thereof I decline to comment on), are part of
>the general stock of experience of educated people, and are more
>accessible to the someone who is not in the field.
The only people I have met who approximate the notion of "renaissance
wo/men" hail from the sciences. It's very rare to find someone in
the humanities who has more than a trivial scientific background.
Which is a tragedy.
RNA
Joseph M Green
g...@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>apul...@ix.netcom.com(William Grosso):
>| ...
>| Agreed. Most people who have posted to this thread, including
>| Silke and Moggin, have agreed with some variant of this
>| statement. Something was wrong at _Social Text_.
>|
>| Can we move past this ?
>| ...
>It will be very difficult for the science campers to move
>past _Social_Text_ because the act of catching _Social_
>_Text_ with its pants down is the equivalent of Luther's
>throwing his inkpot at the Devil and hitting him in the eye.
>You'll notice that almost everyone who believes that
>Sokal's hoax is significant believes in "objective
>reality." This is a religious notion, unnecessary to the
>practice of science, but obviously of great emotional
>appeal in an age when personal gods seem to be dead or
>permanently out to lunch. Even our devils have been dying
>off.
>Since the science campers have a coherent religious
>ideology, which I call "scientism", they project a similar
>structure on others, especially those who seem to be
>attacking the Faith. In Sokal's paper, and in the current
>discussion, this imagined antagonistic ideology is called
>"postmodernism." The fact that no generally-applicable
>specifics can be given for the ideology is held by some to
>indicate, not that the ideology is imaginary, but that it
>is a conspiracy which conceals itself. In other words,
>nothing like evidence or the lack of it is allowed to stand
>in the way of this idea. And that is because, as the shadow
>of the "objective reality" Faith, it is critically needed.
>It is part of the working-out of of a religious crisis.
>So it will probably be with us for a long time, unless
>something better comes along.
>--
> }"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Absolute horseshit. You, Fitch, seem to be much more of a clerical
type than these other fellows. A while back I glanced at your
attempt to define deconstruction. This fellow has been around
(five years ago in alt.postmodern... at least) let's see what
he has to say... and was not amused (weary dreary) when it was
obvious that deconstruction meant nothing in particular: your
definition would fit any of the "cultural criticism" of the last
weary dreary years. More or less deconstuction (which means
for you some sort of de-mystification that you are, God knows why,
particularly qulaified to perform) seems to mean that someone like
yourself can "deconstruct" this or that text to reveal
what is hidden from fellows who are not as clever as you are.
I write it twice so that you will understand. This is, more
or less, what you do here. All you are doing is imputing
motives and chatting airily and boringly about them. This
banal stuff must continue to fascinate you --and there is hardly
a move more banal than insisting, as you do here, that others
are corrupted by an ideology that you, somehow, can demystify.
William Grosso
In <4r83cc$q...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com> Gvwm...@netcom.com writes:
>
>everyone knows that behavioral conditioning works. if you supply
>something a person wants when they do something, the next time they
>want that something, they'll do the same thing again.....
>
Yes. And, strangely enough, such a deep insight is not due
to B.F. Skinner.
Skinner's unique insight was that *all* actions a person
takes can be accounted for by conditioning (unless I'm
mischaracterizing his views).
Which has been completely rebutted.
Cheers,
Andy
William Grosso
In <JMC.96Ju...@Steam.stanford.edu> j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John
McCarthy) writes:
>
>Science isn't like the humanities, and one doesn't "bring down the
>curtain on Skinner". Skinner did a lot of experimental valuable
>research, and I'll bet it is still referenced today.
>
My apologies. I stand corrected.
The reference to Skinner as an important read was in a
thread primarily concerned with philosophy and Skinner's
name occurred in a list of people who have written books
or essays that could be called philosophical (except,
maybe, for Mach).
I made the assumption that Skinner's more philosophical
work was being praised. Moreover, my comments were entirely
about his philosophical positions.
Cheers,
Andy
Libertarius
att...@ix.netcom.com(Libertarius) writes:
>
> In <4r83cc$q...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com> Gvwm...@netcom.com writes:
> >
> >
> >>B.F. Skinner ? Does anybody actually pay attention to
> >>Skinner these days ? Didn't Chomsky (an early article,
> >>late 50's, I believe) and Dennet ("Skinner Skinned",
> >>reprinted in [I think] _Brainstorms_) bring down the
> >>curtain on Skinner ?
> >haha.
> >
> >
> >everyone knows that behavioral conditioning works. if you supply
> >something a person wants when they do something, the next time they
> >want that something, they'll do the same thing again.....
> >
> >
> Sounds like the welfare system.
>
>Science isn't like the humanities, and one doesn't "bring down the
>curtain on Skinner". Skinner did a lot of experimental valuable
>research, and I'll bet it is still referenced today.
>
>His extreme behaviorism as a methodology has indeed been rejected by
>almost all cognitive scientists. Newell and Simon did the most to
>supersede Skinner, perhaps without ever explicitly criticizing him,
>when their _information processing models_ took over cognitive
>psychology. AI research also helped, but they worked directly on
>problems that interested psychologists.
>
>I remember a well-known Stanford psychologist telling me that he
>regretted the dominance of information processing models over
>behaviorist work. I suppose he did behaviorist work.
>
>I should think that worthwhile S-R experimental and theoretical
>studies are still done today, because some phenomena fit the
>behaviorist model.
>
>
>
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
>
>
It might be useful to establish the fact that Skinner was more
interested in identifying the mechanisms of MOTIVATION, in which area
he did excellent work. Look at a slot machine in any casino if you
don't believe Skinner was correct in describing various "schedules of
reinforcement" etc.
Libertarius
Sourcerer
In article <4r9jju$n...@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>,
Libertarius <att...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> It might be useful to establish the fact that Skinner was more
>interested in identifying the mechanisms of MOTIVATION, in which area
>he did excellent work. Look at a slot machine in any casino if you
>don't believe Skinner was correct in describing various "schedules of
>reinforcement" etc.
What did he say about the bells-whistles-flashing-lights part of it?
--
(__) Sourcerer
/(<>)\ O|O|O|O||O||O
\../ |OO|||O|||O|| When all is debt
|| OO|||OO||O||O all is usury
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r8mi1$4...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
...
>Nobody says "nothing is meaningful" -- straw, straw, straw.
The trouble is that the skeptics certainly want to tell us
_something_. But if what they claim is strong enough to be
worth hearing, it is false; if it is weakened enough to be
true, it is not worth worrying about.
Gordon Fitch
gree...@gold.tc.umn.edu (Joseph M Green):
| Absolute horseshit. You, Fitch, seem to be much more of a clerical
| type than these other fellows. A while back I glanced at your
| attempt to define deconstruction. This fellow has been around
| (five years ago in alt.postmodern... at least) let's see what
| he has to say... and was not amused (weary dreary) when it was
| obvious that deconstruction meant nothing in particular: your
| definition would fit any of the "cultural criticism" of the last
| weary dreary years. More or less deconstuction (which means
| for you some sort of de-mystification that you are, God knows why,
| particularly qulaified to perform) seems to mean that someone like
| yourself can "deconstruct" this or that text to reveal
| what is hidden from fellows who are not as clever as you are.
| I write it twice so that you will understand. This is, more
| or less, what you do here. All you are doing is imputing
| motives and chatting airily and boringly about them. This
| banal stuff must continue to fascinate you --and there is hardly
| a move more banal than insisting, as you do here, that others
| are corrupted by an ideology that you, somehow, can demystify.
If it was so boring, and, uh, _wrong_, it's hard to imagine
why you were compelled to write so many words about it.
I think, though, that you're confusing me with someone else
when you write about "corruption" and "demystification."
Where's the corruption and demystification? I'd like to
see some.
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r7rs0$h...@bessel.nando.net>,
moggin <mog...@bessel.nando.net> wrote:
>Travis C. Porco <po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU>:
Hogwash and debasement rhetoric as usual. I certainly have
not abandoned my suspicion of a good bit of postmodernism,
especially deconstruction and the Ross-Aronowitz business.
However, I don't have time to waste reading every bit of
irrationalist bilge somebody dishes out, and I'd rather not
disturb the flies on every trashheap. In any case,
there are competent scholars like Ellis who _have_ taken the
time to make the case.
--Travis Porco
standard disclaimer
Dr...@aol.com
me...@ohsu.edu (Alex Merz) wrote:
>The only thing that's sad about all of this is that too much of the
>current focus focuses on the lunacy of the academic left, while
>letting similar lunacy from the right proceed apparently without
>restriction.
I would think that Gross, Levitt, and Sokal (who range, I think, from
liberal to socialist) believe that one reason is: the academic left,
instead of attacking the academic right, attacks reality. (And loses.)
andy
Dr...@aol.com
nan...@tiac.net (Ken MacIver) wrote:
>Or except for those who believe, as do I, that trust is at the heart
>of the editor-writer relationship.
Trust is at the heart of our relationship to political officials, but
I'm not sorry when they're caught in a 'sting' operation.
andy
Dr...@aol.com
chc...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Claudia HCQ Sorsby) wrote:
>No. Sokal is a grown-up 6th grader, who bet everyone in the class that if he
>wrote nothing but "Nyah nyah nyah" on the second-to-last page of his term
>paper, the teacher would be too lazy to notice. His intent was to see if the
>journal's editors were doing their job, not to deceive. If they'd done their
>job properly, and actually understood his article, they would never have
>published it because he wouldn't have deceived them.
>Remember, Sokal included tons of stuff in his manuscript that showed its
>silliness. If he'd truly been trying to do something unethical, he'd have
>made the article as convincing as possible, like a counterfeiter. Instead,
>he designed the piece so that even a science or math undergraduate could
>tell it was crap.
I think this is close, but not quite right. It's more like a student
who shows that if he writes 'My teacher is the greatest' on the first
page, he doesn't have to do the rest of the test.
The reason Sokal could count on ST publishing his nonsense is that the
parts of it that parse were identical to (and borrowed from) the
quack-science ideas of Ross and his ilk. What I've seen of their own
work tends not to make much sense either, because the authors don't
have even a Scientific American knowledge of science, and they have to
substitute for it a lot of drivel.
andy
Dr...@aol.com
c...@tiac.net (Richard Harter) wrote:
>If one wanted to put together a curriculum of the basics, let us say,
>for example, some courses on English literature, an introduction to
>philosophy, a history course or two, introductory psychology, a survey
>of art, whatever, the science faculty could put together those courses
>because they have taken those courses and include those subjects among
>their interests -- not all members of the faculty, of course, but
>many.
I agree, speaking from experience.
>On the other hand if one wanted to put together a curriculum of
>science basics, say for example, calculus, basic Newtonian physics,
>basic chemistry, and a biology course or two, a humanities faculty
>would be hard pressed to put together such a curriculum because,
>by and large, they have not mastered the basics. They have been given
>and have accepted watered pablum instead of substance. With rare
>exceptions one cannot teach French if one does not speak French and
>one cannot teach Calculus if one does not understand Calculus.
Have you any evidence that Ross or any other editor of ST, or any
other luminary of the 'science studies' movement, has taken Calculus,
or the introductory course in any other pertinent field? If not -- and
I contend that there is evidence that they have, collectively, less
knowledge about the raw data of science than the freshman class at a
good engineering school -- why are you defending them?????
andy
Ken MacIver
po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Travis C. Porco) wrote:
>I am confident that my spaghetti will boil when I turn the
>stove on, but I do not adhere to any spaghetti religion.
Now you done it! I turned on my stove & came back to finish up some
things. I just checked the spaghetti and the damn stuff is still in
the box, never mind boiling.
Ken
Ken MacIver
chc...@cus.cam.ac.uk (Claudia HCQ Sorsby) wrote:
>In article <4r1c70$c...@news-old.tiac.net>, Ken MacIver <nan...@tiac.net> wrote:
>>>The Sokal hoax demonstrates that 'high-grade' postmodernist papers
>>>cannot readily be distinguished from jibberish. And THAT is an
>>>xtremely valuable piece of information for scholars to have (except
>>>for those whose oxen have been gored).
>>
>>This is not my post.
>"This is not my beautiful wife..."
>You are of course correct; I fell into the fatal error of trusting my
>software. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Please accept my apologies.
>>>Please remember, writers are notoriously sloppy. This is why publishers
>hire
>>>fact-checkers, copy editors, and proofreaders. Or should they not bother,
>in
>>>the name of "trust"?
>>
>>I too am an editor and when I say trust what I mean is an expectation
>>that the author of a submitted article is not trying to play a trick
>>on me. That may be naive on my part these days but I dont like a
>>world where, as you seem to suggest, an editor must treat every author
>>as an enemy trying to trick him.
>Perhaps I don't see it in the moral terms you do. I don't think a trickster
>is necessarily an "enemy," for example. People submit things for all sorts
>of reasons, and it's just part of an editor's job to sort through them as
>much as possible. Would you run a nasty review of a book written by the
>author's ex-spouse? Would you accept a manuscript trashing a company without
>checking to see if the author was a disgruntled employee? I'm afraid I do
>consider an editor naive if he accepts incoming material at face value.
You are confusing authorial intent with editorial responsibility. I
don't "trust" an author in that I take in blind faith what is
submitted. I do trust that an author has submitted an article in good
faith. If I uncovered in advance that an author had submitted an
article in bad faith only to "trick" the publication's editors into
publishing a phony article, I would reject it out of hand & never
again examine anything that person submitted. If I knew the nsty
review was written by the ex-spouse I would not publish it; I
certainly wouldnt call everyone who's ever submitted a nasty review
and ask them if the book was by an ex-spouse! As for the company
book, I would certainly wish to know if the author was an employee, of
course. It would lend authenticity to his exposure of the fraud in
which they stole $30 million from little old ladies in Montana .
"Whistle blower" books are among the most popular items these days.
[snip]
>>On the other hand, I would pay serious money to see a game of
>>horse-hockey.
>Hee, hee...I think I can arrange this for you. Your trial subscription to
>_Social Text_ will begin soon.
No, anything but that. I quit.
Ken
Travis C. Porco
Yeah, but you didn't _believe_ !
--Travis
Travis C. Porco
In article <4r97ce$s...@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>,
William Grosso <apul...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <4r83cc$q...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com> Gvwm...@netcom.com writes:
>>everyone knows that behavioral conditioning works. if you supply
>>something a person wants when they do something, the next time they
>>want that something, they'll do the same thing again.....
>Yes. And, strangely enough, such a deep insight is not due
>to B.F. Skinner.
>Skinner's unique insight was that *all* actions a person
>takes can be accounted for by conditioning (unless I'm
>mischaracterizing his views).
Skinner did a lot of work on particular quantitative aspects
of conditioning, which still stands. And the educational
methods developed by behaviorism (such as programmed learning)
have been shown to be effective. So a good bit of what
Skinner has argued and shown in the laboratory is still sound.
Plus his critiques of the hollowness of much mentalistic
explanations are sometimes right on target.
Science marches on, and some of Skinner's larger notions are
not widely accepted. However, Skinner was an undoubtedly
great scientist with an enduring legacy, and a person can even
profit from what have turned out to be his mistakes.
I don't hold a brief for radical behaviorism, but I respect
what they've tried to do and think a lot of their work is
valuable. Skinner is still very much worth reading.
David Salvador Flores
In article <JMC.96Ju...@Steam.stanford.edu>,
John McCarthy <j...@cs.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>I object to the word "scientism" on the grounds that it doesn't have a
>corresponding word for an adherent (like me) of the doctrine. The
>word "scientist" has been pre-empted for a different meaning than an
>adherent of scientism. How about "sciencism" for the doctrine and
>"sciencist" for its adherents?
The term Scientism is already too firmly established. How about
merely coming up with a new term to describe an adherent?
I propose the following as possiblities:
Scientor
Scientease
Scienentist
Sci-fi-buff
Scientaster
Scient-ain't-so
Priests-of-the-temples-of-Syrinx
The Scien
Scienara
Scien-bye-is-always-hard
Scienguru
Scientoreador
>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
>http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
-Dave
P.S. These are just suggestions, and by no means the only
possibilities, nonetheless, I think you'll find it difficult
to come up with a better deal from our competitors.
David Salvador Flores
In article <4r6vl3$m...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>Hey, Travis -- glad I could flush you out...
>
[deletia]
>I am well aware of your hostility to skepticism and relativism -- you
>have invoked them in a blanket statement. Now show me some philosophy
>that isn't either skeptical or relativist. Actually, just show me one
>that isn't skeptical. We'll talk.
I'm not sure if it counts as a "philosophy" per se, let alone
a philosophical school, but David St. Hubbins, the vocalist of
Spinal Tap is on record as saying that: "Unlike most people, I
believe everything I read."
>
>Silke
-Dave
David Salvador Flores
In article <4r8mi1$4...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>: In article <4r6vl3$m...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
>: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>: >Hey, Travis -- glad I could flush you out...
>
>: >Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>: >: In article <4r6mm6$g...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
>: >: Silke-Maria Weineck <wein...@mail1.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>: >: >Travis C. Porco (po...@stat.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>
[deletia]
>
>: Bertrand Russell is not a skeptic or a relativist.
>
>?????
????? indeed. From Rusell's _A History of Western Philosophy_:
David Hume (1711-76) is one of the most important among philosophers
because he developed to its logical conlusion the empirical philosophy
of Locke and Berkeley... To refute him has been, ever since he wrote,
a favorite pastime among metaphysicians. For my part, I find none of
their refutations convincing; nevertheless, I cannot but hope that
something less skeptical than Hume's system may be discoverable.
And from Hume's _A Treatise on Human Nature_:
"...all knowledge resolves itself into to probability..." (p. 181 of
the Selby-Bidge/Nidditch 2nd ed.)
>: We could go down the list. That does not mean, incidentally,
>: that they are not skeptical about some things, they are just
>: not skeptics in the philosophical sense. And Quine actually
I think you need to refine your use of the word "skeptical," since,
in the philosophical sense Hume and both Russell qualify.
>: _is_ a relativist when it comes to fundamental ontology. But
>: he is still not a relativist or a skeptic in the sense
>: that would say that nothing is meaningful, language always
>: defeats itself, nothing can really be known, and this sort of
>: thing.
Hume says that nothing can be known, but instead, can only be
viewed as probable (in the relevant passage he goes on to say that
even this claim is only probable.)
>
>Nobody says "nothing is meaningful" -- straw, straw, straw.
>
>Silke
-Dave
David Salvador Flores
>
> apul...@ix.netcom.com(William Grosso) wrote:
>
[deletia]
> Within limits the G&L claim is probably true for reasons pointed out
> long ago by C.P. Snow. The humanities are more broadly taught (the
Snow must have had lousy professors then.
> quality of the teaching thereof I decline to comment on), are part of
> the general stock of experience of educated people, and are more
> accessible to the someone who is not in the field.
>
> If one wanted to put together a curriculum of the basics, let us say,
> for example, some courses on English literature, an introduction to
> philosophy, a history course or two, introductory psychology, a survey
> of art, whatever, the science faculty could put together those courses
> because they have taken those courses and include those subjects among
> their interests -- not all members of the faculty, of course, but
> many.
I've taken college level courses in Geology and Psychology. I guess
that means I could prepare a course in them if I wanted to.
>
> On the other hand if one wanted to put together a curriculum of
> science basics, say for example, calculus, basic Newtonian physics,
> basic chemistry, and a biology course or two, a humanities faculty
> would be hard pressed to put together such a curriculum because,
> by and large, they have not mastered the basics. They have been given
> and have accepted watered pablum instead of substance. With rare
> exceptions one cannot teach French if one does not speak French and
> one cannot teach Calculus if one does not understand Calculus.
I took 1st year calculus in College. I guess that means I could teach
a course in 1st year calculus.
Actually, its interesting that the cases you mention, namely,
French and Calculus, as being areas that require specific
specialist knowlege, are representative of the Sciences *and*
the Humanities. Go figure.
>
> All of this changes when one moves beyond the basics. If one were to
> teach, for example, a course on Derrida (to take a relevant example)
> one would need a good grounding not merely on Derrida wrote but also
> in the cultural context from which he writes.
You don't think that's the same for Dickens, or Dante, or
Flaubert or Cervantes?
If so, then who was it you intended to teach in your curriculum?
>
> Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
> URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
> If a poster won't behave put that poster in the grave.
> Kill him quick for life is short. Silence is the best retort.
>
>Bob Boyer, a computer scientist at the University of Texas, is now
>half time in the Philosophy Department and is teaching standard
>philosophy courses including, I think, a course about Aristotle.
Bas Van Fraasen a philosopher at Princeton teaches a course on
Quantum Mechanics.
I suppose that if a professor in the humanities were asked to teach
a course in, say, intro Biology, he'd do exactly what the Biologist
would to to teach Golden Age Spanish literature. He'd get a basic
text or two, keep a few weeks ahead (or read it first over the
summer) and then give lectures that were basically paraphrases of
the textbook.
When a precocious student asked him a question not covered in
the reading he'd reply... "well, I don't know off the top of
my head, but I'll get back to you."
Its probably the same way the Biologist would react when asked
about the influence of Erasmian thought in the _Quijote_, for
example.
>
>I suppose the results are satisfactory.