Intellectual Impostures PDF
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00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page i INTELLECTUAL IMPOSTURES AlanSokalisProfessorofPhysicsatNewYorkUniversity. In 1996 his infamous article ‘Transgressing the bound- aries: Toward a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity’, parodying postmodernists’ use of scientific lan- guage, was published in all seriousness by the American cultural-studiesjournalSocialText. Jean Bricmont is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the UniversityofLouvain(Belgium). 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page ii 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page iii INTELLECTUAL IMPOSTURES Postmodern philosophers’ abuse of science Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page iv Firstpublishedin1997inFrenchby ÉditionsOdileJacob 15rueSoufflot 75005Paris FirstpublishedinGreatBritainin1998by ProfileBooksLtd 58AHattonGarden LondonEC1N8LX www.profilebooks.co.uk Thiseditionpublishedin1999,2003 ThisEnglishtranslation©AlanSokalandJeanBricmont1998,1999,2003 TypesetinSabonbyMacGuruLtd [email protected] PrintedandboundinGreatBritainby StEdmundsburyPress,BuryStEdmunds Themoralrightoftheauthorshasbeenasserted. Allrightsreserved.Withoutlimitingtherightsundercopyrightreservedabove,nopart ofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedorintroducedintoaretrievalsystem,or transmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans(electronic,mechanical,photocopying, recordingorotherwise),withoutthepriorwrittenpermissionofboththecopyright ownerandthepublisherofthisbook. ACIPcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. ISBN1861976313 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page v TO MARINA TO CLAIRE, THOMAS AND ANTOINE 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page vi 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page vii CONTENTS Prefacetothefirstedition ix Prefacetothesecondedition xv 1 Introduction 1 2 JacquesLacan 17 3 JuliaKristeva 37 4 Intermezzo:Epistemicrelativisminthephilosophyofscience 49 5 LuceIrigaray 97 6 BrunoLatour 115 7 Intermezzo:Chaostheoryand‘postmodernscience’ 125 8 JeanBaudrillard 137 9 GillesDeleuzeandFélixGuattari 145 10 PaulVirilio 159 11 Gödel’stheoremandsettheory:Someexamplesofabuse 167 12 Epilogue 173 APPENDICES A Transgressingtheboundaries:Towardatransformative hermeneuticsofquantumgravity 199 B Somecommentsontheparody 241 C Transgressingtheboundaries:Anafterword 248 Bibliography 259 Index 274 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page viii 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page ix PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ThepublicationinFranceofourbookImposturesIntellectuelles1ap- pears to have created a small storm in certain intellectual circles. According to Jon Henley in The Guardian, we have shown that ‘mod- ernFrenchphilosophyisaloadofoldtosh.’2AccordingtoRobertMag- giori in Libération, we are humourless scientistic pedants who correct grammaticalerrorsinloveletters.3Wewouldliketoexplainbrieflywhy neitheristhecase,andtoanswerbothourcriticsandourover-enthusi- asticsupporters.Inparticular,wewanttodispelanumberofmisunder- standings. Thebookgrewoutofthenow-famoushoaxinwhichoneofuspub- lished,intheAmericancultural-studiesjournalSocialText,aparodyar- ticle crammed with nonsensical, but unfortunately authentic, quotations about physics and mathematics by prominent French and American intellectuals.4 However, only a small fraction of the ‘dossier’ discoveredduringSokal’slibraryresearchcouldbeincludedinthepar- ody. After showing this larger dossier to scientist and non-scientist friends,webecame(slowly)convincedthatitmightbeworthmakingit available to a wider audience. We wanted to explain, in non-technical terms,whythequotesareabsurdor,inmanycases,simplymeaningless; and we wanted also to discuss the cultural circumstances that enabled these discourses to achieve such renown and to remain, thus far, unex- posed. But what exactly do we claim? Neither too much nor too little. We show that famous intellectuals such as Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, Bau- drillardandDeleuzehaverepeatedlyabusedscientificconceptsandter- minology: either using scientific ideas totally out of context, without givingtheslightestjustification–notethatwearenotagainstextrapo- lating concepts from one field to another, but only against extrapola- tionsmadewithoutargument–orthrowingaroundscientificjargonin front of their non-scientist readers without any regard for its relevance 1 ÉditionsOdileJacob,Paris,October1997. 2 Henley(1997). 3 Maggiori(1997). 4 Sokal(1996a),reprintedhereinAppendixA.Thestoryofthehoaxisdescribedin moredetailinChapter1below. 00 Intellectual prelim’s:00 Intellectual prelim’s 27/7/11 16:49 Page x x INTELLECTUALIMPOSTURES or even its meaning. We make no claim that this invalidates the rest of theirwork,onwhichwesuspendjudgment. Wearesometimesaccusedofbeingarrogantscientists,butourview of the hard sciences’ role is in fact rather modest. Wouldn’t it be nice (forusmathematiciansandphysicists,thatis)ifGödel’stheoremorrel- ativitytheorydidhaveimmediateanddeepimplicationsforthestudyof society?Oriftheaxiomofchoicecouldbeusedtostudypoetry?Orif topologyhadsomethingtodowiththehumanpsyche?Butalas,itisnot thecase. Asecondtargetofourbookisepistemicrelativism,namelytheidea –which,atleastwhenexpressedexplicitly,ismuchmorewidespreadin the English-speaking world than in France – that modern science is nothing more than a ‘myth’, a ‘narration’ or a ‘social construction’ amongmanyothers.5Besidessomegrossabuses(e.g.Irigaray),wedis- sect a number of confusions that are rather frequent in postmodernist and cultural-studies circles: for example, misappropriating ideas from thephilosophyofscience,suchastheunderdeterminationoftheoryby evidence or the theory-ladenness of observation, in order to support radicalrelativism. Thisbookisthereforemadeupoftwodistinct–butrelated–works underonecover.First,thereisthecollectionofextremeabusesdiscov- ered, rather haphazardly, by Sokal; these are the ‘impostures’ of our title.Second,thereisourcritiqueofepistemicrelativismandofmiscon- ceptions about ‘postmodern science’; these analyses are considerably more subtle. The connection between these two critiques is primarily sociological: the French authors of the ‘impostures’ are fashionable in many of the same English-speaking academic circles where epistemic relativismis thecoinofthe realm.6 There is also a weak logical link: if one accepts epistemic relativism, there is less reason to be upset by the misrepresentation of scientific ideas, which anyway are just another ‘discourse’. Obviously,wedidnotwritethisbookjusttopointoutsomeisolated abuses. We have larger targets in mind, but not necessarily those that 5 Letusemphasizethatourdiscussionislimitedtoepistemic/cognitiverelativism;we donotaddressthemoredelicateissuesofmoraloraestheticrelativism. 6 Thisoverlapis,however,notperfect.TheFrenchauthorsanalysedinthisbookare mostfashionable,intheEnglish-speakingworld,indepartmentsofliterature,cul- tural studies and women’s studies. Epistemic relativism is distributed rather more broadly,andiswidespreadalsoindomainsofanthropology,educationandsociol- ogyofsciencethatexhibitlittleinterestinLacanorDeleuze.
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