>Anyone can disagree of course but just looking at the political affiliation ratios of educators makes it clear that one aspect of the hard sciences historicall

>Anyone can disagree of course but just looking at the political affiliation ratios of educators makes it clear that one aspect of the hard sciences historically has been an ability to stay focused on utility despite post-modernism. Can you explain this further? How does political affiliation of educators have anything to do with the focus on "utility despite post-modernism"? Further, isn't there some utility in a discussion on the meaning, importance, and place of 'utility'? >they've just dropped the pretense of being truth seeking persuits. Is there any evidence or reasoning to persuade the reader of this statement? >but for a long time philosophy resisted efforts to 'mathmatecize' (my own word) the field because of concern that it would become inscrutible to outsiders This isn't the case in my experience, rather, philosophers were concerned about the implications in terms of the kinds of arguments they can make and their relevance if the field were 'mathematized' - you may not be aware, for instance, of 'analytical Marxism' which proposes that mathematical models are a superior way to continue Marx's project - but it is not without its critics on methodological grounds[0]. As you would expect, mathematicians and quantitative economists working within analytical Marxism share some 'politically polarized' views too. Where is there space for the 'utility' of a political-economic project within your schema? "The conception of mathematics as a mere language contains, however, the seeds of its own destruction. The notion of language as a simple medium through which ideas are communicated has been challenged from diverse perspectives; it has been reinterpreted as both constitutive of, and constituted by, the process of theorizing (e.g., by Williams 1977, 32). The use of mathematics in social theory, too, may be reconceptualized as a discursive condition of theories, which constrains and limits, and is partly determined by, those theories. Mathematical concepts, such as the equilibrium position associated with the solution to a set of simultaneous equations or the exogenous status of the rules of a game, partly determine the notions of relation and causality among the theoretical objects designated by the theories in which the means of mathematical formalization are utilized." [0] As Amariglio & Callari said, claims of rigor and clarity may just as well be used as rhetorical devices, in exactly the same way Descartes proceeded with rhetoric to 'prove' his own mind and God.