4 ms·

Alan D. Sokal – Transgressing the Boundaries (1995)

17 points by cm_silva 4y ago

fritztastic 4y ago
This event was mentioned in this video about the Bogdanoff twins who, arguably, did the same thing- but to physics. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2O1QA1VoRMM https://youtube.com/watch?v=2O1QA1VoRMM
qsort 4y ago
A brilliant reminder that if you have impostor syndrome, it is occasionally the case that the solution is simply to stop being an impostor.
jjgreen 4y ago
Moderately amusing the first time you read it, but he's been banging on about it in book after book. Mocking French intellectual poseurs is fair game I guess, but then he started having a go at Feyerabend? Oh dear.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  (I like to dabble around the perimeters of philosophy so your comment interested me, and I did some googling) this links to a book review written by Philosopher Thomas Nagel about Sokal's book https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/nagel.html https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/nagel.html He lays out a pretty clear defense for Sokal's critique of Feyerabend, just ^F Feyerabend and read from there. your move, Feyerabend
  - jjgreen 4y ago
    Thanks for the link, I'll have a read later; sadly Feyerabend won't take up your invitation, he died in `94, but if you have a slot in your book schedule, do have a look at Against Method, astonishing (and entertaining).
gexaha 4y ago
That's a very badly written paper, to be honest. I mean, even knowing it was a hoax, I really expected that he somehow would have some speculative/creative content on the topic of "Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", whatever that could mean, but it's just a bunch of misplaced quotes and summaries.
- Gimpei 4y ago
  Wasn’t that the point though? He was trying to show that complete nonsense could be published.
  - Natsu 4y ago
    It was later repeated with even more nonsense papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
  - gexaha 4y ago
    Probably, but a very dull/non-creative point nonetheless
- Joker_vD 4y ago
  > it's just a bunch of misplaced quotes and summaries. Believe it or not, that's what the works on Scientific Communism looked like back in the USSR: bunch of quotes from Marx's and Lenin's writings, strewn together into a somewhat coherent narrative. Those quotes served the same roles that "proofs" and "data" serve in non-scholastic fields, you see: how would you know if you were right or wrong otherwise?
mherdeg 4y ago
Also very funny is "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything": https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html A lot of these things kind of lost their fun in the past 5-20 years when words stopped having coherent meaning.

17 points by cm_silva 4y ago

This event was mentioned in this video about the Bogdanoff twins who, arguably, did the same thing- but to physics. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2O1QA1VoRMM https://youtube.com/watch?v=2O1QA1VoRMM

qsort 4y ago

A brilliant reminder that if you have impostor syndrome, it is occasionally the case that the solution is simply to stop being an impostor.

jjgreen 4y ago

Moderately amusing the first time you read it, but he's been banging on about it in book after book. Mocking French intellectual poseurs is fair game I guess, but then he started having a go at Feyerabend? Oh dear.

fsckboy 4y ago
(I like to dabble around the perimeters of philosophy so your comment interested me, and I did some googling) this links to a book review written by Philosopher Thomas Nagel about Sokal's book https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/nagel.html https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/nagel.html He lays out a pretty clear defense for Sokal's critique of Feyerabend, just ^F Feyerabend and read from there. your move, Feyerabend
- jjgreen 4y ago
  Thanks for the link, I'll have a read later; sadly Feyerabend won't take up your invitation, he died in `94, but if you have a slot in your book schedule, do have a look at Against Method, astonishing (and entertaining).

gexaha 4y ago

That's a very badly written paper, to be honest. I mean, even knowing it was a hoax, I really expected that he somehow would have some speculative/creative content on the topic of "Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", whatever that could mean, but it's just a bunch of misplaced quotes and summaries.

Gimpei 4y ago
Wasn’t that the point though? He was trying to show that complete nonsense could be published.
- Natsu 4y ago
  It was later repeated with even more nonsense papers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
- gexaha 4y ago
  Probably, but a very dull/non-creative point nonetheless
Joker_vD 4y ago
> it's just a bunch of misplaced quotes and summaries. Believe it or not, that's what the works on Scientific Communism looked like back in the USSR: bunch of quotes from Marx's and Lenin's writings, strewn together into a somewhat coherent narrative. Those quotes served the same roles that "proofs" and "data" serve in non-scholastic fields, you see: how would you know if you were right or wrong otherwise?

mherdeg 4y ago

Also very funny is "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything": https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html A lot of these things kind of lost their fun in the past 5-20 years when words stopped having coherent meaning.