In retrospect, the Sokal hoax to me is both incredibly significant in its role as a signal flare of what was to come, and in its total old-fashioned, epistemic

In retrospect, the Sokal hoax to me is both incredibly significant in its role as a signal flare of what was to come, and in its total old-fashioned, epistemic failure. It was a signal flare because it is a perfect example of the kind of uninformed criticism the internet would later make rampant; the hoax tried to deflate and entire body of practice, knowledge, and language that it simply didn't understand. It was a category error. It presented a false equivalence between social facts and physical facts. The constructivists of the time are largely talking about social not physical issues. Yes, epistemology touches on the social, so that was apart of the game, as was examining the social components of science, no one, however had seriously argued that the epistemic claims of science, once their fundamental premises were accepted are contestable—Sokal, in bad faith, tried to discredit claims of an entirely different nature by effectively presenting a straw man. Second, it is a epistemic failure because recent events, if anything, have largely proven that constructivism wins. Today, people inhabit multiple realities. Yes, the scientific method is the one that is best with respect to finding truth, but it turns out people don't really care. The constructivist insight that, ultimately, autonomous individuals decide what they want to believe has far greater force in our world today. Science and logic, unfortunately, have no binding power. Fools can and will in fact deny reality as it slaps them in the face. To really understand the present, a constructivist bent is actually more fruitful for establishing a basis for an analysis with explanatory power. In short it's just a classic example of hubris and scholars taking past each other.