Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 07:06:06 -0500
From: "Charles J. Stivale" <C_Stivale-AT-wayne.edu>
Subject: Re: Sokal etc. and Herrnstein Smith


At 10:47 PM 10/13/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Just quickly...
>
>I just read Barbara Herrnstein Smith's _Belief and Resistance_, which is 
>on intellectual controversies in general, constructivism vs. rationalism 
>in particular, and the science wars most particularly.  I highly 
>recommend it.  Not necessarily very D&Gian, but (and she would probably 
>not thank me for saying this) hardly incompatible perhaps.  Indeed, I 
>would be interested in the reaction of anyone else on this list who has 
>read the book, as it certainly has me thinking, though also wondering how 
>to translate it into my more usual vocabularies.
This is an all too belated reply to Jon's early October message, and it's
only a thank you, not an in-depth response. When Jon mentioned the BH Smith
book, I ordered it, and have been working through it since the end of Oct.
It's not that it's difficult; it's just so rigorous that I want to
appreciate every section, so with various distractions, it has been slow
going. In the meantime, from another earlier string on this list, I have
acquired the Sokal/Bricmont book from France, _Impostures intellectuelles_,
and have discovered in it a fairly pathetic excuse for any attempt at
rigorous analysis. Their strategy can be summed up as follows: other than
an intro chapter (in which they define their goals), several somewhat
cursory chapters in which they bemoan the fate of 'chaos theory' and
cognitive studies at the hands of humanists, and a final, polemical chapter
in which they pretend to be above the fray while belittling current
critical approaches, their focal chapters are on specific authors: Lacan,
Baudrillard, Irigaray, Virilio, Deleuze (Guattari), and Bergson studies. In
each case, they pull out (arbitrarily in certain cases) of selected works
by these authors excerpts in which the authors employ scientific and/or
mathematical terms in ways that Sokal/Bricmont judge to be unsatisfactory.
In certain chapters, the bulk of the text consists of... long block quotes
from the targetted authors, sometimes with lengthy, but usually with brief
commentaries. What I hope to do before Christmas is review the Deleuze
chapter for this list in greater detail (it won't take long...
Sokal/Bricmont simply don't 'get' Deleuze in general, so they criticize his
'scientifism' in particular, but entirely out of context of his arguments),
and if I can, there very short but critical spin of Deleuze on Bergson.
What would make for an even more engaging critique would be to take the
categories that BH Smith outlines -- the ways that positivists,
traditionalists belittle 'relativist' perspectives -- and apply these
categories to Sokal/Bricmont.
I'm writing this note without the _Impostures_ book before me, so I may
have misspelled the second author's name. In any event, if I get a break
from the deadlines I've acquired (*smile* at Greg and Mina K), I will try
to get to this.
Rumor has it (i.e. from Candice Ward, editor at Duke), that the Ian
Buchanan-edited issue of _South Atlantic Quarterly_ entitled "A Deleuzean
Century?" is out or will be out in the next week.

Charles J. Stivale