Alan Sokal Books
Alan Sokal is an American physicist and professor known for his work in statistical mechanics and for the 'Sokal Affair', a hoax that exposed issues in academic publishing.
Known for: Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
Books by Alan Sokal
Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
Fashionable Nonsense (originally published in French as 'Impostures intellectuelles') is a critical examination of how certain postmodernist thinkers have misused scientific and mathematical concepts. The authors, physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, analyze writings by prominent intellectuals such as Lacan, Kristeva, Irigaray, Baudrillard, and Deleuze, arguing that these figures employ scientific terminology in ways that are either meaningless or misleading. The book sparked significant debate about the relationship between science and the humanities, and about intellectual rigor in cultural theory.
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Contextual background: The Sokal Affair and the Problem of Intellectual Rigor
Before writing 'Fashionable Nonsense', I carried out what later became known as the 'Sokal Affair'. I submitted a deliberately nonsensical paper—stuffed with pseudo-scientific jargon and flattering allusions to postmodern theory—to a cultural studies journal, and it was published without a hint of s...
From Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
Overview of Postmodernism: Influence and Drift
Postmodernism emerged as a rebellion against grand narratives—against the confidence that reason could yield universal truths. It was a movement born from historical disappointment, a reaction to the failures of ideological totalities. In literature and philosophy, it brought refreshing diversity an...
From Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
About Alan Sokal
Alan Sokal is an American physicist and professor known for his work in statistical mechanics and for the 'Sokal Affair', a hoax that exposed issues in academic publishing.
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Alan Sokal is an American physicist and professor known for his work in statistical mechanics and for the 'Sokal Affair', a hoax that exposed issues in academic publishing.
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