Fashionable Nonsense

Résumé du livre

Alan Sokal is a physics professor at New York University and the author of Beyond the Hoax.

The natural sciences maintain a strict ethical code to guard against misuse, contrasting with the social sciences, which have often embraced postmodernist trends with harmful outcomes. Postmodernism, with its rejection of objective truth and reliance on relativism, undermines the value of evidence and rational thought, contributing to societal anti-intellectualism and inadvertently empowering reactionary ideologies. Figures like Jacques Lacan, Luce Irigaray, and Jean Baudrillard exemplify the misuse of scientific concepts to advance postmodernist agendas, often relying on convoluted language to obscure meaning. Alan Sokal’s hoax exposed the intellectual weaknesses of postmodernism, revealing how easily its proponents could be deceived by jargon and superficial profundity. While postmodernism challenges the excesses of modernism and promotes cultural inclusivity, its extreme skepticism and rejection of scientific rigor have led to significant issues, particularly within scientific discourse. The rise of postmodernism is partly rooted in historical reactions against scientism, but its complexity often serves as a barrier to critical scrutiny, perpetuating a cycle of incomprehensibility and misplaced intellectual prestige.

Pour lire le reste du livre, téléchargez Bitely