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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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These are links to articles and essays which have appeared at various places on the Internet. This material is NOT on our website. There is no guarantee that these links are still "live"; some may have expired, some may not be archived on the host-website, and some websites may have disappeared. Latest articles at the top. Because the Academy lists material from other websites on the Internet does not imply acceptance or approval of the comments or opinions expressed by the author of the material. Nor is the Academy responsible for any misrepresentation of the facts included. It is your job to be a critical reader. Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990)
The Alan Sokal Hoax Alan Sokal is a bright young physicist at New York University. Social Text is a "scholarly" journal that helped invent the trendy, primarily left-wing, and sometimes baffling field of "cultural studies." It is edited at New York University and published by Duke University Press. Fed up with what he views as the excesses of the academic left, Sokal submitted an article filled with "gibberish" to Social Text. He wanted to see if a leading journal of cultural studies would publish an essay, while loaded with nonsense, nevertheless sounded good and fulfilled the ideological presuppositions of the editors. The article, entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," was accepted and published by the editors even though, according to its author, it was "deliberate nonsense from start to finish." The hoax was immediately revealed by Sokal in an article appearing in Lingua Franca, where he detailed his intellectual and political motivations. "While my method was satirical," he says, "my motivation is utterly serious." He then writes: "What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities." According to published reports, the editorial board of Social Text is not the least bit amused and, in fact, is "furious" and sorely regrets its mistake. Sokal has been attacked in print by at least one member of the board for perpetrating the hoax, and Stanley Aronowitz, a professor at City University of New York and the journal's co-founder, accused Sokal of being "ill-read and half-educated." Why would Social Text, an alledgedly "learned" journal, publish such nonsense as it did? According to Roger Kimball, writing in The Wall Street Journal, "The short answer is that they were unable to recognize that it was a joke." And he continues: "Nor was this surprising. For, although 'Transgressing the Boundaries' is nonsensical, it is no more nonsensical than most of the other pieces in that issue of Social Text." Sokal, of course, has made a serious point. Nonsense, particularly nonsense that promotes social, cultural, and political beliefs that want to be accepted as established "truth," is easily gobbled up even by so-called academic journals. And Sokal's "hoax" is not an isolated illustration. Unfortunately, nonsense of this sort is not uncommon. Jonathan Dolhenty, Ph.D.
This is the original "parody" article: Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, by Alan D. Sokal: This article was published in Social Text #46/47, pp. 217-252 (spring/summer 1996). This is the article in which he reveals the parody, published in Lingua Franca, May/June 1996, pp. 62-64: A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies, by Alan D. Sokal: "For some years I've been troubled by an apparent decline in the standards of intellectual rigor in certain precincts of the American academic humanities. But I'm a mere physicist: if I find myself unable to make head or tail of jouissanceand différance, perhaps that just reflects my own inadequacy. -- So, to test the prevailing intellectual standards, I decided to try a modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North American journal of cultural studies -- whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross -- publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions? -- The answer, unfortunately, is yes." Here he explains in more detail why he wrote the parody: Transgressing the Boundaries: An Afterword, by Alan D. Sokal: This article was submitted to Social Text but rejected by them on the grounds that it did not meet their intellectual standards. It has now appeared in Dissent 43(4), pp. 93-99 (Fall 1996) and, in slightly different form, in Philosophy and Literature 20(2), pp. 338-346 (October 1996). Transcript of a talk presented at a forum at New York University on October 30, 1996: A Plea for Reason, Evidence and Logic, by Alan D. Sokal: This was reprinted in New Politics 6(2), pp. 126-129 (Winter 1997). A slightly expanded version of this talk was presented at the Socialist Scholars Conference (New York, March 30, 1997) and was published under the title "Truth, Reason, Objectivity and the Left" in the Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), April 18, 1998, pp. 913-914; and, in further revised form, in Mistaken Identities: The Second Wave of Controversy over "Political Correctness", edited by Cyril Levitt et al. (Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 1999), pp. 285-294. Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine...
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