Did Fashionable Nonsense and the Sokal Affair REALLY Destroy Postmodernism?

Fashionable Nonsense, written by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, sure says a lot of nonsense for a book about destroying nonsense.
Special thanks to mathmansam, Forthegy and Lustrator from my discord server for their assistance on production.
0:00 Special Thanks
0:32 Introduction
1:23 Fashionable Nonsense
3:08 On Lacan
7:36 Deleuze & Guattari
10:56 Explain Guattari to Me 2: Electric Boogaloo
14:29 Julia Kristeva
17:16 Luce Irigaray
20:07 Epistemological Relativism
24:41 Real Life Examples?
30:31 The Sokal Affair Itself
References:
- Fashionable Nonsense, Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont
- McCulloch, Pitts (1943). A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity
- Homan, et al. (2019). Neural computations of threat in the aftermath of combat trauma
- Varier, Kaiser, and Forsyth (2011). Establishing, versus maintaining, brain function: a neuro-computational model of cortical reorganisation after injury to the immature brain
- Chaosmosis, Félix Guattari
- Mystery Science Theater - Lingua Franca, Bruce Robbins and Andrew Ross(linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.or...)
- Math and Sex - Are Girls Born with Less Ability? (Science, vol 210) (sorry i don't know how to cite this one properly, forgive me)
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Original Text: punishedfelix.com/2022/01/11/...
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Itch.io: punishedfelix.itch.io/

[@enfercesttout]

Revenge of the -nerds- naive realists.

[@greenfire4115]

Excellent work as always Felix.

[@rv706]

I don't think you've really read or understood Sokal's book.

[@PunishedFelix]

What makes you say that?

[@marcus_lyn]

​@@PunishedFelix his rage at having watched your video and you not repeating jordan peterson word for word

[@tcmackgeorges12]

This is completely off-topic, but I recently read Ponty’s chapter on the habit body and some of the things he says about the Phantom limb, and I’m interested to know what you think about it. I know that you come at disability from a post-structuralist Guattarian POV and not so much a phenomenological one, but I’m interested to hear what you think.

[@PunishedFelix]

I'll have to check it out later sounds interesting enough

[@childintime6453]

why is it so hard to understand that the critique of lacan is that he is using bullshit math and pretends that its not bullshit

[@PunishedFelix]

The problem is that you can't expect to have your critique taken seriously when you get so many other basic facts wrong and do nothing to consult with field experts to better understand the context of Lacan's claims. You think Lacan is bullshit? Try literally everything S/B say in their criticism of Deleuze, or even worse, their critique of Luce Irigaray where they mix her up with an American (seriously!). That's why they depend so heavily on dishonest tactics. It's embarrassing. Why should we take Sokal's critique seriously (which is really just borrowed from Chomsky) when he makes no honest attempt to understand the material beyond a surface level. He's reactionary. Wouldn't you want a REAL critique of Lacan's abuse of mathematics? Lacan was already called out way better in Anti Oedipus anyways but Sokal literally doesn't understand the reason why that book exists

[@PunishedFelix]

Like seriously none of the people Sokal contacted studied French literature or psychoanalysis. It's like criticizing some obscure diet hack without actually reading what experts in that field say. Lacan was old business by 1996 anyways - the editors of Social Text didn't seem impressed.

[@dte8329]

​@@PunishedFelixbecause it's purposely made and accessible when there's so much science that can be easily explained no matter how complicated the theories or arriving inclusion are. That's why you're able to tell people exactly what's happening to someone's body or how to find out what's happening with somebody's body based on consistent mathematical properties or consistent science. When is deviation from that science, the formula changes. That does not happen with this pseudoscience psychoanalysis.

[@dte8329]

​@@PunishedFelixI disagree, but if that were true, how can we not criticize postmodernists for making up junk math to support their theories?

[@raynethecat3027]

My head's shaped like a frogge

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

"Why does Sokal, Bricmont and Nanda not highlight this problem themselves?" Because it wasn't the point they were arguing. You were doing okay until you started on epistemological relativism and scientific relativism. Arguing that in criminology there is no truth but a spectrum of personal truths ignores that fact that, yes, there is a truth that everyone involved is trying to reach, hence why there is an investigation, a gathering of evidence, a trial, and a ruling. If you want to argue that these can be mistaken due to evidence emerging later, then that only proves that we humans can be wrong about the truth, but truth is still independent of our perception. Disabled people don't live in an individualized world that only they know, they live in the same world as every able person does, their condition as unfortunate as it is is not indicative of a state of life that is impossible to know unless you yourself are disabled or able. This is why postmodernism is considered a relativistic position. It is pure nominalism that denies facts outside of human perception.

[@PunishedFelix]

Criminology is based on a lot of social assumptions, it's literally not a science and anyone telling you that probably has really questionable takes on black people and race realism lol. "Facts" themselves are produced by experiences (also called observations). Every scientific thing we have ever studied is rooted in the collected experiences of many people observing it. Instead of denying the fact that science is therefore socially constructed we should understand how minority perspectives such as those from disabled people influence our assumptions in science.

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

@@PunishedFelix Let me guess, you yourself are not a criminologist and have no expertise in the field, right? First you say it isn't a science, then you say that those who do think it is (i.e. criminologists) are probably themselves closeted racists or are heavily biased to think one or another. That is literally profiling right there, you vacuum headed ponce. But climate change science is absolutely legit, because it affirms your own bias. Facts are not experiences. Facts are hard objects that exist independent of our experience of them. How those facts relate to one another is what we are in the process of learning, and what you leftists are in the process of dismissing because it proves your ideologies wrong. "... we should understand how minority perspectives such as those from disabled people influence our assumptions in science." How tf would that change anything? What tf even is this statement? Do you really believe that a disabled person's experience of being disabled undermines the very scientific method used in making that disabled person's life as comfortable as possible? What do you think wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and medicine are? You're a dumbass dude.

[@PunishedFelix]

Yeah bro I trust the field that's LITERALLY based on judging people's behavior relative to what the state says is good or bad, especially a state that's built on the consequences of institutional slavery caused by a culture of exploiting slaves and labor. That DEFINITELY is a totally real science that has absolutely NO possible conflict of interest, especially when we consider that criminal justice is definitely NOT a field full of openly white supremacist people who use faux psychology to catch the "bad guys" and the modern police were definitely NOT just a consequence of trying to suppress labor and abolitionist movements. Definitely NOT racist. I stand corrected. On your rather ignorant comment on disability I think it might enlighten you to interact with research written by disabled people on their own conditions and how that often conflicts with other researcher's work. This is especially a problem in autism research. Also, disabled people were the ones who produced most accessibility solutions, not scientists. Subjective input from disabled users is actually incredibly important in accessibility research because you're literally designing stuff for people who use it every day. Take it from someone who designs accessible interfaces for fun for the last decade. Save your breath next time though and just say you think cripples should stay behind closed doors next time lololol 😂😂😂😂

[@PunishedFelix]

Its so weird how y'all really accuse leftists of deciding what reality is to fit their views but then get triggered when people point out that controversial fields like criminology and evopsych are hot garbage lmao omg look in a mirror

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

@@PunishedFelix You argue like a 12 year old. Crimonalogy is not a pseudoscience, indeed intakes many factors into account to make profiles of potential motives, thus reducing to number of potential suspects. Do you think DNA testing is also a pseudoscience? I've been around plenty of disabled people, as many in my own family are disabled (my grandmother was bed ridden for years before she passed, and my cousin has down syndrome). They don't live in a world specially made for them, otherwise treatment would be impossible. And what even is your point here? That abled people are privileged? You're a joke dude. But keep praying at the postmodernist alter.

[@duffdingelmeyer7101]

You are way too charitable to these charlatans.

[@nullmeasure6155]

👁️

[@shannonm.townsend1232]

Thanks for making this; yeah that book is trashy,; despite any number of other potentially valid lines of criticism, it went for high snark and deliberate obfuscation of context. It's proto-James Lindsay "critique".

[@PunishedFelix]

Lindsay is somehow so much worse

[@shannonm.townsend1232]

@@PunishedFelix he is truly grotesque.

[@CarlosElio82]

PunishedFelix is a sad example of the perturbed view inflicted by postmodernism. Sokal and Bricmont open their extraordinary denunciation with a note: they value humanities and want to protect the students of humanities from being "impressed" by pompous language that means nothing. PunishedFelix evades a critical question: what is the role of field equations and S/s sensory rations in postmodernism? Why is Sqrt(-1) en erect phallus? What is the point of that nonsense? All the charlatans unmasked by Sokal and Bricmont are charlatans insofar as they bring in mathematical language in ways they really do not know what that language means. Why do you defend such ridiculous posture of charlatans?

[@PunishedFelix]

Bro can't tell the difference between a Lacanian and a Guattarian... 😭 To answer your question. All Lacan is doing is comparing the phallus to "imaginary". In other words its not a literal penis but a sort of abstract concept, specifically imaginary, that is based around a weird version of Freud's sexual development. My point isn't that Lacan is right, but that Sokal's critique is bad. Just because Sokal's argument sucks and can't tell basic lefts and rights doesn't mean I'm defending Lacan though. I'm personally not enough of an expert to explain the details but Guattari critiques Lacan in Anti Oedipus and the papers used to write it. Guatt constantly critiques Lacan for being overly structuralist and essentially removing Freud from his roots by trying to overly "scientize" psycho analysis through linguistics and "mathematics" (I say that loosely). So You should know that these writers are not interchangeable.

[@amari_yecaf]

@@PunishedFelix لا أستطيع تفسير كيف خطر على بال جاك لاكان أن يشبه العصاب بالنتوء المستدير.

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

"Fueled by a book that denies climate science." Now who is being uncharitable and dishonest? "Note that this does not rule out, a priori, the possibility of statistically predicting the future climate, such as the average and fluctuations in temperature and rainfall for England during the decade 2050-2060. Modelling the global climate is a difficult and controversial scientific problem, but is extremely important for the future of the human race." ~ Fashionable Nonsense, pg 138 It helps if, you know, read the book all the way through which you admit to not doing. You know, as you accuse Sokal and Bricmont of doing. I hate to say it but this is the typical leftist behavior. Assume a priori positions are wrong, cherry pick examples and then fill in the gaps with overly political and emotionally charged rhetoric. Hell, I don't even like Sokal and think what he did was scientifically dishonest. But you are no one to criticize dude.

[@PunishedFelix]

Fashionable Nonsense was inspired by a book called "Higher Superstition", published in 1992, which absolutely does deny climate change in chapter 6. This book is actually what started the academic "science wars" which lead to fights between various conservative scientists and Duke University's sociology department.

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

@@PunishedFelix Okay? At what point in this video did you bring up Higher Superstition? What relevance does that have with the book in question that you are critiquing: Fashionable Nonsense? Higher Superstition wasn't even written by Sokal and Bricmont. You do not get to post hoc later proofs for arguments made presently.

[@PunishedFelix]

Lol you respond fast for a 2 month old comment Well you may have noticed this video is part of a series on my channel on this subject xD so try watching those to see the bigger picture :) You can continue to choose to look at this book in a social vacuum but for the rest of us we are going to analyze the history and contents of this book in a place called "the real world" lol I'm away from my computer at the moment but I'm pretty sure Sokal/Bricmont even worked with the authors of "Higher Superstition" and thanked them in the beginning of the book...

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

@@PunishedFelix "Lol you respond fast for a 2 month old comment" The comment you made was an hour ago, dummy. "Well you may have noticed this video is part of a series on my channel on this subject xD" How would I know this when I didn't bother watching anymore of your drek? "You can continue to choose to look at this book in a social vacuum but for the rest of us we are going to analyze the history and contents of this book in a place called "the real world" lol" Oh please. Spare me your irreverent condescension. "I'm away from my computer at the moment but I'm pretty sure Sokal/Bricmont even worked with the authors of "Higher Superstition" and thanked them in the beginning of the book." Higher Superstition is what inspired Sokal to pull his hoax in the first place, nor would it matter what influence it had because Sokal and Bricmont still wrote that paragraph about climate change in their own book, while Higher Superstition position on climate change is scepticism regarding how impactful human industries have been on it. You scepticism, what science is supposed to be about. What relevance does this have on anything they Sokal and Bricmont wrote in Fashionable Nonsense? Your remark about climate change only served to poison the well. Typical leftist.

[@PunishedFelix]

Look I'm just saying I don't reply in less than an hour from a comment I made 2 months ago because I'm too busy having things like sex instead of getting angery on the internet about a book published before half of you kids were even born I'm pretty sure that Sokal/Bricmont included that line because HS's climate change denial was so egregious that they had to distance themselves from it. I'm literally just pointing out the book they wrote was inspired by a recent book that denies climate change. That pissed me off when I realized it. I used to be Sokal-pilled until i realized how much they lie. Look I know I'm not gonna get through to you since you're really just mad on politics and to that I will say that statistically if you want to lose your virginity you should always read the source material instead of worshipping secondary sources like Fashionable Nonsense

[@edwardharvey7687]

There are essentially two issues that Fashionable Nonsense brings to light. The more glaring, that social scientists, and specifically the French ones, tend to engage in sophistry. That much of their incomprehensibility has more to do with desiring the appearance of possessing a higher intelligence without actually displaying a higher intelligence. This leads to the fact that many of the ideas to come out of the social sciences have a crisis of credibility. Many of the more celebrated studies cannot be duplicated and psychotherapies have never been shown to cure anyone of anything. Make no doubt about it, postmodernism is a social scientists created ideology that works within their bubble, but not in the real world. Freud fudged his data and used unscientific methods to arrive at his conclusions, writing more of what he thought rather than what he could prove. It is a pattern that has continued through the years throughout the social science community. In a way, the social sciences have become like a religion, a secular religion, but a religion, nonetheless. With its tenets and its preachers. Today we have people like Jordan Peterson and Jonathon Hiadt who, like all preachers, seem to be more interested in the attention and the accolades, rather than producing anything that progresses human knowledge or improves the human condition.

[@PunishedFelix]

Considering how much of academic thought is currently having a crisis with connecting to the real, was the problem of post modernism really actually addressed or did we ignore it this whole time?

[@ethansussman5772]

As someone who actually does have the mathematical background of Sokal and who has read "Fashionable Nonsense," your video feels like an extended exercise at missing the point. Since most of the video has a similar flavor, let me attempt to explain why by focusing on a single segment, that of Kristeva. If set theory (or any other theory) it is to be applied outside of its original domain, there is a burden on the would-be applier to explain the application clearly. That is just proper intellectual practice. Merely using the terminology in a heterodox way does not constitute an application in any reasonable sense. In the case at hand, Sokal and Bricmont do not assert flat out that no such application is possible. They only assert that it is "hard to fathom" (which is an understatement if you ask me). Sokal and Bricmont criticize Kristeva for not explaining why such an application should be possible. If such an application is possible, she should have done so, and if it is not, Kristeva is wrong (or perhaps not even). Your criticism of the criticism therefore entirely misses the point --- the mathematical community, Sokal and Bricmont included, would be ecstatic if it turned out that set theory were relevant to psychology or politics of whatever. Think how much better our grant proposals would be! But, alas... The rest of your video misses the point in a similar way. For example, regarding Lacan and the torus, it is not even clear to me (as someone who actually knows what a torus is) what Lacan's model is even supposed to *mean* beyond mere trivialities that could be expressed without mathematical metaphor --- if he does have some interesting, nontrivial idea, we can certainly fault him for not being clear (or even obfuscatory). Otherwise,... need I say more?

[@PunishedFelix]

Hi, sorry for the late response. Kristeva is using set theory as an analogy, not as a proof. Her works are not about set theory, rather they are used as a descriptive device. If she is wrong about something, I agree that she should need to fix it, but that doesn't *refute* her work. She could easily have used another example to make that point. Perhaps she was using it to be provocative against people *such as yourself*, well knowing that any mistake would be nitpicked. Missing the point? Isn't missing the point ignoring the entire body of work for a specific mistake? In the book, which I'm sure you've also read, what Sokal and Bricmont are actually criticizing is first, specific mathematical mistakes, and second, criticizing her for using this approach because her math is wrong. The problem I have with Sokal and Bricmont is that they criticize minute details and try to frame these writers as something they are not, which is a clearly *political* stab against a set of ideas who were not really trying to criticize mathematics but were trying to develop social theories. The idea that they are trying to destabilize science is largely rooted in Bricmont's response to them. If Sokal and Bricmont have a problem with these political ideas, they should address them directly - which they do - *poorly* - as I point out in the video. As pointed out in the video, mathematics and set theory are both directly relevant in psychology and politics. There are innumerable examples. Surely you know of a few yourself. Regarding Lacan and the torus, I am not a Lacanian and I'm not explicitly sure what he means by the torus. In fact, I try to make it clear that Deleuze/Guattari were *criticizing* Lacan, and Lacan's presence in these works was largely because of his large influence in psychology at the time of many of these writers. Many were critical of Lacan. However, I try to give him the benefit of the doubt and imply that, within Lacanian theory, this analogy of the torus is not necessarily nonsense, and that Sokal and Bricmont clearly didn't do their research in investigating this claim. Additionally, their shock of representing psychological subjects as geometrical objects goes against modern psychological and neurological models of the time of publication - revealing their ignorance of these subjects. Worryingly, Bricmont both was a major translator of Chomsky into French, which likely shaped heavily Chomsky's relationship with these theorists, as well as having a questionable political background in antisemitism and nazi denialism. Seriously, look it up if you don't believe me. There is obviously a political ulterior motive visible here. I'm not a mathematician but I review each video with people who have a background in mathematics, psychology and neurocomputation, so it's not like I am producing uninformed content.

[@PunishedFelix]

All I am really asking Sokal and Bricmont and their followers to do is to analyze the texts directly and criticize them for what they say instead of utilizing underhanded tactics, especially not ones that demonstrate scientific ignorance elsewhere. If you disagree with Kristeva/Lacan/whomever, disagree with their actual point instead of trying to frame them as something they're not!

[@ethansussman5772]

@@PunishedFelix This is precisely why Sokal and Bricmont make clear that they are restricting attention to the use (pedagogical or not) of mathematics and science in these works. Regardless of how they feel about the programmes pursued by the postmodern authors, it would obviously be a much bigger project (and one outside Sokal and Bricmont's expertise) to discuss these. I'm fairly confident, as you are, that Sokal and Bricmont are not too gung-ho about the overall programmes, but they do what good scientists do --- they isolate areas where they can actually subject things to rigorous scrutiny. They focus on detail because they are intellectually responsible, not because they are nitpickers. Regarding applications of mathematics to psychology and politics: certainly one can use mathematical *reasoning* and mathematical models in social science. This is a standard part of modern economic theory (especially microeconomics). This is qualitatively different, however, from what Kristeva and company seem to want to do with the subject. An economist might say that some mathematical model is "just a model," but would they say it is "just metaphorical"? I am pretty sure the answer to that is no. And even the most cursory of comparisons between modern day mathematical modeling in the social sciences and the postmodernist usage of mathematical language shows that the two are completely different beasts. Circling back to the issue of analogy and metaphor, Sokal and Bricmont are clear about their position on this: a good example, analogy, or metaphor clarifies the subject. It seems that everyone agrees that if the mathematical language in Kristeva and company is meant to be analogy or metaphor (this seemed unclear to me, as well as to Sokal and Bricmont, but we are no Kristeva scholars), then it is not clarificatory. So, as I see it, saying that Kristeva was just making analogy is not a counter-argument (or at least not a very good one) against Sokal and Bricmont.

[@ethansussman5772]

"Additionally, their shock of representing psychological subjects as geometrical objects goes against modern psychological and neurological models of the time of publication - revealing their ignorance of these subjects" Can you provide one example? Surely if they are innumerable, this should be easy! Certainly some folks have been investigating geometrical properties of neural networks. In fact, I helped a biophysicist understand the differential geometry of curves for precisely this purpose! But how does this amount to "representing psychological subjects as geometrical objects," or whatever Lacan is trying to do? This is very, very different. "Worryingly, Bricmont both was a major translator of Chomsky into French, which likely shaped heavily Chomsky's relationship with these theorists, as well as having a questionable political background in antisemitism and nazi denialism. Seriously, look it up if you don't believe me." What on earth are you talking about? Who has a political background in antisemitism and nazi denialism now?

[@ethansussman5772]

@@PunishedFelix One of the main criticisms of "Fashionable Nonsense" is that Sokal and Bricmont spend *too much* time just quoting the texts in question. Seriously, literally half of their book consists of just block quotes from the texts. So I don't see how you can accuse them of not analyzing the texts directly. But, I think you are really saying that they should have just written a book criticizing the overall programs of Kristeva, Lacan, or whoever. Regardless of whether or not that would be worth doing, that would be a very different project --- and, as far as I can tell, even if that project were undertaken, Sokal and Bricmont's narrow analysis of the use (pedagogical or not) of scientific and mathematical language would still be worthwhile.

[@bobbyjeangayheart360]

Let’s just quote a leading post-modernist and let your followers decide: The conflict between men and woman is brutal; “The normal f*ck” writes Andrea Dworkin, “by a normal man is taken to be an act of invasion and ownership undertaken in a mode of predation.” This special insight into the sexual psychology of males is matched and confirmed by the sexual experience of women: “Women have been Chattels to men as wives, as prostitutes, as sexual and reproductive servants. Being owned and being f**ked are or have been virtually synonymous experiences in the lives of women. He owns you; he f**ks you. The F**king conveys the quality of ownership: He owns you inside out” Dworkin, 1987.

[@PunishedFelix]

what does this have to do with the book?

[@greenfire4115]

I'm sorry but Dworkin wasn't a "postmodernist" by any means. She was an American radical feminist.

[@danieljliverslxxxix1164]

Is this why 63% of young men in America are lonely incels? Women are not oppressed and never have been. Men are oppressed and always have been.

[@anilusta5486]

> postmodernism (or nihilism) is basically the normal academical mentality > in the market dominated modern consumer society, not a fiction of some French writers. It is an act of intellectual adaptation to a world which seems to have no sense in it. . Postmodernism/nihilism/ irrationalism seem to be a capitulation to consumer society -- and the transfer of that society, with its "star system" and aestheticizing of cognitive questions -- into the academic world. Greetings from French.

[@anilusta5486]

You are a charlatan dude. Not even most Frenchs don't understand the postmodernist authors.

[@PunishedFelix]

The video is a review of a book. The point is more that the critiques in the book are bad, not really a critique or defense of post modernism. Hope that clarifies things

[@alephmale3171]

Most Germans probably don’t understand German philosophy either, but their cultures still reflect it.