Intellectual impostures
by Alan D. Sokal, Jean Bricmont · first published 1998
17mentions
8recommended by
13HN commenters
2011–2025first – last mentioned
62% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Shows how prominent philosophers and intellectuals misuse scientific and mathematical concepts, with a specific look at their pseudo-mathematical claims; for readers curious about the science wars.
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Anyone interested in the arts vs sciences debate should read this fantastic book as well as that fantastic article: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intellectual-Impostures-Jean-Bricmon... I've studied history, art history and computing science at graduate level, and have to say I agree 100% with this engineer's statement: "The quality of the actual analysis of various…
on “How To Deconstruct Almost Anything (1993)” ↗And anyone who wants to know a bit more about some of these theorists might want to read 'Intellectual Impostures' by the Left-leaning physicist Alan Sokal.
on “The Provocations of Camille Paglia” ↗…software engineer here. Was once into PoMo studies. I don't know about the Social Text bullying issue (I'd never heard of Social Text, so I didn't think its publication that significant), but Sokal's Intellectual Impostures picks apart most of those writers' abuse of scientific concepts extremely fairly and sensitively. He takes great care not to comment on their philosophical writing outside of its scientific content, and…
on “Postmodernism Generator” ↗…criticism certainly goes both ways, with the understanding of many (most?) in philosophy and the humanities in general of what science actually is and has done is deeply depressing (see Soakl and Bricmont's "Intellectual Impostures"). My personal observation is that there is a lot of resentment, envy, and repressed inferiority complexes that humanist academics hold towards scientists.
on “Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy” ↗Alan Sokal's 'Beyond The Hoax' and 'Intellectual Impostures' are good reads about the subject.
on “The Unbearable Asymmetry of Bullshit” ↗Soon after this Sokal and Bricmont wrote a book called 'Fashionable Nonsense' (titled Intellectual Impostures in the UK) in which they tackle Lacan, Deleuze and Guatarri, etc. Its well worth a read. From the wiki page about the book: Sokal and Bricmont claim that they do not intend to analyze postmodernist…
on “Sokal Affair” ↗…Kahneman "Thinking Fast & Slow" (also his papers with Amos Tversky) - Thomas Ligotti "The Conspiracy against the Human Race" - Peter Wessel Zapffe "On the Tragic" & "The Last Messiah" - Sokal, Alan D "Intellectual Impostures" - Simon Herbert "A The Sciences of the Artificial" - Herbert Marcuse "One-Dimensional Man" - Schopenhauer "Parerga and Paralipomena" - Lewis Mumford "The Story of Utopias" - Michel Foucault…
on “Ask HN: What books changed the way you think about almost everything?” ↗> I've yet to see a claim of obscurantism leveled against a post-structuralist that I felt had any serious weight. Did you read e.g. Sokal and Bricmont's Intellectual Impostures, aka Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science?! Set out to show how numerous key intellectuals have used concepts from the physical sciences and mathematics incorrectly, Sokal…
on “How Philosophers Think” ↗…scientific point of view. I had to stop myself from laughing sometimes when it came to the pseudo-mathematical formulations because they really are nonsense (for a good summary on that aspect, see Sokal's "Intellectual Impostures"). This wasn't the only reason, but I ended up switching majors to CS to focus on AI/ML (a good decision in retrospect!). Years later, I still think of Freudian and Lacanian ideas sometimes, though -…
on “Book Review: A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis” ↗…book deals with this point directly. - "Their talk" of science is not merely inaccurate, it is _disingenuous_ - This disingenuousness raises questions about the authors' sincerity (which the authors of Intellectual Impostures are at pains to limit to the scientific areas, but could well be extended) - They do not "dismiss the work" of the authors - They are at pains to try and work out what the authors might have meant (including…
on “How To Deconstruct Almost Anything (1993)” ↗Relevant: Richard Dawkins' review of 'Intellectual Impostures' by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont http://richarddawkins.net/articles/824-postmodernism-disrobe...
on “A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies (1996 hoax)” ↗…instance, really, really did understand the mathematics she used. She was not really attempting to impress her readers with fancy words she evidently did not understand as Sokal clearly shows on page 46 of Intellectual Impostures. Dawkins put it well "Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around…
on “Postmodernism Generator” ↗…hilarious gibberish paper in "Social Text", with the glorious title Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity. Later, Sokal and Bricmont published a book, Intellectual Impostures (Fashionable Nonsense in the US) about postmodern "intellectuals" abusing scientific terminology (eg Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Paul Virilio, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour,…
on “Did Thomas Kuhn Kill Truth? A review of Errol Morris's critique” ↗I'm not familiar with the source material here, but I'm familiar with Alan Sokal's book Intellectual Impostures (also titled Fashionable Nonsense in some countries). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense Fashionable Nonsense examines two related topics: the allegedly incompetent and pretentious…
on “Alan Sokal – The implicit epistemology of White Fragility” ↗…thinkers for which there was a lot of truly brilliant ideas. For example, Lacan is given a good spanking by Sokal both in his paper Transgressing the Boundaries and an entire chapter is dedicated to him in Intellectual Impostures. Lacan looks like a complete fool if this is your only exposure to his thought. Again, Sokal is not wrong on his criticisms in these excerpts. Lacan definitely uses mathematical terms incorrectly.…
on “Belittled Magazine: Thirty years after the Sokal affair” ↗