The critique and deconstruction of postmodernist philosophers has provided indispensable inspiration for people to understand and reflect on modern life since their emergence. However, readers who have read their works may not forget their obscure and difficult brushwork, and even do not know what to do, cannot bear it, and cannot continue to read. This is actually the impression that most postmodernist philosophers leave.
In the 1990s, an American mathematician named Alan Sokal decided to imitate the writing style of postmodernist philosophers, applying a large number of advanced scientific concepts and writing a postmodernist "deep article" in a "pretentious" way. When he finished, he submitted it to Social Text, a magazine dedicated to social theory. Ironically, the article was successfully published. This at the time left one wondering about the true theoretical level of Social Texts and postmodernist theory. And Sokal's pranks also instantly stirred up thousands of waves. Social Text responded that they thought it was just an attempt by scientists and that publishing a paper did not mean agreeing with its views.
Sokal then invited the Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont to join in to co-criticize the postmodernist text. They analyze the work of philosophers such as Lacan, Baudrillard, deleuze, and point out that they are full of misuse of words in disciplines such as physics and mathematics, and it is these seemingly advanced technical words that modify their writing. Their quotes were meant to show the reader how eclectic they were, and embarrassingly, in an age of high division of knowledge, they themselves could not understand physics and mathematics, and in sokal and Brikmon's view, they misused terminology to the point of absurdity. This was a "battle of the century" at the time. Scholars, including Noam Chomsky, also supported Sokal and Brikmon.
Against this backdrop, the two published The Buzzword: The Misuse of Science by Postmodern Intellectuals. Today, the Chinese edition of the book is also published by The Zhejiang University Press "Qizhenguan", and the following excerpts are authorized by the "Qizhenguan" from chapters 8 and 9, the content has been deleted, the title is taken by the extractor, and the translation name of some of the original works Chinese has been modified. It is worth mentioning that this does not mean that science is absolutely correct, in fact, science can sometimes be arrogant and conceited. For comments, see the original book.
The author of the original article | [Beauty] Alan Sokal, [than] Jean Bricmont
Excerpts | Rodong
"Fashionable Empty Words: The Misuse of Science by Postmodern Intellectuals," by Alan Sokal and [Than] Jean Brikmon, translated by Cai Peijun, Zhejiang University Press, Qizhenguan, January 2022.
1. Baudrillard's "Metaphor" and "Looking at The Literal"
Jean Baudrillard's sociological works challenge and also stimulate all contemporary theories. He unravels established social descriptions with mockery and extreme precision, with composure and self-confidence and humor.
—The World, 1984
Sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard is known for his reflections on reality, appearances, and illusions. Here we would like to focus on the lesser-noticed aspects of Baudrillard's work, namely his frequent use of scientific and pseudoscientific terms. In some cases, Baudrillard's use of scientific concepts is clearly metaphorical. For example, he wrote about the Gulf War:
Most unusually, the prophecies of real time and pure war, along with the victory of the virtual over the real, are fulfilled simultaneously, pursuing each other mercilessly in the same time and space. This is a sign that the space of events has become a hyperspace with multiple refractivity, and the space of war has indeed become a non-Euclidean space.
—Baudrillard, "The Gulf War Didn't Happen"
There seems to be a tradition of using technical mathematical concepts out of context. At Lacan are torus and imaginary numbers; at Kristeva are infinite sets; here there is non-Euclidean space. But what can this metaphor mean? What exactly does euclidean geometry's war space look like? By the way, the "hyperspaceà réfraction multiple" (hyperspaceà réfraction multiple) does not exist in mathematics nor in physics; it is a Baudrillard invention.
In Anne Hall (1977), a passerby (first from left) talks about it and doesn't really understand McLuhan (first from right). McLuhan is a communication scientist who has authored "The Machine Bride" and "Understanding the Medium".
Baudrillard's work is awash with similar metaphors extracted from mathematics and physics, such as:
In the historical Euclidean space, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, a line of progress and democracy. But this is only true in the linear space of enlightenment.
In non-Euclidean end-of-century space, ominous curvature succeeds in deflecting all orbits. This is undoubtedly related to the sphericity of time (visible at the end of the century horizon, just as the sphericality of the Earth is visible at the end of the day) or the subtle distortion of the gravitational field... Through this hyperflection of the reversal from history to infinity, the century itself is escaping its end.
Perhaps because of this, we benefit from the "interesting physics" effect of the impression that collective or individual events have been bound into a hole in memory. Undoubtedly, this invisibility is due to this reversal of movement, the curvature of the scrap line of this historical space.
—Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End
But not all Baudrillard's physics is metaphorical. In his more philosophical text, Baudrillard apparently takes physics (or his own version of physics) literally, as in his chance-themed essay "The Fatal, Or Reversible Imminence":
This reversibility of the causal order—cause as effect, effect preceding therefore better than cause—is fundamental... Although science is not happy to question the deterministic principle of causality, when it intuitively grasps that chance is the floating of all laws—even beyond the uncertainty principle that still operates like excessive rationality—it is this reversibility that science glimpses at a glance. This is already quite unusual. But science now feels not only this float and uncertainty at the limits of the physics and biology of its operation, but also the reversibility of a possible law of physics. It would be an absolute mystery, not some extra-formula or post-equation of the universe (relativity is), but the idea that any law can be reversed (not just particles becoming antiparticles, matter becoming anti-matter, but also the laws themselves). The assumption of this reversibility is always affirmed by the large metaphysical system. It is the basic rule of the appearance game, the basic rule of appearance deformation, as opposed to the irreversible order of time, law, and meaning. But it is fascinating to see science reach the same assumptions, contrary to its own logic and evolution.
—Baudrillard, Deadly Strategy
It's hard to understand what Baudrillard means by the "reversing" laws of physics.
In physics, we can say that reversibility of a law is just a short for "invariance with respect to time inversion." But this property is well known in Newtonian mechanics, it is a theory of causality and determinism; it has nothing to do with uncertainty, and it does not in any way conform to the "physical and biological limits" of science. (Quite the opposite: the irreversibility of the law of "weak interaction," discovered in 1964, is new, and it is not yet fully understood.) In any case, the reversibility of the law has nothing to do with the so-called "reversibility of the causal order."
British popular science writer Richard Dawkins, in his book A Devil's Chaplain, also included his book review of "Fashionable Empty Words", arguing that Sokal and Bricmont "set a friendly and moving example for the world of science" to follow. There is also Chinese edition of The Devil's Priest (CITIC Press, June 2016).
2. "If you strip away the language covering it..."
Baudrillard's scientific obfuscation (or fantasy) led him to make an unfounded philosophical claim: he did not make any arguments in support of his idea that science could reach a hypothesis "contrary to its own logic."
This line of thinking is again adopted in his article Exponential instability( exponential stability):
The whole problem with talking about the end (especially the end of history) is that you have to talk about what is outside the end: and you also have to talk about the impossibility of the end. This paradox arises from the fact that the end cannot be located in a nonlinear, non-Euclidean historical space. In fact, the end is only perceptible in the logic of causality and continuity. Now, it is the events themselves, by virtue of their artificial production—that is, their planned appearance or the anticipation of their results, not to mention their deformation in the media—that suppresses causation, and all the historical continuity that follows.
This distortion of cause and effect, the mysterious autonomy of this effect, the reversibility of cause-effect, produces disorder or chaotic order (it is our present situation: a reversibility of truth and information that creates disorder in the kingdom of events and the excess of media effects), and in a way reminiscent of the theory of chaos and the disproportionate relationship between a butterfly flapping its wings and the hurricane it causes on the other side of the world. It is also reminiscent of Jacques Benvenist's paradoxical hypothesis about the memory of water.
……
Perhaps history itself has been seen as a chaotic structure in which acceleration ends linearity, and the turbulence induced by acceleration explicitly deviates history from its end point, just as turbulence separates the results from their causes.
First, chaos theory must not reverse the relationship between cause and effect. (Even in human affairs, we seriously doubt that an action now could affect an event in the past!) Moreover, chaos theory has nothing to do with Ban vonnister's hypothesis about the memory of water. Finally, the last sentence, although constructed in full sentence in scientific terms, is meaningless from a scientific point of view.
Subsequently, the gibberish in the article was even worse:
We will not reach the end, even if that end point is the final judgment, because we will be separated from it in the future by means of a variable refraction hyper-space. The reversal of history can be interpreted as this turbulent flow, because the process is reversed and the event of being swallowed up is accelerated. This is a version of chaos theory—a version of exponential instability and its uncontrollable effects. This explains the "end" of history very well, its linear or dialectical movement cut off by the catastrophic singularity...
But exponential instability is not the only version. The other is a version of exponential stability. The latter defines a state in which, no matter where you start, you always come back to square one at the end. The initial condition, the primordial singularity, is irrelevant: everything tends to the zero point—the zero point itself is also a strange attractor.
Stills from the movie Kung Fu (2004).
Both assumptions – the instability and stability of the index – are incompatible but in fact valid at the same time. Furthermore, our system combines the two very well in its normal (normally catastrophic) process. It actually combines expansion, the acceleration of Mercedes-Benz, the dizzying vortex of fluidity, the centrifugality of events, the excess of meaning and information, and the exponential tendency toward total entropy. Our system is therefore doubly chaotic: it operates with exponential stability and instability at the same time. As such, there seems to be no end, because we are already in a state of end-overdose: the transfinite... Our complex, mutant, viral systems are destined to reach only the exponential dimension (whether exponential stability or instability), to the deflection and indefinite fractal scissiparity, and can no longer reach an end. Destined to a dense metabolism, a dense inner transfiguration, exhausted in itself, without any destination, no end, any other, any fatality.
This last paragraph is the best of the Baudrillard style. It's hard not to be forced to pay attention to the highly dense scientific and pseudoscientific terms—to the extent we can understand them, the terms that are inserted in sentences don't make sense.
However, such texts are not common in Baudrillard's life, as they at least indirectly mention (albeit in a confusing way) more or less clearly defined scientific concepts. More often encountered in his works are passages like this:
The best model for describing the interweaving of computer screens and mental screens in our brains is Moebius's topology, which has special adjacency to near and far, inside and outside, object and subject in the same spiral. A superficial mixture of subject and object, inside and outside, question and answer, event and image, and so on, is consistent with this model, in which information and communication are constantly turning to themselves in an incestuous circumumvolution. Form is inevitably a distorted ring form, reminiscent of the mathematical symbol of infinity.
—Baudrillard, The Manifestation of Evil
As Gross and Levitt put it: "This passage is both pompous and meaningless. ”
In short, Baudrillard's work is full of scientific terms, but they are used with complete disregard for the meaning of the terms, and in a context that does not see what they do. Whether or not these terms are interpreted as metaphors, it is difficult to see what they do other than to make old observations about sociology or history seem profound. In addition, non-scientific vocabulary is also mixed with scientific terms, and it is equally sloppy when used. When we examine everything, it is doubtful: if we strip away the language that covers it, what is left of Baudrillard's thought?
3. Deleuze and Gatali floating on the surface
I must mention here two books, which I think are the most of the greats: Difference and Repetition, The Logic of Sense, which are so unquestionably great that they are hard to talk about and rarely do. I believe that for a long time the book will hover over our heads, enigmatically echoing the work of Klossovski, another important and excessive mark. Maybe one day, this century will belong to Deleuze.
—Michel Foucault, Theater of Philosophy
Gil del Dérèse is hailed as one of the most important contemporary French thinkers. He wrote more than twenty philosophical works, including his own and co-authorship with Felix Gatali. Below, we will analyze where the sections co-authored deleuze and Gatali cite physical or mathematical terms and concepts.
The main feature of the text we have quoted is the lack of clarity. Of course, Defenders of Deleuze and Gatali will argue that these texts are so esoteric that we have not properly understood them. But a closer look reveals the intensive use of scientific terms, withdrawn from context, without any obvious logic, and without even illustrating them in a general scientific sense. Deleuze and Gatali were certainly free to use these terms in other senses: science had no monopoly on the use of words like "chaos," "limit," or "energy."
But we will also point out that their writings are also full of highly technical terms that are not used outside of professional scientific discourse, and that they do not provide other definitions of those terms.
These texts touch on a large number of topics: Gödel's theorem, superfinite cardinality theory, Riemann geometry, quantum mechanics... But only brief and superficial matters are involved, and no concrete thing can be learned from them unless the reader is already familiar with these subjects. Professional readers, on the other hand, will find that most of their statements are meaningless, or sometimes acceptable, but uninteresting and confusing.
We all know that Deleuze and Gatali ruled philosophy, not the popularity of science. But what philosophical effect can be achieved by throwing down a whole bunch of scientific (and pseudoscientific) jargon of indigestion? What we think is most likely to be that the knowledge these authors exhibit in their writings is broad but superficial.
What is Philosophy? Cover of the French edition.
What is Philosophy? What is Philosophy is a French bestseller in 1991. One of the basic themes is the distinction between philosophy and science. According to Deleuze and Gatali, philosophy deals with "concepts" while science deals with "functions." They describe this contrast this way:
The first difference between science and philosophy is their respective attitudes toward chaos. Chaos is not defined by disorder, but by the infinite velocity at which each form takes shape as it disappears. It is a void that is not nothingness but virtual, contains all possible particles, produces all possible forms, disappears as soon as they emerge, has no consistency or reference benchmark, and has no consequences. Chaos is the infinite speed of birth and disappearance.
—Deleuze and Gatali, What is Philosophy? 》
To illustrate a little, although the rest of the book uses the word in scientific sense without comment, the word "chaos" is not used here in the usual scientific sense.
They continue:
Now, philosophers wonder how to maintain infinite speed while gaining consistency by giving the virtual person a consistency that is characteristic of it. Philosophical sieves, such as cutting through the plane of immanence of chaos, choose infinite movements of thought, and are filled with concepts that form like consistent particles that are as fast as ideas. Science approaches chaos in a completely different, almost opposite way: it abandons infinity, infinite velocity, in order to obtain a reference benchmark for achieving virtuality. By preserving this infinity, philosophy gives virtual coherence through concepts; science gives the virtual a reference by abandoning infinity, and the reference benchmark achieves the virtual through function. Philosophy proceeds in terms of an implicit plane or consistency; science takes a plane of reference datums. In the case of science, it is like a condensed architecture. It is an imaginary slowing down, and the substance is realized by slowing down and by scientific thinking that can penetrate the substance with propositions. A function is a type of slowmotion. Of course, science continues to accelerate progress, not only in catalysis, but also in particle accelerators and expansions that separate the Milky Way. For these phenomena, however, the primordial slowdown is not a moment of zero in which they cease, but a condition for coextensive expansion with their entire development. Slowing down is to set a limit in chaos, and all velocities are subject to it so that they form a variable determined as an abscissa, and at the same time, this limit forms a universal constant that cannot be surpassed (e.g., the maximum of contraction). The first functive is therefore limit and variable, while the reference datum is a relationship between the value and the variable, or more profoundly, the relationship between the variable (as the abscissa of the velocity) and the limit.
—Deleuze and Gatali, What is Philosophy? 》
This paragraph contains at least a dozen scientific terms that neither rhyme nor make sense, and the discourse oscillates between meaningless words ("a function is a slow motion") and nonsense ("science is accelerating progress"). The next content is even more eye-opening:
Sometimes, the constant-limit itself appears as a relation in the universe as a whole, and all parts are subordinate to this whole under finite conditions (quantity of motion, force, energy). Again, there must be a coordinate system to which the relational word refers: and this is the second meaning of the limit, an external framing or exoreference.
Stills from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" (2001).
Because of these primordial limitations, in addition to all coordinates, velocity abscissa is actively generated, on which the corresponding axis can be adjusted. A particle will have a position, an energy, a mass, and a spin value, but only if the particle receives a physical presence or reality, or "lands" in an orbit that can be mastered by the coordinate system. It is these first-class restrictions that constitute the threshold of suspension of the infinite in chaos, which acts as an endoreference and performs a kind of calculation: they are not relations but numbers, but the whole theory of functions depends on them. We mention the speed of light, absolute zero, quantum action, the Big Bang: absolute zero is minus 273.15 degrees Celsius, the speed of light is 299 796 kilometers per second, where the length shrinks to zero and the clock stops. Such limits, through the empirical value they present, apply not only to coordinate systems; they are first and foremost a condition for initial slowdown, related to infinity, extending over the entire range of the corresponding velocity, extending over its conditioned acceleration or slowdown. It's not just the diversity of these speeds that allow us to question a single scientific cause. In fact, each limit itself produces an irreducible, heterogeneous coordinate system that imposes discontinuous thresholds based on the closeness and distance of variables (e.g., the distance of galaxies). Science is shrouded, not by its own unity, but by the plane of reference constituted by all limitations or boundaries. The values extracted from the coordinate system of scientific penetration arrange the situation of the variables (in this coordinate system, the order of the cone sections is in the order of the sections of the cone occupied by the eye at the top).
Again, even though the initial part is vaguely alluded to the philosophy of science, the end of this paragraph is unsure.
4) Their writing is full of technical terms
Deleuze and Gatali seem to be discussing the problem of mathematical philosophy:
When one of the variables is more powerful than the first variable, the independence of the variables appears in mathematics. This is why Hegel pointed out that the variability of a function is not limited to values that can be changed (2/3 or 4/6), or to be unresolved (a=2b), but to have one of the variables at a relatively high power (y2/x=P). Because of this, a relation can be directly determined as a differential relation dy/dx, where the only decision on the value of a variable is the decision to disappear or the decision to be born, even if it is taken from infinite speed. A state of things, or "derivative" function, depends on this relationship: the operation of depotentialization is carried out all the time, making it possible to compare different powers, and it is possible for a thing or body to develop from here (integral method). In general, a state of things does not implement a chaotic virtual without proposing a potential scattered in the coordinate system. In the virtual that it implements, it proposes a potential that it appropriates.
Here, Deleuze and Gatali repeat old ideas that originally appeared in Deleuze's Differences and Repetitions, which Foucault called "the best of the great works." In two places in the book, Deleuze discusses classical problems in the conceptual basis of differentiation and integration. Ever since this branch of mathematics appeared in the works of Newton and Leibniz in the 17th century, there has been a strong opposition to the use of "infinitesimal" quantities such as dx and dy.
These problems were addressed by the works of d'Alembert and Cauchy, published around 1760 and around 1820, respectively, introducing the strict concept of limits, a concept that has been taught in all calculus textbooks since the mid-19th century. However, Deleuze pondered these questions for a long and chaotic period, and we have only excerpted a few of the most representative passages:
Just as we oppose difference itself to negativity, we also oppose dx to non-A, and differenzphilosophie to contradictory symbols. Indeed, the contradiction looks for its Idea on the side of the greatest difference, while the differential risks falling into the abyss of infinitesimals. However, this is not the way of the formal problem: it is a mistake to associate the value of the symbol dx to the existence of infinitesimals; but it is also a mistake to refuse to give it any ontological or gnoseological value in the name of rejecting the latter. ...... The principles of general differential philosophy must be the object of strict interpretation and must never depend on the infinitesimal. The symbol dx appears, which is at the same time undecided, determinable, and determined. The three principles together form sufficient reasons for these three aspects: the determinable principle corresponds to the undecided person himself (dx, dy); the principle of cross-determination corresponds to the truly determinable (dy/dx); the principle of complete determination corresponds to the value of the dy/dx that has been effectively determined. In short, dx is the rational type—Platonic, Leibnizian, or Kant's rational type, the "problem" and its existence.
The third element presented by differential relations is pure potentiality. Powers are cross-determined forms, according to which variables are treated as functions of each other. As a result, calculus only considers those magnitude quantities, where at least one is more powerful than the other. Undoubtedly, the first step in calculus is to "deposition" the equation (for example, we do not write 2ax-x2=y2, but d/dx=(a-x)/y). However, an analogy may be found in two previous tables, where the disappearance of quantum and quantitas is a condition for the emergence of quantitablilty elements, and disqualification is a condition for the disappearance of qualitability elements. This time, following Lagrange's explanation, depositionalization limits pure potential by squareing a function of a variable in a series consisting of a power of i (an undecided quantity) and the coefficients of these powers (a new function of x), so that the open function of the variable can be compared with other functions. The pure component of the potential appears in the coefficient of the first or the first derivative, and the other derivatives, as well as all subsequent series terms, are derived from the repetition of the same operation. The whole problem, however, lies precisely in determining this first coefficient, which is itself independent of i.
Thus, there is another part of the object that is determined by the actualisation. The mathematician asks: What is this other part represented by the so-called primitive function? In this sense, the integral is by no means an inverse differentiation, but a primitive process of differentiation. Differentiation determines the virtual content of the rational form as a problem, while differentiation expresses the implementation of this virtual state and the composition of the solution (through local integration). Differentiation is like the second part of difference, and in order to refer to the integrity or integrality of objects, we need complex differentiation/differentiation.
—Deleuze, Differences and Repetitions
A few of these passages are readable—some clichéd, some wrong—and we have explained them in the notes. The rest is left to the reader to judge. The fundamental question is: What is the use of making these mystifying statements about mathematical objects that everyone has known for one hundred and fifty years?
English translation of The Logic of Meaning.
Let's take another book, "The Most Great of All", The Logic of Meaning, and we can find the following astonishing passage:
First, singularities-events correspond to heterogeneous sequences, which are organized into a system that is neither stable nor unstable, but rather a "metastable" system, which is given a potential energy in which differences between series are assigned. (Potential energy is the energy of a pure event, and the form of implementation corresponds to the realization of an event.) Second, singularities control the process of autounification, always flowable and replaced to a degree where a contradictory element crosses the sequence, causing it to reverberate, encapsulating singular points corresponding to each other into a single random point, while all divergence (each dice roll) is encapsulated into a single roll. Third, singularities or potentials haunt the surface. Everything happens in surface crystals, which develop only on the edges. Undoubtedly, an organism does not develop in the same way. Organisms do not stop contracting in an inner space and expanding in an outer space—deassimilating and externalizing. But membranes are just as important because they load potentials and reproduce polarities. They bring the outer and inner spaces into contact, regardless of distance. Inside and outside, depth and height, only through this topological surface contact has biological value. Therefore, even in biology, it is necessary to understand that "the most profound is the skin". The skin has a vitality and proper superficial potential energy to dispose of. And just as events do not occupy a surface but often come into contact with it, the energy of the surface does not localize the surface, but is closely connected with its shape and re-form.
—Deleuze, The Logic of Meaning
This passage again foreshadows the style of Deleuze's later work with Gatali—filled with technical terms; but it is neither logical nor meaningful except for the unoriginal observation of cells communicating with the outside world through the membrane.
Let's draw a short line from Gathali's own book, Chaosmosis. This passage pieces together all the terms of science, pseudoscience, and philosophy to a degree of brilliance that we have only ever seen; only a genius can write it.
Stills from the film Anne Hall (1977).
It is clear that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between the online ideographic connection or archi-writing (depending on the author) and this multi-referential, multidimensional mechanical catalytic effect. The symmetry of proportions, transversality, and the non-discursive character of its extenders: all these dimensions move us away from the logic of the middle of the row and reinforce our rejection of the ontological dichotomy previously criticized. The assembly of a machine, through its various components, extracts its consistency by passing through ontological thresholds, nonlinear thresholds of irreversibility, thresholds of ontology and phylogenetic, heterogeneous hair, and autopoiesis.
The concept of proportion needs to be extended, considering the symmetry of fragments at the ontological level. The shattering machine crosses the substantial scales. Cross them as you produce the scale bar. However, it should also be noted that the existential ordinates of existence that they "invented" are always there. How can this paradox be supported? This is because once the assembly of coordinates escaping energy-space-time is allowed, everything becomes possible (including René Tom's proposal for recessive smoothing of time). Here, once again, we need to rediscover a manner of being of Being without being—before, after, here, and everywhere else; a determinant, polyphonic existence that, depending on the infinite velocity at which it initiates its virtual composition, can be singularisable by the textured texture of infinite complexity that has the potential for infinite complexity.
—Gatari, The Chaotic Universe (also translated as Chaos Interpenetration)
Readers who still have doubts about the ubiquitous pseudoscientific language in deleuze and Gatali's work can refer to more of their work. The list above is definitely not all.
Original author | [Beauty] Alan Sokal, [than] Jean Bricmont
Excerpts | Rodong
The introduction section proofreads the | Guo Li