Phenomenological Reviews

Book | Chapter

176774

Sokal's hermeneutic hoax

physics and the new inquisition

Babette Babich

pp. 67-78

Abstract

As a so-called post-analytic philosopher of science,1 if also from the marginalized sidelines, I have been able to tease analytic philosophers, calling them to account for their desire to imitate scientists and their habit of numbering their paragraphs and their passion for the acronym. Much more seriously, the scientists themselves have recently begun to raise the ante for analytic philosophers in the so-called science wars. In essays and op-ed pieces, physicists are repaying the philosophers' compliment — not only by adopting, as popular science writers have long done, the role of cultural critic, but also by assuming the mantle of philosophy. Science, once the arbiter of scientific truth, proposes now to vet the truth about everything else. And, as we shall see below, the philosophy of science appears to find itself compelled to offer an uncritical response.

Publication details

Published in:

Babich Babette (2002) Hermeneutic philosophy of science, van Gogh's eyes, and God: essays in Honor of Patrick A. Heelan, S.J.. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 67-78

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-1767-0_6

Full citation:

Babich Babette (2002) „Sokal's hermeneutic hoax: physics and the new inquisition“, In: B. Babich (ed.), Hermeneutic philosophy of science, van Gogh's eyes, and God, Dordrecht, Springer, 67–78.