Download or read book Intellectual Impostures written by Jean Bricmont and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Intellectual Impostures was published in France, it sent shock waves through the Left Bank establishment. When it was published in Britain, it provoked impassioned debate. Sokal and Bricmont examine the canon of French postmodernists - Lacan, Kristeva, Baudrillard, Irigaray, Latour, Virilio, Deleuze and Guattari - and systematically expose their abuse of science. This edition contains a new preface analysing the reactions to the book and answering some of the attacks.
Download or read book Fashionable Nonsense written by Alan Sokal and published by Picador. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published an essay in Social Text--an influential academic journal of cultural studies--touting the deep similarities between quantum gravitational theory and postmodern philosophy. Soon thereafter, the essay was revealed as a brilliant parody, a catalog of nonsense written in the cutting-edge but impenetrable lingo of postmodern theorists. The event sparked a furious debate in academic circles and made the headlines of newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. In Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, Sokal and his fellow physicist Jean Bricmont expand from where the hoax left off. In a delightfully witty and clear voice, the two thoughtfully and thoroughly dismantle the pseudo-scientific writings of some of the most fashionable French and American intellectuals. More generally, they challenge the widespread notion that scientific theories are mere "narrations" or social constructions.
Download or read book The Psychology of Stupidity written by Jean-Francois Marmion and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We need books like this one." --Steven Pinker At last, stupidity explained! And by some of the world's smartest people, among them Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, Alison Gopnik, Howard Gardner, Antonio Damasio, Aaron James, and Ryan Holiday. And so I proclaim, o idiots of every stripe and morons of all kinds, this is your moment of glory: this book speaks only to you. But you will not recognize yourselves... Stupidity is all around us, from the coworker who won't stop hitting "reply all" to the former high school classmate posting conspiracy theories on Facebook. But in order to vanquish it, we must first understand it. In The Psychology of Stupidity, some of the world's leading psychologists and thinkers--including a Nobel Prize winner and bestselling authors--will show you... why smart people sometimes believe in utter nonsense; how our lazy brains cause us to make the wrong decisions; why trying to debate fools is a trap; how media manipulation and Internet overstimulation make us dumber; why the stupidest people don't think they're stupid. The wisdom and wit of these experts are a balm for our aggrieved souls and a beacon of hope in a world of morons.
Download or read book Intellectual Impostures written by Alan D. Sokal and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Epistemology and the Social written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-06-29 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Epistemology had to come to terms with “the social” on two different occasions. The first was represented by the dispute about the epistemological status of the “social” sciences, and in this case the already well established epistemology of the natural sciences seemed to have the right to dictate the conditions for a discipline to be a science. But the social sciences could successfully vindicate the legitimacy of their specific criteria for scientificity. More recently, the impact of social factors on the construction of our knowledge (including scientific knowledge) has reversed, in a certain sense, the old position and promoted social inquiry to the role of a criterion for evaluating the purport of cognitive (including scientific) statements. But this has undermined the traditional characteristics of objectivity and rigor that seem constitutive of science. Moreover, in order to establish the real extent to which social conditionings have an impact on scientific knowledge one must credit sociology with a sound ground of reliability, and this is not possible without a preliminary “epistemological” assessment. These are some of the topics discussed in this book, both theoretically and with reference to concrete cases.
Download or read book L criture est la peinture de la voix written by Gillian Pink and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2024-11-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: L’Écriture est la peinture de la voix honours and celebrates the inestimable contributions that Professor Nicholas Cronk has made to our understanding of the Enlightenment. As director of the University of Oxford’s Voltaire Foundation, he has played a decisive role in eighteenth-century studies. In particular he has shaped our knowledge of Voltaire as a writer, celebrity and era-defining figure whose influence has continued to be felt through the centuries. Comprising essays by a host of internationally eminent scholars, this volume is a fitting tribute to the esteem and affection in which Nicholas Cronk is held as a colleague, teacher and mentor. These sixteen essays reflect his varied research interests, exploring questions central to the eighteenth century, such as the writing process, justice, revolution, as well as the legacy of the Enlightenment, and focussing on the central figure in Nicholas Cronk’s research: Voltaire. In sections devoted to Voltaire’s writing practices, to his involvement in political, literary and religious polemics, and finally to his legacy, the essays build on Nicholas Cronk’s scholarship and editorial achievements, opening up a new chapter in research on Voltaire. This volume is complemented by an online collection of essays which speak to other topics central to Nicholas Cronk’s interests, such as authorial identities, correspondence and aesthetics. Visit the MLO site for the other half of this festschrift project, https://modernlanguagesopen.org/collections/lecriture-nicholas-cronk
Download or read book Fashionable Nonsense written by Alan D. Sokal and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On Imposture written by Serge Margel and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-07 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imposture is an abuse of power. It is the act of lying for one's own benefit, of disguising the truth in order to mislead. For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, however, imposture is first and foremost power itself. In On Imposture, French philosopher Serge Margel explores imposture within Rousseau's Discourses, Confessions, and Emile. For Rousseau, taking power, using it, or abusing it are ultimately one and the same act. Once there's power, and someone grants themselves the means, the right, and the authority to force another's beliefs or actions, there is imposture. According to Rousseau, imposture can be found through human history, society, and culture. Using a deconstructionist method in the classic manner of Derrida, On Imposture explores Rousseau's thought concerning imposture and offers a unique analysis of its implications for politics, civil society, literature, and existentialist thought.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History written by Heikki Pihlajamäki and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 1273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: European law, including both civil law and common law, has gone through several major phases of expansion in the world. European legal history thus also is a history of legal transplants and cultural borrowings, which national legal histories as products of nineteenth-century historicism have until recently largely left unconsidered. The Handbook of European Legal History supplies its readers with an overview of the different phases of European legal history in the light of today's state-of-the-art research, by offering cutting-edge views on research questions currently emerging in international discussions. The Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter both nationally and systemically. Unlike traditional European legal histories, which tend to concentrate on "heartlands" of Europe (notably Italy and Germany), the Europe of the Handbook is more versatile and nuanced, taking into consideration the legal developments in Europe's geographical "fringes" such as Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The Handbook covers all major time periods, from the ancient Greek law to the twenty-first century. Contributors include acknowledged leaders in the field as well as rising talents, representing a wide range of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise and research agendas.
Download or read book Philippe Sollers written by Roland A. Champagne and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 1996 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Impostures written by al-Ḥarīrī and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Wall Street Journal's Top 10 Books of the Year Winner, 2020 Sheikh Zayed Book Award, Translation Category Finalist, 2021 PROSE Award, Literature Category Fifty rogue’s tales translated fifty ways An itinerant con man. A gullible eyewitness narrator. Voices spanning continents and centuries. These elements come together in Impostures, a groundbreaking new translation of a celebrated work of Arabic literature. Impostures follows the roguish Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī in his adventures around the medieval Middle East—we encounter him impersonating a preacher, pretending to be blind, and lying to a judge. In every escapade he shows himself to be a brilliant and persuasive wordsmith, composing poetry, palindromes, and riddles on the spot. Award-winning translator Michael Cooperson transforms Arabic wordplay into English wordplay of his own, using fifty different registers of English, from the distinctive literary styles of authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf, to global varieties of English including Cockney rhyming slang, Nigerian English, and Singaporean English. Featuring picaresque adventures and linguistic acrobatics, Impostures brings the spirit of this masterpiece of Arabic literature into English in a dazzling display of translation. An English-only edition.
Download or read book Impostures intellectuelles written by Alan D. Sokal and published by Editions Odile Jacob. This book was released on 1997 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Des textes illustrant les mystifications physico-mathématiques d'auteurs français qui jouissent d'un grand prestige aux USA, tels que J. Lacan, J. Kristeva, L. Irigaray, B. Latour, J. Baudrillard, G. Deleuze, F. Guattari, P. Virilio. Cette satire, signée par deux physiciens, entend montrer que, derrière un jargon imposant et une érudition scientifique apparente, le roi est nu.
Download or read book Beyond the Hoax written by Alan Sokal and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-02-11 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity'. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax - a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy. Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets - pseudo-science, religion, and misinformation in public life. 'Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left, the fundamentalists of the right, or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes, the bottom line is that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence, are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.' The book also includes a hugely illuminating annotated text of the Hoax itself, and a reflection on the furore it provoked.
Download or read book La reforme intellectuelle et morale written by Ernest Renan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-19 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains an edited version of the French text of Ernest Renan's 1871 work La réforme intellectuelle et morale.
Download or read book Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century written by Theodore Besterman and published by . This book was released on 1955 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
