The author of a parody of science and literary theory that was published as scholarship argues that many critics misuse scientific information they do not understand to make literary and philosophical points

Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science

Science & Math

Bricmont, Jean

Sokal, Alan D.

History & Philosophy

Picador USA

In 1996, Alan Sokal published an essay in the hip intellectual magazine Social Text parodying the scientific but impenetrable lingo of contemporary theorists. Here, Sokal teams up with Jean Bricmont to expose the abuse of scientific concepts in the writings of today's most fashionable postmodern thinkers. From Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva to Luce Irigaray and Jean Baudrillard, the authors document the errors made by some postmodernists using science to bolster their arguments and theories. Witty and closely reasoned, Fashionable Nonsense dispels the notion that scientific theories are mere "narratives" or social constructions, and explored the abilities and the limits of science to describe the conditions of existence.

Literature & Fiction

Sokal, Alan

History & Criticism

Picador

Since the end of the Cold War, the idea of human rights has been made into a justification for intervention by the world's leading economic and military powers—above all, the United States—in countries that are vulnerable to their attacks. The criteria for such intervention have become more arbitrary and self-serving, and their form more destructive, from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan to Iraq. Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the large parts of the left was often complicit in this ideology of intervention—discovering new “Hitlers” as the need arose, and denouncing antiwar arguments as appeasement on the model of Munich in 1938.Jean Bricmont’s Humanitarian Imperialism is both a historical account of this development and a powerful political and moral critique. It seeks to restore the critique of imperialism to its rightful place in the defense of human rights. It describes the leading role of the United States in initiating military and other interventions, but also on the obvious support given to it by European powers and NATO. It outlines an alternative approach to the question of human rights, based on the genuine recognition of the equal rights of people in poor and wealthy countries.Timely, topical, and rigorously argued, Jean Bricmont’s book establishes a firm basis for resistance to global war with no end in sight.

Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War

Foreign & International Law

Monthly Review+press

Many people, including physicists, are confused about what the Second Law of thermodynamics really means, about how it relates to the arrow of time, and about whether it can be derived from classical mechanics. They also wonder what entropy really is: Is it all about information? But, if so, then, what is its relation to fluxes of heat? One might ask similar questions about probabilities: Do they express subjective judgments by us, humans, or do they reflect facts about the world, i.e. frequencies. And what notion of probability is used in the natural sciences, in particular statistical mechanics? This book addresses all of these questions in the clear and pedagogical style for which the author is known. Although valuable as accompaniment to an undergraduate course on statistical mechanics or thermodynamics, it is not a standard course book. Instead it&nbsp;addresses both the essentials and the many subtle questions that are usually brushed under the carpet in such courses. As one of the most lucid accounts of the above questions, it provides enlightening reading for all those seeking answers, including students, lecturers, researchers and philosophers of science.

Making Sense of Statistical Mechanics (Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics)

Springer

This book explains, in simple terms, with a minimum of mathematics, why things can appear to be in two places at the same time, why correlations between simultaneous events occurring far apart cannot be explained by local mechanisms, and why, nevertheless, the quantum theory can be understood in terms of matter in motion. No need to worry, as some people do, whether a cat can be both dead and alive, whether the moon is there when nobody looks at it, or whether quantum systems need an observer to acquire definite properties. The author’s inimitable and even humorous style makes the book a pleasure to read while bringing a new clarity to many of the longstanding puzzles of quantum physics.

Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics

Permeated by the author's delightful humor, this little book explains, with nearly no mathematics, the main conceptual issues associated with quantum mechanics: The issue of determinism. Does quantum mechanics signify the end of a deterministic word-view? The role of the human subject or of the "observer" in science. Since Copernicus, science has increasingly tended to dethrone Man from his formerly held special position in the Universe. But quantum mechanics, with its emphasis on the notion of observation, may once more have given a central role to the human subject. The issue of locality. Does quantum mechanics imply that instantaneous actions at a distance exist in Nature?
In these pages the author offers a variety of views and answers - bad as well as good - to these questions. The reader will be both entertained and enlightened by Jean Bricmont's clear and incisive arguments.

Quantum Sense and Nonsense

Humanitärer Imperialismus: Die Ideologie von der humanitären Intervention als Rechtfertigung für imperialistische Kriege

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Homilius, Kai

En la primavera de 1996 una revista americana de prestigio la Social Text- publicó un artículo bajo el inquietante título de "Transgredir las fronteras: hacia una hermenéutica transformativa de la gravitación cuántica". Su autor, Alan Sokal, reforzaba sus divagaciones con citas de intelectuales, franceses y americanos, céle bres. Posteriormente él mismo reveló que se trataba de una parodia. Su intención era desenmascarar, a través de su sátira, el uso intempestivo de terminología científica y las extrapolaciones abusivas de las ciencias exactas a las humanas. De un modo más general, Sokal había querido denunciar con su artículo el relativismo posmoderno para el cual la objetividad es una mera convención social. Esta parodia desencadenó un intenso debate entre los intelectuales más relevantes de Francia y de otros países. En este libro los autores recogen y comentan textos que ilustran las mistificaciones físico-matemáticas de autores como Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Paul Virilo, Henri Bergson... todos ellos autores que gozan de una notoriedad importante en todo el mundo. Sokal y Bricmont muestran que, tras la imponente jerga y la aparente erudición científica, el rey está desnudo. Alan Sokal es profesor de Física en la Universidad de Nueva York. Jean Bricmont es profesor de Física Teórica en la Universidad de Lovaina.

Imposturas intelectuales (Paidos Transiciones / Transitions) (Spanish Edition)

History

Alan Sokal

Europe

Ediciones Paidós

En su polémica obra contra la filosofía posmoderna francesa, Imposturas intelectuales, en la que denunciaban el uso metafórico de nociones científicas a modo de argumentos de autoridad, Alan Sokal y Jean Bricmont criticaron, entre otros muchos, a Régis Debray, sobre todo por su empleo del teorema de Gödel. Quedaba así entablado un debate que Bricmont y Debray prosiguen ahora en forma de diálogo exigente, apasionado y apasionante, acerca de la Razón en todas sus formas y en todas sus ambigüedades. ¿Qué sentido podemos atribuir hoy a la Ilustración, al positivismo o a las ciencias humanas? ¿Cómo pensar las revoluciones de la biología o de las neurociencias? ¿Qué sucede con la ideología y lo político ante el retorno de lo religioso? ¿Mantiene su vigencia el concepto de progreso? ¿Cabe establecer una antropología fundamental y universal? En este nuevo libro, el filósofo Régis Debray y el físico Jean Bricmont se encuentran, se confrontan y se enfrentan en la confluencia de dos culturas, la de las letras y la de las ciencias. El resultado es un buen ejemplo de la necesidad y la urgencia de un debate intelectual más libre, sin prejuicios ni presupuestos.

A la sombra de la ilustración: Debate entre un filósofo y un científico (Spanish Edition)

Debray, Régis

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Books by Bricmont, Jean

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bricmont, Jean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science

Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science

Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War

Making Sense of Statistical Mechanics (Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics)

Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics

Quantum Sense and Nonsense

Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics

Humanitärer Imperialismus: Die Ideologie von der humanitären Intervention als Rechtfertigung für imperialistische Kriege

Imposturas intelectuales (Paidos Transiciones / Transitions) (Spanish Edition)

A la sombra de la ilustración: Debate entre un filósofo y un científico (Spanish Edition)