Bérubé reviews Sokal's "BEYOND THE HOAX: Science, Philosophy and Culture"

Michael Bérubé has an interesting review, dare we say critique, at the American Scientist of Alan Sokal's latest book "BEYOND THE HOAX: Science, Philosophy and Culture" (Amazon.com link)

Here is a snippet of the review to whet your appetite:

When some people hear the term Western science, they think first of Hiroshima, Agent Orange and the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal—and not, say, of the discovery of neutrino oscillation. This mordant skepticism about the benefits of Western science is then underlined by a dogmatic conviction that the Enlightenment was little more than a stalking horse for imperialism. As for why postmodern intellectuals would champion “local knowledges” and the “heterogeneity of language games” against the universalist aspirations of the Enlightenment, my sense is that when academic leftists in the humanities speak glowingly about “local knowledges,” they’re thinking of all the warm and fuzzy feelings we lefties have about “the local”—from our local independent bookstore to our local independent food co-op. These are good things by every measure (local and universal), but they seem to have obscured the fact that many of the world’s “local knowledges” are parochial, reactionary and/or theocratic. Likewise, the defense of the “heterogeneity of language games” has proceeded as if it is the moral equivalent of a defense of species diversity—when, in fact, it is morally neutral, agnostic with regard to the question of whether the language games of charlatans or fascists should be preserved alongside the language games of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

However, while there is much that is good about Sokal's book, it is not all good. Bérubé does a good job of explaining to lay-people like me where Sokal (and Sam Harris, before him) has gone wrong.

[Update 12/26/08: Hopefully have corrected the weird font problems.]