On Sat, 4 Oct 1997, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Ok, Deleuze & Guattari are nutters, Lacan a bit of a fraud, Irigaray an
> arcane idealist - but what do we do now? How do you do real critical
> science studies? I think Alan Sokal should give us a hint of what he thinks.
>
> Doug
Doug: I beg to differ, especially about Deleuze & Guattari some of whose
works I know quite well. There is a great deal of extremely thought
provoking and useful material in their writings. While there was no excuse
for writing Anti-Oedipus the way they did, Thousand Plateaus, beginning
with the lovely essay on "rhizomes", more than made up for it. Deleuze's
work more generally has elaborated readings of Spinoza, Nietsche & others
highlighting what might called moments of an anti-dialectical tradition
which is a healthy antidote to the cosmology of orthodox Marxism and some
ideas for thinking about going beyond capitalism which complement, in
my mind, Marx's own work. Regardless of legitimacy of Sokal's critique of
these writers understanding of science (I haven't read the book but I
would not ASSUME he is correct) their work provides a wealth of useful
material.
Harry
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Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173 USA
Phone Numbers: (hm) (512) 478-8427
(off) (512) 475-8535 Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cleaver homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
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