Week 11Q: Derrida on the Sokal Affair

My posts are a bit confusing this week as I opted to do Week 12 prior to Week 11 (this because I left Week 11 to the last minute!). In any event, I read Derrida’s comments on the Sokal affair because I was interested in what Derrida had to say. Although Derrida was not one of Sokal’s targets, it did get me thinking about who gets counted as one’s peers. Philosophy, for instance, is often divided into Analytic and Continental traditions (this division is somewhat arbitrary as there are Continental writers who write in the Analytic mode and non-Continental writers who write in the Continental mode). Not surprisingly, Analytic philosophers tend to publish in Analytic journals while Continental philosophers tend to public in Continental journals. In North America, it has gotten to the point where entire philosophy departments are devoted to one or the other (oftentimes philosophy departments will tackle Analytic philosophy and leave Continental to English departments). To my mind, this is deeply unfortunate precisely because the work of an Analytic philosopher is seldom subjected to peer-review by a Continental philosopher and vice versa.

To get back to the Soral affair, I find the whole episode sad insofar as Soral squandered an opportunity for dialogue by undermining the trust that would have made that possible. Derrida also finds the episode sad, albeit for a different reason: “poor Sokal … His name remains linked to a hoax … and not to scientific work.” I can’t help but wonder whether the sorry affair isn’t rooted in the growing divide between different disciplines. For as much as we talk about interdisciplinary study in school, most of us take courses in one or two departments and stick to publishing in journals associated with our discipline. To a degree, this makes sense insofar as we’re trained to be specialists. But specialization comes at a price. And I think the Sokal affair is a good illustration of that price.

A translation of Derrida’s response can be found here: http://critical-theory.com/read-derridas-response-sokal-affair/

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