Postmodernism in question: Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont in intelectual impostures

• Autor(a) principal: Barreto, André Assi
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Griot : Revista de Filosofia
• Texto Completo: http://www3.ufrb.edu.br/seer/index.php/griot/article/view/513
• topic: Pós-modernismo; Relativismo; Epistemologia; Filosofia da ciência; Física.; Postmodernism; Relativism; Epistemology; Philosophy of science; Physics

 The physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont published in 1998, the book Intellectual Impostures. In the work, both of them criticize numberless postmodern authors, pointing out the  deficiencies of the reasonings of these philosophers and social scientists  and also the failures of the epistemic relativism, predominat in these authors. The achieviment of the book was motivated by a paper published in 1996, in an american periodical named Social Text, where Sokal pretended to be a defender of postmodernism, writing without logical rigor and advocating the relativism. Later, the own Sokal reaveled to everyone that was a joke. Our purpose is to present the whole issue and analyze the physicists' thesis.