Comments on Nietzsche/Sokal symposia

[Louis Proyect]

At 02:49 AM 5/7/98 +0000, you wrote:
>
>                    F  I  L  M  -  P  H  I  L  O  S  O  P  H  Y
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>                                                          salon news
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>                                                              <////>
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>Truth & Lies
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>                   *******************
>
>The Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy presents its annual
interdisciplinary conference:
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>TRUTH & LIES
>
>with special symposiums on Nietzsche and the 'Sokal Affairs'
>
>17-19 July 1998
>University Of Sydney
>Australia
>
>'Greek truth trembled, in former times, before this single affirmation: 'I
lie'. 'I speak' puts the whole of modern fiction to the test.' (Michel
Foucault, 'The thought of the outside)
>
>Speakers Include: Ros Diprose, Alphonso Lingis, Brian Massumi, Paul
Patton, Roos Poole, Hugh & Gerda Silverman
>
>When it is suggested that all we need to do in order to verify certain
immutable objective laws is to jump out of the window, a connection is
nevertheless set up between truth and a particular method, and a certain
value is ascribed to knowing the truth, namely that of physical survival.
Perhaps no one was more adept than Nietzsche at showing us the connection
between 'what' is true and its hows, whys and whos, and that the
delineation of the true and the real at the same time distributes classes
of persons, ways of life and the values that inform them, distinctions that
we could call, in a variety of senses, 'disciplinary'. With or without
Nietzsche, the place, status and varieties of truth and its others remain
contentious issues, if only in the sense that even seeking to make truth a
matter of contention draws ire. The premise of this conference is
nevertheless that truth and lies are subjects of debate, and seeks moreover
to explore in which territory, and between which territories, the
long-running dispute between them is located.
>
>ABSTRACTS (no longer than one page) DUE: 15 MAY 1998 Standard paper length
30-40 minutes speaking time, but proposals for shorter presentations (eg.
for Sokal discussion) welcome. Address abstracts and enquiries to:
>
>mjmascp at ozemail.com.au
>
>or
>
>ASCP
>PO BOX 4297
>MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY POST OFFICE
>PARKVILLE VIC 3052
>
The above has been forwarded to me from the film-philosophy list.  I think
the references to the Sokal affair are very interesting.  I think they
indicate that the pomos now feel that they have been outmanoeuvered.  For
years they have danced around deconstructing everything and above all
destroying Marxist thought in the universities.  Now that that conquest is
complete they are no longer necessary so they are feeling the pinch from
the New Realists.  Hence the remarks about being told to jump out the window.

In desperation they turn once more to Nietzsche.  But the latter is again
the dead dog of history.    Re-enter Kant.

What particularly interests me is the strangely anachronistic defence of
their attacks on truth.  They say to state that truth is a matter of
contention "draws ire."  But they have been doing this for decades. 

What has happened it seems to me is that that the moment of rightwing
anarchism/liberterianism is over.  The bourgeoisie need as Weber pointed
out, rational accounting.  Irationalism is passe (everywhere it seems but
Sydney).

Yet if one were to go down to the conference and seriously examine the
qeustion of objectivity from a critical realist perspective one would be
howled down by their ire.  

The postmodernists now that they are under attack have rediscovered
academic freedom and the right to debate issues seriously. But there is
blood on their hands and I have no sympathy for them.

regards

Gary

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)