Allow me to recommend my favorite philosopher of science, Roy Bhaskar. For Bhaskar's critique of both postmodernism and positivism, _Reclaiming Reality: A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy_ (London and NY: Verso, 1989) would be a good place to start. However, it would be easier to read this book if you read his _A Realist Theory of Science_ beforehand.
BTW, since we also have a Rorty thread on this list, I would also like to mention that _RR_ has a chapter that focuses on the critique of Rorty's epistemic fallacy "Rorty, Realism, and the Idea of Freedom."
Regarding Alan Sokal, I think that Sokal doesn't do much beyond pointing out + satirizing the most patently absurd moments of postmodernism. However, I think we would be better off with a Bhaskarian critique of postmodernism, which explains how the same lack of an adequate ontology generates twin fallacies of positivism and postmodernism, without abandoning the kernel of truth that can be extracted from theories of social construction of knowledge.
Yoshie
>At 22:32 24/05/98 -0500, Yoshie wrote:
>
>>Trond Andresen wrote:
>>>>And, answering myself, I should add that I bet that American purity
>>>>thinking is behind Alterman and other vulgar versions of antipostmodernism.
>>>
>>>Doug, what examples can you point to of non-vulgar antipostmodernism?
>>
>>Terry Eagleton, for instance.
>
>.. who I find to be nearly as difficult to read as the French pomo gurus
>themselves. So I gave up. Having a science/technology background, I get much
>more out of Noam Chomsky's or Alan Sokal's critical writings on these issues.
>For Sokal, see
>
>http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/index.html
>
>Is their stuff to simplicistic for the literature/philosphy crowd?
>
>Trond Andresen