The things Chomsky talks about are well known in the sociology of knowledge, you can go back, at least, to Mannheim. There's a specific subdisciplines -- sociology of the professions. I remember cruising the library, sitting on the floor, looking for something on the bottom shelf. I spied this obviously self published vol. a dissertation produced 20 years before in my dept. It was a vituperative sociology of academia using hte grad stud's dept. *snort*
wonder why it never saw the light of day? :)
But Chomsky doesn't present an objective analysis in the piece Tayssir forwarded. It is self-serving and uses nothing that would pass for scholarly research to advance the argument. It is the kind of crap I used to hear people who have physics envy say all the time about the social sciences and humanities. Alas, as the neo-positivist Randall Collins points out, we're dealing with very complex systems when we study society. When we produce knowledge about it, it gets fed into that society and _changes_ it. Maybe I'll scan the essay and post it. Note, collins is hardly a cheerleader of pomo, himself having written scathing critiques of the postmodern analyses of science. But I'll take his analysis and sneering critique any day over Chomsky's since Chomsky doesn't even begin to engage the topic with any sorted of engaged fallibilistic pluralism. He does not put his opponent in the best light possible but, instead, draws on common sense anti-intellectualism and resentment toward academics to advance his claims.
my comments above,of course, only apply to the piece Tayssir forwarded. I'm also drawing on the remarkably crappy piece he published about postmodern critics of science which, in the published article on line, couldn't even be bothered to name the authors of the pieces he was criticizing. What kind of b.s. is that? You attempt to savage the work of others by never actually naming the articles and authors you're quoting from? Myabe he published something naming names and titles, but it wasn't the one I found at his site. How can anyone applaud that kind of criticism? It doesn't comport with any sort of standard of science where someone publishes research and is then criticized, publicly and openly, in order that they can learn from critics or at least respond.
At 11:35 AM 12/16/2006, Jerry Monaco wrote:
>Carrol, I am not arguing against anything you say here, but you should
>really try to take a look at Chomsky's own very interesting notions of
>what makes a theory, and why no "theories" in a strict sense have yet to
>develop in the humanities, in relation to human history, and in the so
>called "human-sciences" in general.
>
>At least think about the descriptions of theory, and the history of
>science that Chomsky often presents in his polemics on these matters. I
>think they are important in ways people have simply not yet fully
>realized. They remained to be fleshed out by somebody and they should be
>fleshed out.
>
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