when is Schroedinger's cat dead, and when is it not?

Sokal and Bricmont claim that they do not intend to analyze postmodernist thought in general. Rather, they aim to draw attention to the abuse of concepts from mathematics and physics, subjects they've devoted their careers to studying and teaching. Sokal and Bricmont define abuse of mathematics and physics as:

- Using scientific or pseudoscientific terminology without bothering much about what these words mean.
- Importing concepts from the natural sciences into the humanities without the slightest justification, and without providing any rationale for their use.
- Displaying superficial erudition by shamelessly throwing around technical terms where they are irrelevant, presumably to impress and intimidate the non-specialist reader.
- Manipulating words and phrases that are, in fact, meaningless.
- Self-assurance on topics far beyond the competence of the author and exploiting the prestige of science to give discourses a veneer of rigor.

Alas, Frank makes no claim to be "learned". Indeed he makes something of a virtue of "not being the sharpest pencil in the pack". But the "babble" description is certainly appropriate.

Olivier wrote:

Disdain is cheap. You can get tons of it for nothing, every one of us make some. I for one disdain people who pretend to be learned but are in fact just throwing everything they misread into some amorphous, unstructured mixture of pseudo-philosophical platitudes... and swirl the whole thing into some **** storm or another.

What an accurate description of Frank's babble!

Alas, Frank makes no claim to be "learned". Indeed he makes something of a virtue of "not being the sharpest pencil in the pack". But the "babble" description is certainly appropriate.

Unfortunately, some posters think that philosophy is a free-for-all subject in which "common sense views" and "ordinary language" are as good as anything else. The opposite is the case. Philosophical views are often counter-intuitive and even shocking. Language itself has become a central focus of philosophical inquiry from both a syntagmatic (current contextual) sense, and a paradigmatic (historically developed) sense.

No doubt phrases I use such as "my research" are annoying or appear supercilious to some casual posters. In that respect, I always point to the mission statement of A2K to get the views of "experts". Since I am regularly asked to write peer reviewed papers on some of these issues, which of necessity must be supported by references to "experts", I would hope to go some way in the direction of mission fulfilment.

So expert...you are telling us YOU know the truth about REALITY?

Rorty does not fit well within the group of writers usually associated with such (post-modernist) trends. Because he writes clearly and straightforwardly he could not figure in the anthology of French bullshitting that Sokal and Bricmont have compiled

Frank wrote:

So expert...you are telling us YOU know the truth about REALITY?

Hey, Fresco, do you know the expert of naive-realism?

Along with Rorty I reject the dichotomy realism/antirealism on the grounds of (human) linguistic non-representationalism. There is no bubble to burst. Scientific realists, of whom Einstein was a notable example, tend to feel threatened by the probabilistic nature of the dominant quantum paradigm. Pragmatists and non-dualists do not. That's all there is to it.

Along with Rorty I reject the dichotomy realism/antirealism on the grounds of (human) linguistic non-representationalism. There is no bubble to burst. Scientific realists, of whom Einstein was a notable example, tend to feel threatened by the probabilistic nature of the dominant quantum paradigm. Pragmatists and non-dualists do not. That's all there is to it.