for those interested in the social text perspective on the 'sokal affair',
here is a useful url:
http://www.drizzle.com/~jwalsh/sokal/
As editor of a cultural studies journal myself, i must say that i have a
great deal of sympathy with the editors of social text. the purpose of
journals like social text is very different from that of a 'science'
journal... and both the process and goals of refereeing tend to be
different too.
moving back a few steps from the sokal affair to the original question of
theory/empirics (itself an amazingly gendered binary!)... I find it
interesting to see that we have come to frame the debate in terms that
suggest we have some kind of choice about whether or not we 'use' theory...
as if we could somehow enter the world free of any (theoretically) mediated
understanding of it.
The powerful studies by feminist writers like Sandra Harding and Donna
Haraway -- not to mention all the work in feminist and critical geography
-- must tell us something about the impossibility of that prospect.
Finally, we should always be careful to not conflate 'seeing' (or hearing,
smelling, etc.) with 'knowing'.
best wishes,
lawrence
Lawrence D. Berg, Ph.D.
Department of Geography
University of Victoria
PO Box 3050
Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3P5
Facsimile: (250) 721-6216, Telephone: (250) 592-2278
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~wwglobal/Berg/LDB.html
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