Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Quotation of the day

"Deconstruction thus contains within itself … an endless metatheoretical regression that can no longer be brought to a stop by any practical decision or effective political engagement." Translating the esoteric mumbo jumbo: deconstruction is worthless intellectual masturbation. ...

I must agree with physicist Alan Sokal... when he says that "When one analyzes [post-modernist and deconstruction] writings, one often finds radical-sounding assertions whose meaning is ambiguous and that can be given two alternative readings: one as interesting, radical, and grossly false; the other as boring and trivially true."

-- Massimo Pigliucci


I tell you, it warms the cockles of my goddamn heart when a professional philosopher makes a simple, declarative sentence; so much the better when it's unequivocal, judgmental, and spot-on.

4 comments:

  1. deconstruction is worthless intellectual masturbation

    Which means that nothing comes from it. What a waste. But very true.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Derrida's insight into the arbitrary construction of binary pairs and the privilege granted one member of that pair (i.e. God and Man) in socio-linguistics remains incredibly valuable.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

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