**Truth Seeker **: "I reply to even sven with relevant data demonstrating that, despite her personal experience, there has indeed been an almost unbelievable change in the status of women (of which more later) in the last thirty years. "
Truth Seeker, I can’t say it any more clearly than I believe I already have but I will try one more time.
No one is debating you on the change in the status of women. I’m even content for you to describe them as “almost unbelievable”–highly subjective as that term obviously is. People are objecting to your two related assumptions–and yes, they do seem to qualify as “dogmatic” assumptions-- 1) that past gains assure future gains and 2) and that past gains thereby obviate the need for a vigilant and activist feminism (among other social justice movements).
“You reply to a thoughtful essay which directly discusses problems the author perceives in feminist scholarship with “It says nothing to me about my life.” Yet I engage in “non-debate.” Indeed.”
As I thought my replies had made clear, I didn’t find the essay in the least thoughtful. Its principal claim–that scholarship is driven by cynical and unabashed careerism rather than a sincere interest in knowledge–is not validated by my years of experience as a feminist academic. Another of its claims, that feminist scholarship is, by and large, sham and preposterism, I hold to be patently false. Is there anything else in this article that you think needs addressing?
“There is, of course, no such thing [as “feminist physics”]”.
Well I’m not in any position to dispute you on that matter since I’ve never heard of feminist physics. Rather than attempt to debate the merits of something I didn’t even know existed let me–for the purposes of argument–fully concede your position. That is, I concede to you (for the purposes of argument) that feminist physics is valueless and nonsenical. How exactly does that impugn any and every other kind of feminist scholarship, some specific examples of which, in all its great variety, I’ve described in this thread?
"The idea that truth depends on your perspective and “that all claims to disciplinary and political objectivity are at best deluded, and at worst dishonest” [emphasis mine] is ridiculous and based on only the haziest idea of what science is actually about. (You could also argue that this is untrue in other non-science areas but I won’t since that would be yet another hijack.) "
As I made clear, the author of that statement is a feminist political philosopher. She is now, I think, a professor of Government at Harvard but, at one time in her career, affiliated with a women studies department. As a political philosopher, she is most certainly not interested in science studies so I think we can safely conclude that her critique of radical perspectivism was not directed there. Rather, she’s interested precisely in those “other non-science areas”–not a hijack at all, actually, since this thread has never been about science studies (a topic that came up via your invocation of the Sokal flub).
Once again, if you’d like to read that article, I’d be happy to provide you with bibliographic information beyond what I’ve already mentioned.
“Suffice to say that some things in the intellectual world are cultural creations, others are not.”
I agree. But I’d add that historians of science–the great majority of whom are not self-identified feminists–have long studied science, and without necessarily availing themselves of any postmodernist arguments.
There is a difference between insisting that certain facts about the physical world can be positively asserted, and between saying that science–as it is practiced now and has been in the past–cannot be the object of philosophical, humanistic, or social-scientific inquiry (feminist or otherwise).
Mesmerism and Lamarckian evolutionary theory once claimed the authority of “science” but no longer can. Sokal himself recognized (in the excerpt posted by Kimstu) that science studies can play a useful purpose. (I imagine that Kimstu, if she’s still reading, is much more expert on this subject than I am.)
“It is, however, an extremely handy idea if you want to create bad scholarship that can’t be tested by your peers. “I think your thesis is laughable but, you know, that’s just my perspective. Your vision of truth is just as valid as mine so I can’t really criticize.” Rather than say the emperor has no clothes, we simply say that the emperor has a different – though equally valid – fashion sense.”
Fortunately, it doesn’t actually work that way. Simply because truths become arguable doesn’t mean that people don’t vigorously, and sincerely, argue the merits of their vision. Naturally, if the subject concerns physical reality–the blueness of the sky, for example–there isn’t much to argue about. But when the topic is more complicated or open-ended–e.g., the foundations of sexual difference, or the meaning of “justice,” or the best route to a functioning democracy–there is a great deal to argue about, and this is true with or without a postmodernist critique.
One of my favorite historians of science, btw, is Thomas Laqueur, who has written on the history of reproductive science and on sexuality from a decidedly feminist perspective. Cites available if you wish them.
"Look at the discussion you reference. The author “goes on to explain what she thinks is most and least useful in the postmodernist philosophical perspective.” Why doesn’t she simply say what she believes is “correct” and what she believes is “wrong?”
Well, I’m the one who chose that phrasing. If you read the article in question you’d find several places where a particular argument is thoroughly rejected and another one held as superior. But, again, the topic is liberal political theory, not, say, photosynthesis–so there is enormous space for debate.
More important, don’t you feel a bit foolish, criticizing an article on political philosophy that you haven’t even read? As you yourself point out, the passage I cited is very close to some of your own views. Yet now–without knowing so much as the title of the article!–you’re ready to find fault.
" Some ideas are not “less useful,” they are simply useless."
Who doubts it? But how can you possibly assume that an article you never read, whose title and subject you don’t know, but which articulates a premise close to your own feelings, goes on to embrace the “simply useless.”
This is the kind of substanceless reaction that has led me to question your claim of truth-seeking.
You’ve said very little about yourself Truth-Seeker. Are you a scientist? The ex-husband of a feminist academic? 
As to your link to a professor’s webpage on science, given above. I’m not sure what you want me to glean here. The man doesn’t seem to be a feminist and I do not know his work at all. What’s the relevance here to a debate on the merits of academic feminism?
december, you seem to have missed the fact that the writer of posted excerpt is criticzing what she’s calling “radical perspectivism”–not expounding it.
