Babette Babich - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Babette Babich

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2015

Abstract: Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact foregrounds claims traditionally e... more Abstract: Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact foregrounds claims traditionally excluded from reception, often regarded as opposed to fact, scientific claims that are increasingly seldom discussed in connection with philosophy of science save as examples of pseudo-science. I am especially concerned with scientists, like Peter Duesberg, who question the epidemiological link between HIV and AIDS and who are thereby discounted—no matter their credentials, no matter the cogency of their arguments, no matter the sobriety of their statistics—but also with other classic examples of so-called pseudo-science including homeopathy and other sciences, such as cold fusion. The pseudo-science version of the demarcation problem turns out to include some of the details that Latour articulates multifariously under a variety of species or kinds in his essay/interactive research project/monograph, ‘Biography of an Investigation’. Given the economic constraints of the current day, espec...

International Studies in The Philosophy of Science, 2003

This article argues that the limited influence of Ludwik Fleck's ideas on philosophy of scie... more This article argues that the limited influence of Ludwik Fleck's ideas on philosophy of science is due not only to their indirect dissemination by way of Thomas Kuhn, but also to an incommensurability between the standard conceptual framework of history and philosophy of science and Fleck's own more integratedly historico-social and praxis-oriented approach to understanding the evolution of scientific discovery.

Boston studies in the philosophy of science, 2002

As a so-called post-analytic philosopher of science, if also from the marginalized 1 sidelines, I... more As a so-called post-analytic philosopher of science, if also from the marginalized 1 sidelines, I have been able to tease analytic philosophers, calling them to account for their desire to imitate scientists and their habit of numbering their paragraphs and their passion for the acronym. Much more seriously, the scientists themselves have recently begun to raise the ante for analytic philosophers in the so-called science wars. In essays and op-ed pieces, physicists are repaying the philosophers' compliment-not only by adopting, as popular science writers have long done, the role of cultural critic, but also by assuming the mantle of philosophy. Science, once the arbiter of scientific truth, proposes now to vet the truth about everything else. And analytic philosophy of science has found itself faced with no less uncritical option than blanket applause. In May of 1996, Alan Sokal, a New York University physicist, submitted an inauthentic article to the journal Social Text. Its inauthenticity, in Sokal's mind, 2 consisted in his pretending to articulate the political and philosophical implications of recent physics research relevant to various theorems of cultural criticism (multiculturalism or pluralism, deconstructive indeterminacy, and the valorization of feminist or gender-open logical schemes). Next, in Lingua Franca, a journal devoted to academic gossip and scandal, Sokal published a brief retraction. Sokal's first article 3 (in ST) was bogus, the second (in LF) explained why. For the world of academic 4 14 reflects the stylistic mandate of establishment analytic philosophy. Ah, well, sigh the intellectuals who ought to know better, if only things were said simply and plainly, clearly and distinctly, we would then have the truth. This is a popular and democratic

Diogène, 2010

Recommended Citation Babich, Babette, "Le Zarathoustra de Nietzsche et le style parodique. A prop... more Recommended Citation Babich, Babette, "Le Zarathoustra de Nietzsche et le style parodique. A propos de l'hyperanthropos de Lucien et du surhomme de Nietzsche" (2011). Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections. Paper 52.

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2015

Abstract: Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact foregrounds claims traditionally e... more Abstract: Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact foregrounds claims traditionally excluded from reception, often regarded as opposed to fact, scientific claims that are increasingly seldom discussed in connection with philosophy of science save as examples of pseudo-science. I am especially concerned with scientists, like Peter Duesberg, who question the epidemiological link between HIV and AIDS and who are thereby discounted—no matter their credentials, no matter the cogency of their arguments, no matter the sobriety of their statistics—but also with other classic examples of so-called pseudo-science including homeopathy and other sciences, such as cold fusion. The pseudo-science version of the demarcation problem turns out to include some of the details that Latour articulates multifariously under a variety of species or kinds in his essay/interactive research project/monograph, ‘Biography of an Investigation’. Given the economic constraints of the current day, espec...

International Studies in The Philosophy of Science, 2003

This article argues that the limited influence of Ludwik Fleck's ideas on philosophy of scie... more This article argues that the limited influence of Ludwik Fleck's ideas on philosophy of science is due not only to their indirect dissemination by way of Thomas Kuhn, but also to an incommensurability between the standard conceptual framework of history and philosophy of science and Fleck's own more integratedly historico-social and praxis-oriented approach to understanding the evolution of scientific discovery.

Boston studies in the philosophy of science, 2002

As a so-called post-analytic philosopher of science, if also from the marginalized 1 sidelines, I... more As a so-called post-analytic philosopher of science, if also from the marginalized 1 sidelines, I have been able to tease analytic philosophers, calling them to account for their desire to imitate scientists and their habit of numbering their paragraphs and their passion for the acronym. Much more seriously, the scientists themselves have recently begun to raise the ante for analytic philosophers in the so-called science wars. In essays and op-ed pieces, physicists are repaying the philosophers' compliment-not only by adopting, as popular science writers have long done, the role of cultural critic, but also by assuming the mantle of philosophy. Science, once the arbiter of scientific truth, proposes now to vet the truth about everything else. And analytic philosophy of science has found itself faced with no less uncritical option than blanket applause. In May of 1996, Alan Sokal, a New York University physicist, submitted an inauthentic article to the journal Social Text. Its inauthenticity, in Sokal's mind, 2 consisted in his pretending to articulate the political and philosophical implications of recent physics research relevant to various theorems of cultural criticism (multiculturalism or pluralism, deconstructive indeterminacy, and the valorization of feminist or gender-open logical schemes). Next, in Lingua Franca, a journal devoted to academic gossip and scandal, Sokal published a brief retraction. Sokal's first article 3 (in ST) was bogus, the second (in LF) explained why. For the world of academic 4 14 reflects the stylistic mandate of establishment analytic philosophy. Ah, well, sigh the intellectuals who ought to know better, if only things were said simply and plainly, clearly and distinctly, we would then have the truth. This is a popular and democratic

Diogène, 2010

Recommended Citation Babich, Babette, "Le Zarathoustra de Nietzsche et le style parodique. A prop... more Recommended Citation Babich, Babette, "Le Zarathoustra de Nietzsche et le style parodique. A propos de l'hyperanthropos de Lucien et du surhomme de Nietzsche" (2011). Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections. Paper 52.