On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:01:33 +0100 (CET), Johannes Huebschmann wrote:
in the light of Lacan's usage of topological notions in psychoanalysis, see e.g. Sokal-Bricmont, Impostures intellectuelles p. 55.
The title reflects its subject faithfully but its object may well be the authors themselves... Plenty of responses have been given to S&B, including by mathematicians (e.g. J. Goguen), but they are almost never cited along the reference to S&B, so one may wonder if people are looking for a better understanding of, or whether they just want to settle scores with social & human sciences. Interestingly, this question which relates to the status of scientific research, the way we represent ourselves, the way pwer is structured in the society (incl. the scientific society) is precisely a topic addessed by Latour and Foucault for instance. Considering Lacan, his usage of topology came from work with mathematicians and certainly did not aim at doing mathematics but rather at translating a certain situation or operation (necessarily expressed in natural language) in more formal, less ambiguous terms. In order to facilitate communication and comparison with other works and to minimize interpretation by the audience (BTW, this is why Lacan says that this is not a metaphor). The fact that there may be, sometimes, some mistakes on the mathematical side is certainly irritating to the mathematical eyes but is without interest w.r.t. Lacan's objective. Finally, a more constructive reaction for mathematicians may be to rejoice that some people are trying to formalise their research; the former could even help the latter do so, actually. dc -- David Chemouil Onera - DTIM Tel./fax: +33 (0) 5 6225 2936 / 2593 <http://www.onera.fr/staff/david-chemouil> [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]