From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 22:14:14 MST
Damien quoted Derrida
> > "The Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a
> > center. It is the very concept of variability -- it is,
> > finally, the concept of the game. In other words, it is
> > not the concept of something -- of a center starting
> > from which an observer could master the field -- but
> > the very concept of the game."
and defends the passage this way
> My reading, with a certain amount of hermeneutic charity toward
> its poststructural frame, suggests that Derrida is referring not
> to *c* but to the spacetime interval, where the invariant quantity
> is maintained despite any number of variations in either space or
> time distances so long as they are suitably coupled.
Do you have any evidence that Derrida was trying to make
any kind of scientific statement like this? Does it really
seem plausible that he had the spacetime interval in mind?
I ask, because in the introduction to the paperback version
of "Fashionable Nonsense" Sokal and Bricmont say
"Although the quotation from Derrida contained in Sokal's
parody is rather amusing, it is a one-shot abuse; since there
is no systematic misuse of (or indeed attention to) science
Derrida's work, there is no chapter on Derrida in this book."
It is a fact (attested to by Paul Johnson, for one) that
a number of passages make much more sense in French than
they do in English---he says something about how some
pieces just fall apart when an attempt is made to
translate them into hard, concrete Anglo-Saxon terms.
That might have something to do with it.
Meanwhile---however playful it is---and whatever it is
attempting to communicate to a postmodern audience, it
still seems quite doubtful that it should be defended
on scientific grounds.
Lee
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