Friday, October 22, 2004

Barnes, Bloor Bad

I'm currently reading a very, very, very bad paper. A paper so very, very, very bad that I just had to tell you about it. I've read this paper before, but I assigned it to my students because it is famous and influential, and it is by famous and influential people, and it expresses a famous and influential view in one of its purest forms. This paper is by Barry Barnes and David Bloor. This paper is called "Relativism, Rationalism, and the Sociology of Knowledge." It is in a well-known and otherwise respectable anthology titled Rationality and Relativism, ed. Martin Hollis and Steven Lukes.

This paper is shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

This paper has one of the highest FPP (fallacy per paragraph) ratings of any I've ever read. This includes Paul Feyerabend's aptly-titled Farewell to Reason.

That is saying something.

Philosophy is hard, and most of what philosophers write is probably bunk and I realize this and so it usually doesn't provoke this kind of response in me. Barnes and Bloor are not philosophers, they are sociologists, but that's o.k., too. If sociologists can write good philosophy, then more power to them, I say. But, you know how bad sociology done by philosophers is? Well, philosophy done by sociologists is at least that bad, on average.

It's not the extreme, unutterable badness of this paper that is really getting to me, it's that B&B demonstrate that they aren't even competent to address the questions they are addressing. They usually haven't the foggiest understanding of the arguments and positions they are discussing. They are, in short, bullshitting. There is approximately one sound argument in this paper. That is a disgrace. People read this paper. This paper effects people's thinking. My god, don't these guys recognize that they have obligations to at least try to be honest and minimally competent?

The other thing that is annoying me is that the paper is peppered with snide, condescending comments about philosphers and other louts who believe in truth and reason. Now, talking out of your ass about things you don't understand is a defect, and being snide in a scholarly paper is a defect, but the thing that is really getting to me about this paper is the combination of incompetence and incivility. It's...well...you know...it's breathtaking.

I'm not going to start shredding the arguments here--though I might later on. I'm just complaining.

Gosh, there certainly are a terrible lot of charlatans in academia! It's enough to depress a less inherently cheery fellow than myself...

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Am reading Barnes and Bloor's paper now - one thing that really got to me was their nigh-on obsessive loathing of Rationalism, yet when it comes to it the way they state that we 'psychologically' understand simple facts and his rejection of the equivalence postulate by admitting empirical truth in beliefs - is that not just Rationalism? It's hardest for me though - my university seems to frown on passionate papers!
All the best.

2:27 PM  

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