Risking Connection Across Difference: Reply to Sokal and Smith
Abstract
At the time I wrote my original review (Schultz 2010) of the books by Sokal (2008), Boghossian (2006), and Smith (2006), I did not know that I would have the opportunity to reply to their responses to my review. Nevertheless, I value the occasion this offers to correct errors and respond to their commentary. Let me say, first of all, that Alan Sokal is quite correct in pointing out that the citation from Donna Haraway which I attribute to him is incorrect. I realize now that I copied that version of the citation from an earlier working notes file for the review. I should have verified that the copied version was identical to the citation in the Beyond the Hoax text (Sokal 2008) before I sent off the review. That I did not do so is an error that I deeply regret, and for which I apologize. In line with this, I also apologize for, and retract, my observations in the review about the omitted passages in the citation, for which Sokal obviously was not responsible. So, does consideration of the full quotation by Donna Haraway in any way affect the rest of my critique? Not at all, as it happens, because the focus of the rest of my remarks is on the way Sokal treats this passage by Haraway. That is, he presents the excerpt to readers in isolation, and makes no effort to..