Postures and impostures: On Lacan's style and use of mathematical science

Intellectual Impostures seeks to raise the stakes even further, thus constituting a kind of culmination of Alan Sokal’s initial project. This chapter argues that restricted to showing why Sokal and Jean Bricmont fail to make a case against Jacques Lacan not only on the basis of generally accepted standards of intellectual integrity but also on the basis of standards of their own choosing. It aims to move from questions of style to objections more firmly grounded on issues of substance, by which is meant Lacan’s knowledge and use of mathematical science on the one hand, and the alleged irrelevance of Lacan’s mathematics to psychoanalysis on the other. Lacanians would want to insist that only something as simple as a basic ignorance of Lacan’s work can serve to explain the appearance of the mathematical concepts as enigmatic. In direct contrast with the work of Lacan Intellectual Impostures makes easy, even entertaining, reading.