Talk:Paul Virilio

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I've made a start to this but there are some blank spaces in 'Key Concepts' and I also haven't had time to do the Bibliography. Can anyone fill in some of the concepts? Suggest others? --bookgirl 12:36, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Fashionable nonsense - proposal to discuss criticism

My feeling is that this article has been written by a group of feminists and no one else read it. I've learned about Paul Virilio in the book Fashionable Nonsense. He sounds really ridiculous, and I think it is absolutely necessary in Wikipedia to include the discussion of criticisms of Paul Virilio, and a link to the famous book by Sokal and Bricmont where he's criticized. --Lumidek 12:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"this article has been written by a group of feminists" do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you make baseless claims such as this? Fashionable Nonsense is not a scholarly work and has no place in an encylcopedic article. VermillionBird 01:20, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)
Please keep out the non-notable "critique". Virilio is indeed vaguely "postmodernist" or the like, and as such, yes he's on any generic list of "folks we don't like because they're postmodernists" (by Sokol, or whomever). But "critique by association" is not proper for an acadmic biography.
The analogy here would be including a critique of Michael Green (physicist) that wasn't his disagreements with other cosmologists in physics, but was the perspective of new earth creationist Chrisitians. I mean, yeah, in some tortured sense, the creationists disagree with Green; and they're even notable enough for their own articles. But a physics article should have comments from physicists. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. This isn't a "philosophy article"; it's an article about Paul Virilio, whose work has been criticized and commented upon by many outside his field and outside academia. The Fashionable Nonsense kerfluffle is not notable because a couple of physicists decided to do litcrit or cultural theory or (in Virilio's case) "the art history of technology." They didn't do any of that as far as I can tell. Instead, they were attacking what they saw as the inappropriate use of concepts and jargon developed in their field. Whether Sokal and Bricmont knew enough to offer an informed critique of the "integral accdent" or "dromology" doesn't seem to be the point here, since that wasn't the focus of their attack. Or am I wrong about that last?
Instead of ignoring any mention of the criticism, why not elaborate on it? With all respect, to do otherwise seems terribly POV.--Birdmessenger 19:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
The point exactly is that it is not a philosphy article, but one about Virilio. An academic bio should not try to pound into readers heads why the thinker is actually wrong (nor why they're right); it should present that thinker's general lines of thought in their own terms, with "criticism" either very limited, or better still left entirely to other articles. But if any critique must be presented at all (which it usually should not be), it should be with specific reference to the thinkers positions, not some vacantly generic "abuses scientific terms".
The article on Charles Darwin mentions that the reception of On the Origin of Species was somewhat negative in some quarters. The article on Immanuel Velikovsky informs the reader that his theories on the origin of the present-day solar system were a tad controversial. Surely such information helps place the article's subject in context for the reader. People's lives, intellectual or not, do not happen in a vacuum (especially Virilio's). And why should a Wikipedia article about a subject contain itself to the subject's own words about himself just because he worked in academia?
Darwin is too special a case, if only because he's so influential. Velikovsky is interesting here, possibly. Looking at the article, I see there is criticism there (as there should be), but a number of things are very different:
  • Velikovsky had a much wider popular audience to start with.
  • Velikovsky's article is much longer.
  • The criticism that is presented is much more nuanced and specific, it addresses the actual and particular claims Velikovsky made.
  • Most importantly: the criticism of Velikovsky is directly related to his notability.
The fundamental issue here is undue weight. Not that the criticism was very wordy, but having it there, in vague form, suggests a greater importance than it merits. If you wanted to do the work of finding something very specific, and that actually references Virilio, where Sokal disagrees with Virilio, I'd be more sympathetic to that for inclusion. But some broad brush of claiming Virilio is "one of those non-scientist guys" is not encyclopedic (for this article specifically; it would be fine to list the same thing in [[People discussed in Fashionable Nonsense]] or the like, whether that's an article or a section of the article on FN). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Just so we're clear, I'm not a proponent of FN and have no interest at all in demonstrating how Virilio is wrong (or right--I see his concepts as a set of tools appropriate for certain tasks). But--I think the fact that Virilio was criticized for abstruse language or "misuse of science" is perfectly relevant to a Wikipedia biography, particularly when the average well read person has at least heard of FN and knows that Virilio was implicated (because it says so on the Amazon book summary). I think it's fair to mention this and contextualize it without endorsing a side in the Science Wars.--Birdmessenger 20:14, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I read Virilio well over a decade before Sokal decided to try to pretend he was a philosopher (and misuse the language of philosophy, which has a certain irony). Other than the mention here, I would have had no idea whatsoever that Virilio had been mentioned in FN (not that it surprises me, as such, Virilio is vaguely French, and vaguely PoMo, so why not?). Only the average well-read American who has followed the American obsession with purging academia of "suspicious thinking" has heard of FN. In contrast, elsewhere in the world (e.g. France), or among philosophers and social thinkers, Virilio is inherently notable among people who have never heard of FN.
Other than to snipe or wag their fingers, no one looking for info on Virilio cares about his mention in some flighty "culture wars" book. But if someone already has a copy of FN in hand, they already know about the mention. If more realistically, a reader saw Virilio mentioned by Baudrillard or Zizek or Judy Butler or Mike Davis, they are interested in the specifics of Virilio's bio and thought, not some side issue on "who said something snarky about Virilio). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Excellent article

Thanks for getting this underway. The Integral accident as documented in Virilio's book seems to me to be an explanatory concept of enormous potency and predictive worth. He uses Chernobyl as his key example, but it would apply to BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD); the serious and widespread outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease, etc. I do not believe there is any serious question of Virilio's general importance. Jeffrey Newman 10:12, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] doubleplusgood start, but needs work

Yes, the integral accident has enormous potential. And the predictive value of his ideas (and the integral accident in particular) places Virilio on a special plateau, in my mind. However, his ideas are difficult and sometimes the way he expresses them does not make them any more accessible. Might it help to include a list of people who have been influenced by Virilio? The breadth of his ideas, the way they cut through many disciplines, and cultures of knowledge, in a coherent and insightful way places him on some shortlist somewhere I feel sure.

Sokal and Bricmont, do deserve coverage, perhaps in article on anti-intellectualism? I wouldn't be against describing Virilio as a sometime target of such folks, perhaps with a link to their article from this article. I don't want to censure other views, but I think we can all agree that this article is about Virilio, and I really want it to exude clarity. The ideas are powerful, all they need is clarity to make this article sing. It isn't there yet. enigma_foundry 05:55, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

hi, could anyone be able to tell where i can contac paul virilo, adrees, e-mail, phone the information would be for educational porpouses. any information pleas send me an e-nmail at: sniff01@hotmail.com

thanks.

[edit] the notability of Fashionable Nonsense

Whether or not one finds Sokal and Bricmont's arguments persuasive or relevant to Virilio's work, a mention of the debate itself is certainly relevant to an encyclopedia article on Virilio.--Birdmessenger 11:30, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no! It's relevant to a discussion of Sokal and Bricmont's work. Just because Virilio appears in the bibliography of some other book (or even is discussed there slightly more—though still in that case by people who admit to not actually reading Virilio) doesn't make that other book relevant to this article. It's known as "special pleading" to try to include an endorsement of one odd ball passing mention of Virilio, while excluding the hundreds or thousands of other citations/discussions of him. (and no, the article need not include hundreds of people who put Virilio in their bibliography). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:13, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The ‘Sokal’ affair was an opportunity for an exchange of views, between alternate academic traditions, about the nature of knowledge and the nature of method to support said knowledge. It proved that great minds don't think alike (sic). ‘Sokal’s’ science and objectivity approach is distinct to the more interpretative approach symbolised by feminism, ‘writing culture’(anthropology), and writers such as Paul Virilio, Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze and Rosi Bradotti. Allan Sokal stated his goal as a defence of the scientific worldview, “defined broadly as a respect for evidence and logic”. He is worried about "the displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives". To put it crudely Sokal argues that scientific results are usually objective discoveries about our world and as such hold independently of society. Or in Sokal’s words; “I confess that I’m an unabashed Old Leftist who never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class. And I’m a stodgy old scientist who believes, naively, that there exists an external world, that there exist objective truths about that world, and that my job is to discover some of them”.

Sokal’s bone of contention lies with “the tacit assumption that nature and reality are little more (perhaps nothing more) than human fabrications”. This assumption he believes lies at the core of postmodernism and disciplines such as cultural studies and science studies. He sees these disciplines and schools of thought as espousing a doctrine of intense ‘epistemic’ relativism and irrationalism which leads to the idea that all truths are subjective and hence equally defendable. Many believe, including myself, he is mislead and does not fully understand the point being made by these critiques.

Sandra Harding provides an good example of this when she shows how the Sokal camp “often accuses the new science studies of relativism, but it is wrong about just what it is to which the new science studies ‘relativizes’ sciences. Science studies does not claim that sciences are epistemologically relative to each and every culture’s beliefs such that they are equally defensible as true. Rather, the point is that they are historically relative to different cultures’ projects — to cultures’ questions about the natural and social orders”. Rumagin 21:31, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Style

I find the style of this article unduly flowery, over the top, and obtuse if not verging on the pretentious. Is the line about the fractal meteorite with an impact prepared in the propitious darkness from his work? It's really not something that lends to a greater understanding of the subject. If it's a quote, can we have the reference, otherwise, I'd prefer it if the writing style was toned down a little in favour of actually explaining the meat of what is going on.

157.161.173.24 12:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree with you. I would argue that a careful reading of the article provides a thorough and concise overview of PV's work. It is complex because these issues are complex, not because it isn't there. Do you know anything about phenomenology, for example? This article allows you to build that context if you don't have it, because you couldn't really understand this article without a sense of the phenomenological tradition. Philosophy, like mathematics, can get rather complex. I think the authors/editors/readers have done an admiral job with a conceptually difficult topic. Sorry, but that is my two cents. Cheers. 129.21.198.113 20:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree. I expected the worst, but this is a surprisingly good article. I do think the "propitious darkness" phrase would be better as a quote, or replaced by a quote, but overall this is a good stab at explaining Virilio.KD Tries Again 14:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)KD