Question

What are mathematicians opinions on the use of mathematical concepts in Lacanian psychoanalysis?

Answer 1

If I understand, the question is: Is Lacan's theory tantamount to numerology?

I think, it would depend on how much badly misrepresented (as you call it) mathematical reasoning is applied to the theory versus how much high value scientific work is being done on the theory.

I think the ironic thing is: even if something like Lacan's theory exists, and we can "model precisely some area of theoretical science", ultimately I am still judging the environment by a perceived ratio of bullshit.

Answer 2

An English professor friend told me it's loose poetic metaphor when I had told him it was nonsense.

"Shall I compare you to a summer's day....."

Answer 3

I didn't know Lacan had any concept of a topological manifold, much less tried to apply them to psychoanalysis. How did he do that?

Answer 4

My understanding is that Lacan's mathematical terminology amounts to arguing that mommy kinks are the infinity in the one-point compactification of kink-space or something along those lines, which I think its pretty silly. On the other hand, Sokal's critiques in the humanities are extremely amateurish and don't hold up to any scrutiny, and this one is no different.

It seems like Lacan found some topological ideas to be useful as metaphors, and although I think he got carried away with them, there are enough clever and well-minded people who find his work insightful that dismissing his psychoanalysis on these grounds doesn't make much sense.

Answer 5

Well I have something to say about this whole Sokal hoax.

I didn't think about it on my own, but red this on twitter. However I don't think bad about this, because maybe they also stole it from someone else.

Sokal hoax is an anecdote. Its some person who managed to crack the system at some weak point of it. However, using it as a "proof" for something is, ironically, unscientific.

Do you want to check whether the Humanities are just silly jargon, or if there is real depth in it? Construct this very simple experiment - take 5 of those "jokes" papers, and 5 reall papers from prestigious publications and let researchers on those fields (philosophy, gender studies and so on...) to read and decide which paper is a joke and which one is not. This way you can have a real scientific answer.

(It was done with so called "wine experts" and indeed found out that they don't really have the super power of knowing which of the wines is a cheap wine you can buy on the super market and which one is some super expensive and luxurious wine...)

And also a sidenot - such "Sokal hoxes", of writing papers full of silly jargon that ending up passing peer review were done on the fields of biology, physics and also math.

Answer 6

Physicists and biologists don’t pretend to use sophisticated math to gain legitimacy—if anything, use of obscure math gets you entirely dismissed in those fields.

Answer 7

Most mathematicians who have heard of lacan think it is either a joke or total bullshit