Comments on: Levy Gets Botulism

By: Mikhail Emelianov

Mikhail Emelianov — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:01:38 +0000

Does anyone know if this small book was ever translated into English? Pages’ book, not BHL’s.

By: University Diaries » Now that more and more people are speculating that Bernard-Henri Levy…

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:34:45 +0000

[...] so much fall for an obvious hoax as fail to monitor the staff that writes his books (background here), this might be a good time to revisit medical [...]

By: J Write

J Write — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:42:45 +0000

What am I not getting? BHL used an argument. He credited the wrong source, which is sloppy work perhaps, but it does not make the argument wrong. Who cares who wrote it, or if no one at all did? If you would find out that Immanuel Kant never existed, and that his philosophy was an elaborate joke perpetrated by Fritz Joseph-Mcdonald of Sweinstaadt in Bavaria,would that affect your assessment of his philosophy?
By the way, J Write doesn’t exist either–he’s a made-up character I just made up. Pray do not let this effect the manifest veracity of “his” words!

By: Margaret Soltan

Margaret Soltan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:38:55 +0000

Tim: You might be right. OTOH -

Scott McLemee agrees with me:

That BHL cited [Botul] as a serious work of scholarship would strongly suggest that he has an employee or two toiling in the erudition mines for him. If so, it is an interesting question whether the person who actually read Botul misunderstood the nature of the book — or passed along the citation as an act of sabotage…

I’ve written about too many plagiarism cases in which other people seem to have done the research and writing (Charles Ogletree, Alan Dershowitz, Doris Kearns Goodwin) to be surprised by this possibility — especially for man about town BHL.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:06:21 +0000

Oh, I think it’s even worse in this case: he does write his books. I think it’s been very clear for a long time that this is about the level of intellectual care that goes into his work, that he is the “philosopher” that his particular public requires. If he didn’t exist, they would have to invent him. Arguably that’s exactly what they did.

By: Margaret Soltan

Margaret Soltan — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:35:02 +0000

Good points, Alexandra.

Isn’t it possible that BHL doesn’t write his books?

This is the sort of thing that happens when other people write your books, and you put your name on them.

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:56:30 +0000

Um, the satirical paper is a weekly.

And this is much better than the Sokal hoax. This is a front-page “philosopher” attacking Kant by relying on a “writer” whose inventor never even tried to cover up his tracks. There is a wikipedia articl on Botul that makes it clear he doesn’t exist. So not only is BHL sloppy, he doesn’t use a computer and clearly doesn’t work with anyone who does…

Another of Botul’s “works” is listed as “Landru, precursor of feminism”. Landru was a famous serial killer of women duing WWI. He recruited his victims in the lonely hearts sections of newspapers, dispossessed them of their assets and then burned them in his kitchen stove.

By: david foster

david foster — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:19:54 +0000

Maybe not quite up there with the Sokal Hoax..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

..but sounds pretty close

By: Dave Stone

Dave Stone — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:56:19 +0000

“Oh philosophers get me so randy,”
Said a buxom blonde madchen named Candi.
“Marx refused to implant,
And Immanuel Kant
But Hegel turned out to be handy.”

By: MattF

MattF — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:22:23 +0000

Comments via Arthur Goldhammer.