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From [log in to unmask] Wed Apr 30 11:07:16 1997
From: Peter Stone <[log in to unmask]>
Message-Id: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Chomsky and Lacan
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 11:07:09 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: [log in to unmask] (Peter Stone)
In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]> from "Matthew Levy" at Apr 29, 97 03:50:54 pm
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According to Milan Rai's book _Chomsky's Politics_ (Verso, 1995, p. 206),
Chomsky said of Lacan:

In the case of Lacan, it's going to sound unkind--my frank opinion is that
he was a conscious charlatan, and was simply playing games with the Paris
intellectual community to see how much absurdity he could produce and still
be taken seriously. I mean that quite literally. I knew him.

Rai's source on this is an interview with Noam from _Radical Philosophy_
August 1989, p. 32 (Sorry, I don't have the interview).

Solidarity,

Peter Stone
[log in to unmask]


>
> On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, Jurgen Braungardt wrote:
>
> > Does anyone know anything on the relationship between Chomsky and Lacan?
> >
> >
> > Jurgen Braungardt
> > Berkeley, California
> >
>
> I know at a very basic level that they knew each other through Paris
> intellectual circles, and that Chomsky thought Lacan was a charlatan who
> was deliberately bullshitting the French academic scene ... I believe he
> called him infantile and ridiculous (Derrida may have been included in
> this flame) ... I can't remember a good source off the top of my head but
> will look.  Certainly there is more information than this that others more
> well read than myself might be able to provide.
>
> peace,
> m@2
>