XKCD sorts fields by perceived purity today:
I think many more fields believe themselves to be on top than what is implied here. But that’s the fun of it, isn’t it?
Skip to content
My name is Jesper Juul, and I am a Ludologist [researcher of the design, meaning, culture, and politics of games]. This is my blog on game research and other important things.
I wonder what the valence of “purity” is here, and how it relates to deploying the idea of vertical superiority in “top.” I also love the way the comic evokes the political spectrum, though I wonder if that’s intentional.
I take “purity” to be a bit of a joke here – “pure mathematics” being so pure as not to include actual numbers, that kind of thing.
@Roger, How do you read the political spectrum? The Left corresponds to the mathematical idealist and the Right corresponds to the sociological pragmatist? Or some other way?
I don’t know how to read it, exactly, beyond saying that the comic seems to evoke the perception that those at the conservative end of the political spectrum tend to think of themselves as purer than people elsewhere on the spectrum.
I am not so sure that the fields here are tied to specific political positions (perhaps sociology is often leftist, but it is not really by necessity?)
I guess on balance it’s probably simply an interesting coincidence. The comic is by a mathematician, no? So perhaps there’s just some sort of underlying psychology of “rightness.” :D
Where does ‘epistemology’ fit in to this axis? :P
On top, definitely.
Oh, we have entirely overlooked metaphysics which certainly is meant to be on top.
And then Derrida (and Heidegger) are totally on top of that.
I think purity is close to absoluteness in the cartoon, I bet whoever made this cartoon is a Platonist. Absolutely, there is nothing closer to truth than mathematics!
Pablo, I believe the comic is more ironic than you think – isn’t it making fun of the self-image of different disciplines?
shouldn’t this be more a question of what’s underneath what? you know, like the search for the true atom.
btw, i’ll settle this for you. physics wins. math is a language. that or it’s a noble gas.