Foucault-L

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault, intelligibility, social movements

Nick Butler — 2010-03-13T18:21:15+05:30

Hi Nick, You might want to have a look at the book 'Foucault and the Iranian Revolution' (2005) by J. Afary and K. Andersen (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=3534878). The book discusses Foucault's interest in the Islamist movement in the late 1970s, about which he wrote a number of newspaper articles during this time. In terms of social movements, I think this whole area is quite promising for anyone interested in Foucault's views on political action. I hope that helps. All the best, Nick _________________________________________________________________ Tell us your greatest, weirdest and funniest Hotmail stories http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

[Foucault-L] Fwd: CCS: Programação 1-2010

Nildo Avelino — 2010-03-13T17:18:50+05:30

hi all, it´s in portuguese, but... all best nildo ---------- Mensagem encaminhada ---------- De: Francisco Ripo Data: 4 de março de 2010 19:09 Assunto: CCS: Programação 1-2010 Para: CENTRO DE CULTURA SOCIAL Convida para: 1. oficina 2. literatura 3. cinema ---------- * ---------- 1. oficina: “Foucault e o anarquismo” Coordenação de Nildo Avelino* O objetivo da oficina é propor um estudo sobre as relações entre a reflexão política e filosófica de Michel Foucault e o pensamento anarquista de Pierre-Joseph Proudhon e Errico Malatesta. A pertinência em estudar “Focault e o anarquismo” está no fato de que, desde os anos 1990, tornara-se evidente que os efeitos na política e na filosofia produzidos pela crítica foucaultiana do Sujeito e do Poder afetaram enormemente não apenas as Ciências Humanas, mas também, e de uma maneira extraordinária, os modos através dos quais eram percebidas as tradições políticas liberal, marxista e anarquista. A força inovadora do 01C;efeito Foucault” em rela#...

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault, intelligibility, social movements

Alastair Kemp — 2010-03-13T17:09:42+05:30

From: Umut Kocagöz Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault, intelligibility, social movements To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Saturday, 13 March, 2010, 10:56 hi. Maybe you can look for Negri's works. I don't know any exact place, but in their Empire(with Hardt) there is a part called 'Biopolitical production'. I guess that Negri does not position himself as Gramscian or neo-gramscian; he is more likely to be Foucaultian or Deleuzean. Or you can check the Italian Autonomist movement (especially 1968-1977) and their debates. Radical Thought in Italy can be an essential source for this movement. (Hardt, Virno, Lazzarato, Negri etc...) _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/210850552/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Foucault-L mailing list

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault, intelligibility, social movements

Umut Kocagöz — 2010-03-13T16:26:18+05:30

hi. Maybe you can look for Negri's works. I don't know any exact place, but in their Empire(with Hardt) there is a part called 'Biopolitical production'. I guess that Negri does not position himself as Gramscian or neo-gramscian; he is more likely to be Foucaultian or Deleuzean. Or you can check the Italian Autonomist movement (especially 1968-1977) and their debates. Radical Thought in Italy can be an essential source for this movement. (Hardt, Virno, Lazzarato, Negri etc...) _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/210850552/direct/01/

[Foucault-L] Foucault, intelligibility, social movements

Nick Montgomery — 2010-03-13T03:36:19+05:30

hi all, i'm looking for places where foucault (and foucault scholarship) takes on the question of 'social movements' and/or 'collective action' (or 'politics' more generally), especially with respect to the question of intelligibility. in other words: i'm trying to figure out how social movements become intelligible, and ideally find some nuanced thinkers on this question. so far, laclau and mouffe and the theory of 'hegemony' is as far as i've gone, but laclau positions himself as a gramscian, not a foucauldian. on this note, does anyone know of specific debates between foucauldians and gramscians on these questions? any guidance on these questions would be much appreciated. cheers, nick

[Foucault-L] rapport - relation

Kevin Turner — 2010-03-12T13:12:36+05:30

in attempting to translate the French to English, I've noticed that Foucault seems to prefer the term "rapport" over "relation" in such phrases as "rapport de soi à soi," but that when he talks about power relations he uses the term "relation" (relations de pouvoir). e.g. Après l'étude des jeux de vérité les par rapport aux autres - sur l'exemple d'un certain nombre de sciences empiriques au XVII et au XVIII siècle - puis celles des jeux de vérité par rapport aux relations de pouvoir, sur l'exemple des pratiques punitives, un autre travail semblait s'imposer : étudier les jeux de vérité dans le rapport de soi à soi et la constitution de soi-même comme sujet, en prenant, pour domaine de référence et champ d'investigation ce qu'on pourrait appeler l'"histoire de l'homme de désir (Up : 12). 1) is there any significance to this? is it that relation simply means that two or more things are related, wheras rapport implies more of a mutual, reciprocal (harmonius?) relation? i.e. that rapport implies a specific kind ...

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Teemu K — 2010-03-10T18:41:56+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-10T16:28:11+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

M. Karskens — 2010-03-10T16:10:40+05:30

Prof. Machiel Karskens social and political philosophy Faculty of Philosophy Radboud University Nijmegen - The Netherlands

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Chathan Vemuri — 2010-03-10T00:36:48+05:30

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Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Kevin Turner — 2010-03-10T00:28:35+05:30

life, once again, has a purpose, and man can take up his rightful place at the center of all things... http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/mar/05/meaning-life-evolution-universe

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-09T16:11:55+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

M. Karskens — 2010-03-09T16:01:17+05:30

Prof. Machiel Karskens social and political philosophy Faculty of Philosophy Radboud University Nijmegen - The Netherlands

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Kevin Turner — 2010-03-07T01:33:29+05:30

did foucault have a project? ____________________________________________________________ Receive Notifications of Incoming Messages Easily monitor multiple email accounts & access them with a click. Visit http://www.inbox.com/notifier and check it out!

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Emmanoel B — 2010-03-07T00:16:22+05:30

Hi, all, In regards to the usage Foucault makes of truth, professor's Prado book (Cambridge, 2006), "Searle and Foucault on Truth" might be useful. On pp. 81-100 he shows that Foucault provides a "multifaceted characterization" of truth in five parts. One of them is the "tacit-realist" version of truth. Prado concludes, "Foucault is a realist, albeit a tacit-realist, so I thing the only option is to try to understand how truth is wholly discursive, hence is a product of power, but without its being so entailing a denial of objective reality (...)" Professor Béatrice Han-Pile also has a similar interpretation. Best, Emmanoel 2010/3/6 Chetan Vemuri

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-06T23:45:11+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-06T23:44:41+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Kay Fisher — 2010-03-06T17:41:44+05:30

This seems similar to Althusser's attempts to distinguish between discourses in terms of the 'adequacy' of their 'grasp' of the material world, a rather tricky notion in that idealist discourses such as empiricism always attempt to exploit it. I'm not sure how one avoids it though, unless one accepts the extreme relativism that would assert that the phlogiston theory is equally valid way of looking at the generation of heat as thermodynamics. It is clear that one gives us a more adequate grasp of material reality, but if one attempts to 'go around' discourse to find a way to see whether it corresponds to something outside of itself then, whoops, there we are back with the 'subject of knowledge' etc etc. _______________________________________________ Foucault-L mailing list ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Foucault-L mailing list Foucault-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://foucault.info/mailman/listinfo/foucault-l End of Foucault-L Digest, Vol 10, Issue 6 *******************...

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Edward Comstock — 2010-03-06T08:38:57+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

David McInerney — 2010-03-06T02:56:06+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Chathan Vemuri — 2010-03-06T02:49:40+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Edward Comstock — 2010-03-06T02:41:34+05:30

I suppose I'm somewhat confused by the original question. It seems to me that if Foucault thought we had a knowable human nature, he would also think that we would have a firm transcendental grounding on which to base an empirical knowledge about man, which is precisely what he does not think. It also seems to me that even what we call human nature or look for is going to change based on different knowledge practices, such that the question can only be answered within given systems of knowledge. Foucault, after all, for instance, believed that modern medicine presented valid abstractions against which we could gain usefull knowedges. But I dont' take this to mean that he believes modern medicine to be "true" in the absolute sense. _____________________ Ed Comstock College Writing Program Department of Literature American University ------------------------------------ The easy possibility of letter writing must--seen theoretically--have brought into the world a terrible dislocation of souls. It is, in fact, a...

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Kevin Turner — 2010-03-06T00:10:05+05:30

Or, put another way, the very envirnment in which we live and that, in fact, makes life possible, is also what enables death. For example, oxygen, which is what makes life on this planet possible, is also poisonous to us, the more we breath, and the more our skin and our bodies are in cantact with it, the more it kills us. Or, put another way, the fact the we move around our environment, and move thing relative to ourselves within that environment, litterally wears us out. But in order to live with and in this environment, we have to move and move things. So, what enables life also makes possible death. Thus, the functioning that makes life possible - i.e. the general, everyday, and necessary processes of life - by wearing matter (i.e. our bodies) out, makes death possible . I think it is important here to avoid any vitalist notion of life; by life I take Foucault to simply mean concrete, everyday existence. Regards, Kevin. ____________________________________________________________ FREE 3D MARINE AQUARIUM S...

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Thomas Lord — 2010-03-05T22:19:37+05:30

I believe that he is more less talking about entropy as it pertains to organisms. You could put it this way: The molecular structure of an organism, let's say a mammal for example, has some interesting properties. These properties "play out" in the basic rules of physics in such a way that starting from nearly nothing (a zygote), less-orderly energy inputs to the organism are processed, for a time, to produce an organism of ever-increasing complexity. You started as a zygote. That zygote was "fed". You built more and more cells, eventually differentiating them into various organs of highly specialized functionality. In short, you became comprised of a more and more complex and orderly arrangement of matter, becoming ever better at taking energy inputs and using them to maintain and further elaborate the structure of your molecular arrangement. This is one of the hallmarks of "life". At the same time, there are relentless laws of thermodynamics and if we consider your body and its environment as a whole, thes...

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Matt Wootton — 2010-03-05T20:51:26+05:30

From: Kevin Turner Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature" To: "Mailing-list" Date: Friday, 5 March, 2010, 7:30 There's a passage from an interview that Foucault gave (in 1967, I think), which may help to shed some light on his understanding of "human nature." The passage comes from 'Who are you, Professor Foucault?' in Carrette, J. R. (ed.) Religion and Culture, Manchester, 1999: 87-104, and it reads: We have to resign ourselves to taking, faced with mankind, a position similar to the one taken towards the end of the eighteenth century with regard to other living species, when it was realised that they did not function for someone – neither for themselves, nor for man, nor for God – but that they quite simply functioned. Organisms function. Why do they function? In order to reproduce? Not at all. To keep alive? No more for this reason. They function. They function in a very ambiguous way, in order to live but also in order to die, since it i...

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-05T19:41:29+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Aragorn Eloff — 2010-03-05T15:56:19+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

David McInerney — 2010-03-05T15:30:21+05:30

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Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Kevin Turner — 2010-03-05T13:01:10+05:30

There's a passage from an interview that Foucault gave (in 1967, I think), which may help to shed some light on his understanding of "human nature." The passage comes from 'Who are you, Professor Foucault?' in Carrette, J. R. (ed.) Religion and Culture, Manchester, 1999: 87-104, and it reads: We have to resign ourselves to taking, faced with mankind, a position similar to the one taken towards the end of the eighteenth century with regard to other living species, when it was realised that they did not function for someone – neither for themselves, nor for man, nor for God – but that they quite simply functioned. Organisms function. Why do they function? In order to reproduce? Not at all. To keep alive? No more for this reason. They function. They function in a very ambiguous way, in order to live but also in order to die, since it is well known that the functioning which makes life possible is a functioning which constantly wears matter out, in such a way that it is precisely that which makes possible life wh...

Re: [Foucault-L] Homo Natura

michael bibby — 2010-03-05T13:00:39+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Aragorn Eloff — 2010-03-05T12:47:36+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

David McInerney — 2010-03-05T12:37:49+05:30

around a the _______________________________________________ Foucault-L mailing list _______________________________________________ Foucault-L mailing list

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-05T11:41:38+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Mehmet Kentel — 2010-03-05T08:44:38+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Teresa Mayne — 2010-03-05T08:36:34+05:30

[Foucault-L] foucault and "human nature"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-05T01:35:23+05:30

So this is probably a rather old topic or debate that's been tossed around before but does anyone here actually think Foucault rejected the idea of a "human nature" outright as in universal human behaviors? I don't think the rejected the latter per say but I do htink he rejected the idea of a universal human "nature" or "essence" that could be discovered with knowledge or liberty, a position shared also by Nietzsche, Von MIses and Hannah Arendt. what do you guys think? And do you think a "critique" or "rejection" of human nature as a concept is necessarily as "flawed" as some make it out to be?

Re: [Foucault-L] translation and interpretation question.

Timothy O'Leary — 2010-03-02T15:24:24+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] translation and interpretation question.

Kevin Turner — 2010-03-02T13:05:43+05:30

Hi Timothy, Our translations are very close, but as a novice in the translation game, I’m curious about the terms “instaure” and “fonde.” The first term can be translated as institutes, but I’ve read that if it implies a link between things then is should be translated as establishes; I’ve also read that if what is being instituted is a regime or a dialogue (i.e. a regime of truth, a dialogue with oneself) the it should also be translated as establish. Interestingly the term can also mean “to impose,” “to found,” and “to organise.” The word “fonde” is even more interesting. From what I can tell it is the subjunctive of the verb “fonder”, which means to found, set up (but can also mean “to justify”): as such, it too could be translated as establish. However, “fonde” is also the subjunctive of the verb “fondre,” which means to fuse together, to merge or to combine. It’s interesting how the different possible translation of each of these terms changes the meaning of the translated passage. Of course, one should ...

Re: [Foucault-L] Representation versus "symbolic thinking"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-03-02T03:35:35+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] translation and interpretation question.

Timothy O'Leary — 2010-03-01T22:22:00+05:30

[Foucault-L] translation and interpretation question.

Kevin Turner — 2010-03-01T16:44:40+05:30

Thought The following passage comes from ‘Préface a l’ « Histoire de la sexualité » ‘Par « pensée », j’entends ce qui instaure, dans diverses formes possible, le jeu du vrai et du faux et qui, par conséquent, constitue l’être humain comme sujet de connaissance ; ce qui fonde l’acceptation ou le refus de la règle et constitue l’être humain comme sujet social et juridique ; ce qui instaure le rapport avec soi-même et avec les autres, et constitue l’être humain comme sujet éthique’ (DEII : 1398). The published English translation of this passage reads: ‘By “thought,” I mean what establishes, in a variety of possible forms, the play of true and false, and consequently [which as a consequence] constitutes the human being as knowing subject [a subject of learning]; in other words, it is the basis for accepting or refusing rules, and constitutes human beings as social and juridical subjects; it is what establishes the relationship with oneself and others, and constitutes human beings as ethical subject’ (EW1: 200 [F...

Re: [Foucault-L] Representation versus "symbolic thinking"

Emmanoel B — 2010-02-27T16:24:44+05:30

Hi, Chetan Maybe this passage from Cousins and Hussain (1984:33) might be of help: "Knowledge [in the classical episteme] consists in the correct ordering of representations. [In the Renaissance episteme] it had consisted in the penetration of the signs in the world in order to read the wisdom scattered throughout it. [In the classical episteme] i consists in representing identities, differences and their degrees. [In the Renaissance episteme] it had consisted in divination or similitiude. (...) Signs were placed and hidden in the world, awaiting knowledge. [In the classical episteme] signs are knowledge, tools of analysis and means of representing order. The world, not signs, awaits knowledge. The world and signs, things and words, are divided". Cousins and Hussains also observe that the ternary structure the characterized the mode of knowledge of Renaissance -- all the things of the world, words (which are special things that function as marks put upon all the things of the world), and the interpretation th...

[Foucault-L] Representation versus "symbolic thinking"

Chetan Vemuri — 2010-02-27T09:35:32+05:30

So I was explaining the important concepts in *Les Mots et les Choses* to a friend who was reading it. She wanted to know how to distinguish Foucault's argument about the Renaissance period's unique epistemical focus on "representation" from the general human cognitive ability to think in terms of representation or symbols. I explained that representation was being used more in the terms of knowledge and how various signs represented totalities, but perhaps I oversimplified something? Because any discussion of representation often involves discussion of symbols and such, which is did of course, so perhaps that only adds to the confusion. How would any of you guys distinguish his account of the representative episteme from a general human cognitive capacity to think in terms of representation (which led to early art and perhaps spirituality). Looking forward to your comments.

[Foucault-L] Re: Maladie mentale et personnalité - 2

Kevin Turner — 2010-02-26T15:40:44+05:30

Hi Geoff, Thanks for your questions and for forcing me to clarify certain things... 1) the term “negative” was Foucault’s not mine (deux tâches négatives): and I take him to be using this term in the sense of “negating a position,” or of moving in opposition to or in an opposite direction to that position. 2) my point was that in the 1954 text, Foucault was employing something like a general theory of the human being (as expressed in the previously discussed retrospective), but that posing the question concerning the very historicity of forms of experience, he came to question any such theory and, more specifically, he came to ask the question of how such theories came about and, more importantly, at what cost. 3) Again this is Foucault’s term not my own (déplacement): and I take him to be using this term in the sense of “to move something” – i.e. a move away from the economic and social context, contradiction and alienation, dialectical materialism, towards a different history of societies, one which address...

Re: [Foucault-L] Maladie mentale et personnalité - 1&2

michael bibby — 2010-02-26T15:35:33+05:30

Re: [Foucault-L] Maladie mentale et personnalité - 2

G went out walking — 2010-02-26T14:12:13+05:30

some questions in response 1) in what sense are you using the term "negative" 2) it's my understanding that any such theory of the human being would be constitutive of the human being, not an imposition from outside/beyond - so wouldn't the discourse produce the body/of knowledge you're terming the human being, but Foucault may well call Man 3) in terms of displacement, might it be better thought of as a shifting of focus that again constitutes, rather than imposes, and part of its function is to suggest a single grid? As for your second question, though Foucault disliked the notion of an oeuvre, he also retrospectively linked his work back to earlier work - whether the expression refers to it or not may not be answerable; perhaps instead, we can look at what is the result/consequence of such a referral? And to the third, Foucault's terminology differs - again he used genealogy, a history of the present - as did what he considered he was doing at different stages - so maybe the question is, in his work on th...

[Foucault-L] Maladie mentale et personnalité - 2

Kevin Turner — 2010-02-26T13:47:19+05:30

OK, now that we have that reasonably well sorted out, I have a follow up question. In a retrospective of his work the ‘Preface to the History of Sexuality, Volume Two,’ in which he details how he came to analyse forms of experience in their historicity, Foucault describes how this idea originated in Maladie mentale et personnalité. In this retrospective, Foucault notes two aspects of this original project left him unsatisfied: (1) ‘its theoretical weakness in elaborating the notion of experience,’ and (2) ‘its ambiguous link with a psychiatric practice, which it simultaneously ignored and took for granted’ (EW1: 200; DEII: 1398). And he goes on to note how (1) ‘one could deal with the first problem by referring to a general theory of the human being, and (2) treat the second altogether differently by turning...to the "economic and social context."’ In doing so, so he claims, one would have to ‘accept the resulting dilemma of (1) a philosophical anthropology and (2) a social history.’ Foucault then details two...

Re: [Foucault-L] Maladie mentale et personnalité

Thomas Lord — 2010-02-26T03:01:52+05:30

[Foucault-L] Re: Maladie mentale et personnalité

Kevin Turner — 2010-02-25T13:18:11+05:30

Hi Thomas, I am not really qualified to do such translations either. But since the full text of Maladie mentale et personnalité is only available in the original French, and since it is difficult for me to ascertain which parts of the 1954 text were carried over to the 1962 text (which has been translated into English), I don’t really have much choice. And beside which, it is sometimes helpful, as in this instance, to check the English translations (either full texts or in secondary texts) against the French where possible. Basically, I use Google translate as a starting point to give a very rough (sometimes wildly inaccurate, sometimes bizarre) translation, and then use an online French-English dictionary to check each word and adjust as necessary. This is one of the reasons why ask list members to check on my amateurish translations. Regards, Kevin. p.s. Google translate sometime translates "M. Foucault" as "Mr. Eddy," which quite tickled me... ____________________________________________________________ FR...

[Foucault-L] Re: Maladie mentale et personnalité

Kevin Turner — 2010-02-25T13:13:20+05:30

Thanks to everyone for your helped with this... Just to recap: “extérieures” in the sentence we have been discussing is not a misprint, but nor does it refer to noematic analysis, as I originally suggested. Rather, it refers to the whole of the discussion undertaken in Part One, which – by way of evolution, individual history, and existence – attempted to “determine the co-ordinates by which one can situate the pathological within the interiority of personality” by showing “the forms of occurrence [d’apparition] of the illness (Mmp: 71). And it is these “forms of occurance/appearance” that Foucault is referring to when he uses the phrase “external/exterior dimension.” However, because the analysis undertaken in Part One “have not demonstrated its [disease, illness] conditions of emergence [d’apparition]” (Mmp: 71), new forms of analysis are required to supplement the analysis undertaken in Part One of the book; analyses which attempt to describe its “exterior and objective conditions.” Does this seem like an ...

Re: [Foucault-L] Maladie mentale et personnalité

psicopr — 2010-02-24T22:17:50+05:30

__________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7: Catch-up on your favourite Channel 7 TV shows easily, legally, and for free at PLUS7. www.tv.yahoo.com.au/plus7 _______________________________________________ Foucault-L mailing list ____________________________________________________________________________________ Veja quais são os assuntos do momento no Yahoo! +Buscados http://br.maisbuscados.yahoo.com

Re: [Foucault-L] Maladie mentale et personnalité

michael bibby — 2010-02-24T15:50:11+05:30