Rorty's work is one example. However, Rorty's critique of Foucault -- that
Foucault's notion of power is so vague as to be vacuous -- doesn't really
capture, in my view, the complexity of the notion of power in Foucault's
writings. The ubiquity of power doesn't preclude its ability to be
articulated on very specific sites.
I would recommend Ian Hacking's work (on Foucault and other topics)as an
example of how a philosopher who was analytically trained came to appreciate
the insights of Foucault. Check out his primer _Why does Language Matter to
Philosophy?_, some twenty years old now, but still a real inspiration, or his
more recent work _The Taming of Chance_, which bears all the marks of careful
analytical philosophy, and is historically interesting as well.
His classic work _The Emergence of Probability_ is still a must for anyone
interested in the development of inductive reasoning from the so-called "low
sciences."
R. Leventhal
------------------
Foucault's notion of power is so vague as to be vacuous -- doesn't really
capture, in my view, the complexity of the notion of power in Foucault's
writings. The ubiquity of power doesn't preclude its ability to be
articulated on very specific sites.
I would recommend Ian Hacking's work (on Foucault and other topics)as an
example of how a philosopher who was analytically trained came to appreciate
the insights of Foucault. Check out his primer _Why does Language Matter to
Philosophy?_, some twenty years old now, but still a real inspiration, or his
more recent work _The Taming of Chance_, which bears all the marks of careful
analytical philosophy, and is historically interesting as well.
His classic work _The Emergence of Probability_ is still a must for anyone
interested in the development of inductive reasoning from the so-called "low
sciences."
R. Leventhal
------------------