>One more reference. In the interview with Gerard Raulet, published in
>_Telos_, Foucault is asked about postmodernism. He interrupts Raulet
>with: `What is postmodernism? I'm not up-to-date.
I like that one :) It is indeed tricky to keep up with shifting language...
Another reference, which may or may not have been mentioned already (I've
lost track): in Foucault Live, the interview "An Ethics Of Pleasure". This
is principally about architecture, but at one point (top of page 268) the
interviewer (and translator), Stephen Riggins, says this:
"'Postmodernism' has received a great deal of attention recently in
architectural circles. It is also being talked about in philosophy, notably
by Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jurgen Habermas. Clearly, historical reference
and language play an important role in the modern episteme. How do you see
post-modernism, both as architecture and in terms of the historical and
philosophical questions that are posed by it?"
The response and brief continuation on the subject of Reason and
historicism are too long for me to type in, but are certainly worth
reading. In summary, he describes as 'facile' the 'tendency...to designate
that which has just occurred as the primary enemy as if this were always
the principal form of oppression from which one had to liberate oneself';
and then he talks a little about the danger of 'lapsing into
irrationality', how he agrees with Habermas on this point, but how he's
asking different kinds of questions: '*What* is this Reason that we use?
What are its historical effects? What are its limits and what are its
dangers? How can we exist as rational beings, fortunately committed to
practicing a rationality that is unfortunately crisscrossed by intrinsic
dangers?'
[typos and editing errors mine]
rs/macrshap@xxxxxxx or rshapiro@xxxxxxx
------------------
>_Telos_, Foucault is asked about postmodernism. He interrupts Raulet
>with: `What is postmodernism? I'm not up-to-date.
I like that one :) It is indeed tricky to keep up with shifting language...
Another reference, which may or may not have been mentioned already (I've
lost track): in Foucault Live, the interview "An Ethics Of Pleasure". This
is principally about architecture, but at one point (top of page 268) the
interviewer (and translator), Stephen Riggins, says this:
"'Postmodernism' has received a great deal of attention recently in
architectural circles. It is also being talked about in philosophy, notably
by Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jurgen Habermas. Clearly, historical reference
and language play an important role in the modern episteme. How do you see
post-modernism, both as architecture and in terms of the historical and
philosophical questions that are posed by it?"
The response and brief continuation on the subject of Reason and
historicism are too long for me to type in, but are certainly worth
reading. In summary, he describes as 'facile' the 'tendency...to designate
that which has just occurred as the primary enemy as if this were always
the principal form of oppression from which one had to liberate oneself';
and then he talks a little about the danger of 'lapsing into
irrationality', how he agrees with Habermas on this point, but how he's
asking different kinds of questions: '*What* is this Reason that we use?
What are its historical effects? What are its limits and what are its
dangers? How can we exist as rational beings, fortunately committed to
practicing a rationality that is unfortunately crisscrossed by intrinsic
dangers?'
[typos and editing errors mine]
rs/macrshap@xxxxxxx or rshapiro@xxxxxxx
------------------