Re: Sean H's posting...
I liked your insight as to how Foucault used (or, according to you,
came to use) the notion of power in his writings. However, it still
seems to me that the problem (of "how can MF have access to certain
discourses..." I forgot how you put it) remains. Foucault uses
power (be it lower or upper case) as something of an organizing
principle. Of course, its important to bear in mind that we are
looking back on MF's writings, in effect organizing his ideas into
a coherent discourse. I would hazard to say that a lot of what
makes "power" so omnipresent and ineluctible in Foucault is a direct
result of activities such as our present discussion. I say this
because in reading MF's writings, it seemed to me that he was
trying very hard not to impose a "Foucauldian discours--one
can see in his language that he was more
interested in exploring various arrangements of his subject rather
than presenting a coherent method of analysis. This is perhaps
what sets him apart from Marx or Freud, whose base/superstructure
and latent/manifest (respectively) methods of organization are
not unlike the Foucauldian formulation of power.
comments?
Pat Angeles
------------------
I liked your insight as to how Foucault used (or, according to you,
came to use) the notion of power in his writings. However, it still
seems to me that the problem (of "how can MF have access to certain
discourses..." I forgot how you put it) remains. Foucault uses
power (be it lower or upper case) as something of an organizing
principle. Of course, its important to bear in mind that we are
looking back on MF's writings, in effect organizing his ideas into
a coherent discourse. I would hazard to say that a lot of what
makes "power" so omnipresent and ineluctible in Foucault is a direct
result of activities such as our present discussion. I say this
because in reading MF's writings, it seemed to me that he was
trying very hard not to impose a "Foucauldian discours--one
can see in his language that he was more
interested in exploring various arrangements of his subject rather
than presenting a coherent method of analysis. This is perhaps
what sets him apart from Marx or Freud, whose base/superstructure
and latent/manifest (respectively) methods of organization are
not unlike the Foucauldian formulation of power.
comments?
Pat Angeles
------------------