Colin,
I'd like to take up the issue of the positivist/antihumanist
(two "moments" of the same) deconstruction of the subject.
It seems to me that in The Archeology of Knowledge Focualt
accounts for the "subject" as an emergent textual quality.
the statement "recall that a line is a set of points such
that..." in the middle of a mathematical treatise calls into
existence not merely a discursive formation, but a textual
subject. He referws to this function of disourse as "the
enunciative function". The subject of a text suddenly
emerges at brief moments and brings into existence a prior
set of statements, or archives. Let's place this account to
one side.
In D&P, teh subject is still a discursive function, but one
which emerges from grids of power relations, a field of
forces and their interplay, whcih centers on bodies. The
body, as e have discussed, both receives and emits
sign-effects. it is thus the medium through which the
subject emerges. But then there is that odd claim at teh
end of "The Body of the Condemned"(p.31, Vintage): "The soul
is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the
soul is the prison of the body."
If we recall Socrtates int eh Phaedo, the reverse claim is
made; each bodily pleasure, each sensual enjoyment, each
instant of our attention taken away from the soul by the
body serves a a "rivet" - thus the body is the prison of hte
soul. Now, the question I have is whether Focuautl is
performing a type of Feuerbachian reversal on Socrates, or
whether he is being cryptic - or what. The "soul" appears
to be the sum effect of the power/knowlege relation which is
necessarily instantiated in bodies. Put anotehr way, the
soul would and could not exist if there were no bodies
existing prior to its formation. Furhtermore, the "soul" is
both multifaceted, and mulitvalent: it emerges here
and ther and just as suddenly masks itself. It is
invisible, anonymous, plasctic, AND intentional. whatever
it is, it appears to be soem sort of social being. Its
existence in teh socail structure, as I take it, could not
be possible without some kind of flesh to incribe itself
onto - without something to "seize and grasp," just as teh
Cartesian head need "intuitions" to seize and grasp.
Focualt claims in the Archeology that a statement always and
necessarily has some sort of material instantiation -
whether it is spoken, written, enacted, performed, or
whatever. Teh same thing seems to be going on in D&P, only
we have a more sophisticated "anatomy" of the matter
(bodies) the positivities work through, and we have the
furhter notion that the body is not hte mere receptacle of
signs, but the producer as well.
If this is clsoe to the mark, then we have some kind of
empiricism, thoug it is certainly not a naive, Hempelian
empiricism, with causla explanations serving as the
discursive foundation. It seems to be a kind of "decentred
empiricism" - were signs asnd regualrities are only
articulable through the observation of their instantiation
in bodies.
Joe C.
I'd like to take up the issue of the positivist/antihumanist
(two "moments" of the same) deconstruction of the subject.
It seems to me that in The Archeology of Knowledge Focualt
accounts for the "subject" as an emergent textual quality.
the statement "recall that a line is a set of points such
that..." in the middle of a mathematical treatise calls into
existence not merely a discursive formation, but a textual
subject. He referws to this function of disourse as "the
enunciative function". The subject of a text suddenly
emerges at brief moments and brings into existence a prior
set of statements, or archives. Let's place this account to
one side.
In D&P, teh subject is still a discursive function, but one
which emerges from grids of power relations, a field of
forces and their interplay, whcih centers on bodies. The
body, as e have discussed, both receives and emits
sign-effects. it is thus the medium through which the
subject emerges. But then there is that odd claim at teh
end of "The Body of the Condemned"(p.31, Vintage): "The soul
is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the
soul is the prison of the body."
If we recall Socrtates int eh Phaedo, the reverse claim is
made; each bodily pleasure, each sensual enjoyment, each
instant of our attention taken away from the soul by the
body serves a a "rivet" - thus the body is the prison of hte
soul. Now, the question I have is whether Focuautl is
performing a type of Feuerbachian reversal on Socrates, or
whether he is being cryptic - or what. The "soul" appears
to be the sum effect of the power/knowlege relation which is
necessarily instantiated in bodies. Put anotehr way, the
soul would and could not exist if there were no bodies
existing prior to its formation. Furhtermore, the "soul" is
both multifaceted, and mulitvalent: it emerges here
and ther and just as suddenly masks itself. It is
invisible, anonymous, plasctic, AND intentional. whatever
it is, it appears to be soem sort of social being. Its
existence in teh socail structure, as I take it, could not
be possible without some kind of flesh to incribe itself
onto - without something to "seize and grasp," just as teh
Cartesian head need "intuitions" to seize and grasp.
Focualt claims in the Archeology that a statement always and
necessarily has some sort of material instantiation -
whether it is spoken, written, enacted, performed, or
whatever. Teh same thing seems to be going on in D&P, only
we have a more sophisticated "anatomy" of the matter
(bodies) the positivities work through, and we have the
furhter notion that the body is not hte mere receptacle of
signs, but the producer as well.
If this is clsoe to the mark, then we have some kind of
empiricism, thoug it is certainly not a naive, Hempelian
empiricism, with causla explanations serving as the
discursive foundation. It seems to be a kind of "decentred
empiricism" - were signs asnd regualrities are only
articulable through the observation of their instantiation
in bodies.
Joe C.