At 03:37 PM 4/28/96 +0100, you wrote:
>I think that if there are (relatively) sudden
>transitions between 'modes of discourse' , there must be a mechanism by
>which they come about.
I am not sure agree with you on both that there are or that F. argues that
there are "sudden transitions between modes of discourse". I think the
archeology and the order of things are studyies of the FORMATION of
discourses and their DISjunctures/junctions--- and not studies of how one
discourse, episteme, paradigm gets changed/transformed into or displaced by
others. by attacking influence, and related concepts he is indeed
displacing that set of questions -- the HISTORICAL questions as it were
which might give us pause to ask if he is not doing history according to the
historians why is he (if not first and foremost at least at some point) a
"historian"; he displaces the questions of "change"/transition.
HE DOES however suggest ways to think about transitions, the concept of
event for exampl. in the archeology; but also if one juxtaposes the what is
an author with Herculine Barbin and I pierre riviere one can isolate an
approach to "transition" (that is more analytically oriented) which is much
different than what you propose below.; and different than what can be
gleaned from displine/punish.
the arguement "against" authors (bad phrasing) is that texts are never works
of single minds but of a collective/collaborative endeavor variously
construed. the authorial text becomes authorial precisely because its
written/appears within a moment that allows for it to be read; it has a
context of reception, but that context of reception is also a context of
actively shaping and molding and regulating what the substance of the text
(its messages/meanings). thus the key texts of any period is NOT a sudden
appearance; rather it is a "sudden appearance" in the same sense that if one
suddenly glanced outside the window and noticed the world, the world would
suddenly appear; but it had been there in a massive way before the glance
that caught its glimpse. thus the herculine and the pierre riviere are
studies (if the former brief preface to the memoirs can be counted as such)
of a moment of an "event" of transition between several kinds of discourses,
an event of the emergence of new discousrses. but here too there is NO
sudden appearance. there are processes at work. but his analytical focus is
on some key texts (some with brand name authors, some without) that provide
specific kinds of insight into the "event" of transition/change NOT as some
kind of macrohistorical evolutionary movement but as a localized experience
of contestations and struggles. this methodological mode of analysis is
performed in the chapters at the end of pierre riviere, but is only alluded
to as it were in discipline -- the juxtaposition of constrasting
"structures" that are sequential in time (torture/trial; leper
colony/beseiged city/prison; etc) move more towards the macro than the local
and thus metaphorically allude to the small sites of contestations that
constitute change; but ananlytically the discussion focuses on the broader
logics and processes (see for example, the pages at the end of docility
where he discusses THREE broad transformations in which the shifts in
disciplinary power was occuring, or that were being substantiated by the
shifts in the micromanagement of disciplinary power).
so, from this perspective i do not think it is necessary to postulate the
mechanisms below. the mechanisms are ongoing struggles, not idealist
subjects nor markets; power dynamics itself are the mechanisms. think also
of the discourse on language that points again in this same direction.
hmm. ok, goodnight.
q.
The only ones I can think of are 1. the
>explanatory device of a hypothetical 'subject of the history of thought'
>or 2. a non-subjective device which like the free market (which can also
>produce sudden simultaneous changes e.g. gluts and shortages, stockmarket
>crashes) would depend on the unintended consequences of human action. I
>prefer the second alternative personally, but I wonder what exactly such
>a device/phenomenon would look like.
>
> Dave Hugh-Jones
>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>'Yes, that's my mother all right, but my mother's the Virgin Mary, you know.'
>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>dash2@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
>
>I think that if there are (relatively) sudden
>transitions between 'modes of discourse' , there must be a mechanism by
>which they come about.
I am not sure agree with you on both that there are or that F. argues that
there are "sudden transitions between modes of discourse". I think the
archeology and the order of things are studyies of the FORMATION of
discourses and their DISjunctures/junctions--- and not studies of how one
discourse, episteme, paradigm gets changed/transformed into or displaced by
others. by attacking influence, and related concepts he is indeed
displacing that set of questions -- the HISTORICAL questions as it were
which might give us pause to ask if he is not doing history according to the
historians why is he (if not first and foremost at least at some point) a
"historian"; he displaces the questions of "change"/transition.
HE DOES however suggest ways to think about transitions, the concept of
event for exampl. in the archeology; but also if one juxtaposes the what is
an author with Herculine Barbin and I pierre riviere one can isolate an
approach to "transition" (that is more analytically oriented) which is much
different than what you propose below.; and different than what can be
gleaned from displine/punish.
the arguement "against" authors (bad phrasing) is that texts are never works
of single minds but of a collective/collaborative endeavor variously
construed. the authorial text becomes authorial precisely because its
written/appears within a moment that allows for it to be read; it has a
context of reception, but that context of reception is also a context of
actively shaping and molding and regulating what the substance of the text
(its messages/meanings). thus the key texts of any period is NOT a sudden
appearance; rather it is a "sudden appearance" in the same sense that if one
suddenly glanced outside the window and noticed the world, the world would
suddenly appear; but it had been there in a massive way before the glance
that caught its glimpse. thus the herculine and the pierre riviere are
studies (if the former brief preface to the memoirs can be counted as such)
of a moment of an "event" of transition between several kinds of discourses,
an event of the emergence of new discousrses. but here too there is NO
sudden appearance. there are processes at work. but his analytical focus is
on some key texts (some with brand name authors, some without) that provide
specific kinds of insight into the "event" of transition/change NOT as some
kind of macrohistorical evolutionary movement but as a localized experience
of contestations and struggles. this methodological mode of analysis is
performed in the chapters at the end of pierre riviere, but is only alluded
to as it were in discipline -- the juxtaposition of constrasting
"structures" that are sequential in time (torture/trial; leper
colony/beseiged city/prison; etc) move more towards the macro than the local
and thus metaphorically allude to the small sites of contestations that
constitute change; but ananlytically the discussion focuses on the broader
logics and processes (see for example, the pages at the end of docility
where he discusses THREE broad transformations in which the shifts in
disciplinary power was occuring, or that were being substantiated by the
shifts in the micromanagement of disciplinary power).
so, from this perspective i do not think it is necessary to postulate the
mechanisms below. the mechanisms are ongoing struggles, not idealist
subjects nor markets; power dynamics itself are the mechanisms. think also
of the discourse on language that points again in this same direction.
hmm. ok, goodnight.
q.
The only ones I can think of are 1. the
>explanatory device of a hypothetical 'subject of the history of thought'
>or 2. a non-subjective device which like the free market (which can also
>produce sudden simultaneous changes e.g. gluts and shortages, stockmarket
>crashes) would depend on the unintended consequences of human action. I
>prefer the second alternative personally, but I wonder what exactly such
>a device/phenomenon would look like.
>
> Dave Hugh-Jones
>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>'Yes, that's my mother all right, but my mother's the Virgin Mary, you know.'
>@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
>dash2@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
>