Dear all,
Just two quick points to complement some of what has already been
posted in response to Malcolm's frighteningly absolutist relativism.
1. Surely the two citations from Foucault suggest that he, too,
assumed that there was an 'actual past', that somehow can be
associated with ('caused' deconstructed in the Humean sense of
'habitually contiguous to') discursive practices. In my reading (see
especially the essay called something like 'Politics of Health in the
18th and 19th Centuries' [Power/Knowledge]), implicit in his history
is a fairly traditional Marxist understanding of the motive force of
economic interests. These underly all other changes. However, he
simply is not concerned to elucidate the causal relations
('primary realtions' in 'A of K', p. 43 [?]) between the 'extra-
discursive' and discourse, in other words how formations come into
being. He is more interested in how they work once they are
established. Just because he does not elaborate on what CAUSES
certain discursive configurations in certain historical contexts,
does not mean he believes there is 'nothing outside the text', and
that discourse can only be judged by political expediency and
mobilising power. He is not as much a political nihilist as Malcolm
seems to be.
2. Evidence IS problematic, of course, just as it is when used in
judicial proceedings. But, similarly, there is good evidence and bad
evidence, and even evidence that can *prove* something (like a murder
took place), even if it cannot reveal its meaning. There are also
people who simply are deluded, and refuse to attend to evidence, not
cynically or irrationally because it suits their politics not to, but
because they are have the wrong take on reality. Now, I'm not saying
this means they are *mad* (God help me on a Foucault list), but I am
saying they are wrong, and for better reason than the majority, or
the dominant group, arbitrarily defines their position as wrong.
If a person was utterly and sincerely convinced that HE was Michel
Foucault because of some psychiatric condition (however understood),
what would Foucault have said? Especially when the man claimed his
royalties?
yours
Nick