Quetzil wrote,
>read this and tell me what you think
>
>>... nothing is more dangerous than a political
>>system which claims to prescribe truth.....
>
>
>
Fascism, 'Actually existing communism', 'Marxist-Leninism', 'Thatcherist
Britain and its contemporary John Majorist form', 'religion, of any form,
'traditions', 'cultures' take your pick. The point, that _I_ take Foucault
to be asserting, certainly in the context of the surrounding sentences and
discussion is actually closer to that made by Kant at the dawn of the
Enlightenment; "have the courage to use your own reason". And I have no
blushes using the latter term on this list, since for me Foucault, later in
his life clearly came to see that despite all its faults, its all we've got
against all of the aforementioned. Truth then for Foucault is too important
to be either forgotten or left to those in power.
--------------------------------------------------------
"What I try to achieve is the history of the relations which
thought maintains with truth; the history of thought insofar as it is the
thought of truth. All those who say truth does not exist for me are
simple minded."
(Foucault)
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------
>read this and tell me what you think
>
>>... nothing is more dangerous than a political
>>system which claims to prescribe truth.....
>
>
>
Fascism, 'Actually existing communism', 'Marxist-Leninism', 'Thatcherist
Britain and its contemporary John Majorist form', 'religion, of any form,
'traditions', 'cultures' take your pick. The point, that _I_ take Foucault
to be asserting, certainly in the context of the surrounding sentences and
discussion is actually closer to that made by Kant at the dawn of the
Enlightenment; "have the courage to use your own reason". And I have no
blushes using the latter term on this list, since for me Foucault, later in
his life clearly came to see that despite all its faults, its all we've got
against all of the aforementioned. Truth then for Foucault is too important
to be either forgotten or left to those in power.
--------------------------------------------------------
"What I try to achieve is the history of the relations which
thought maintains with truth; the history of thought insofar as it is the
thought of truth. All those who say truth does not exist for me are
simple minded."
(Foucault)
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------