Hold your horses there Garton.
As Joe Cronin has posted can you please supply sources for your quotes, not
re-insert mine. That's all I was referring to. You provided, what seemed to
be a quote and i simply asked for a space, a (c)ite at which to locate it.
The quote I was referring to was one you used not the one I employed.
Now as you say:
>
>Now to the more serious questions.
You then say, that I claim:
>You want
>>to read truth here in the normal context of western philosophy,
Where tell me where I have EVER made this claim (notwithstanding that the
reduction of western philosophical discourse on truth to a singular notion
strikes me as absurd)? On the reading you advance we are not in
disagreement, I accept, in broad terms, that:
1) >he strove to show that truth and agency are the
>>complex effects of specific and analysable mechanisms and
discursive >>formations.
2) >I don't subscribe either to the notion that F. denied agency,
truth, or >meaning.
3) >We do agree that F. is clearly distinguishing truth from the
thought of truth in the citation referred above.
4) >>truth is material, objective, immanent, existing, positive, etc.
5) >Thus, there is a distinct difference between thought and truth as
you >have rightly pointed out, which runs through his writing.
I do find your attempt to contextualise 3 in terms of his previous
statements problematic, it seems a perversion of the use of the word context
because Foucault always reserved the right to change his mind. So the idea
that a pronouncement made in 1984 can be held hostage to ones made earlier
seems problematic, but I am prepared to debate this as it raises interesting
issues about F periodisation.
Equally, however, given that you accept all of the above, we can have a
dialogue about truth, and all that I said about your inability to say much
about what Foucault said go out of the window. I feel I must add however,
that your reading of F now seems much closer to mine than I originally
thought. Moreover, in response to your question:
>Why is what
>>I can claim about F. limited by what I claim F. claims?
This only applies if you deny that Foucault denied truth, agency and
intentionality. If you don't then clearly you can make efforts to specify
what you think F meant. Equally, however, if one were to consistently
maintain, as some seem wont to do, that F really does deny truth, agency,
and intentionality, then nothing can be said about F's intentions, and his
text become reducible to the machinations of readers. In effect, if I use
D&P as a cookery book this would be admissable because there was no other
intention/meaning to his work. This is clearly ridiculous, but it is the
end-point for any reading of F that attempts to deny truth, agency and
intentionality. In effect, as you point out, why read F if these are denied?
More problematic however, is the use of the word truth in the unreferenced
quote you supplied, I tend to read Foucault here as referring to the
deployment of the term truth for political/social/cultural ends. This, to
me, is actually a warning about this form of truth; that is politically
prescribed truth. Truth , in this reading can actually function as untruth
and as such is the very point of critique on which he elaborates in the
piece I get my quote from. That is, a warning of the very danger of a
political system determining what counts as truth.
>By the way, the dynnamics of Thought is clearly a humanist
>moment, relating back most notably to figures such as Montaigne.
I'd probably agree with this. I don't know much about Montaigne, apart from
what Stephen Toulmin says about him in Cosmopolis. I'm reading Zizek at the
moment (another philosopher(?) BTW that people are wont to read as a
postmodernist/structuralist, depsite his many tirades against such positions)
Thanks,
--------------------------------------------------------
"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
--------------------------------------------------------
As Joe Cronin has posted can you please supply sources for your quotes, not
re-insert mine. That's all I was referring to. You provided, what seemed to
be a quote and i simply asked for a space, a (c)ite at which to locate it.
The quote I was referring to was one you used not the one I employed.
Now as you say:
>
>Now to the more serious questions.
You then say, that I claim:
>You want
>>to read truth here in the normal context of western philosophy,
Where tell me where I have EVER made this claim (notwithstanding that the
reduction of western philosophical discourse on truth to a singular notion
strikes me as absurd)? On the reading you advance we are not in
disagreement, I accept, in broad terms, that:
1) >he strove to show that truth and agency are the
>>complex effects of specific and analysable mechanisms and
discursive >>formations.
2) >I don't subscribe either to the notion that F. denied agency,
truth, or >meaning.
3) >We do agree that F. is clearly distinguishing truth from the
thought of truth in the citation referred above.
4) >>truth is material, objective, immanent, existing, positive, etc.
5) >Thus, there is a distinct difference between thought and truth as
you >have rightly pointed out, which runs through his writing.
I do find your attempt to contextualise 3 in terms of his previous
statements problematic, it seems a perversion of the use of the word context
because Foucault always reserved the right to change his mind. So the idea
that a pronouncement made in 1984 can be held hostage to ones made earlier
seems problematic, but I am prepared to debate this as it raises interesting
issues about F periodisation.
Equally, however, given that you accept all of the above, we can have a
dialogue about truth, and all that I said about your inability to say much
about what Foucault said go out of the window. I feel I must add however,
that your reading of F now seems much closer to mine than I originally
thought. Moreover, in response to your question:
>Why is what
>>I can claim about F. limited by what I claim F. claims?
This only applies if you deny that Foucault denied truth, agency and
intentionality. If you don't then clearly you can make efforts to specify
what you think F meant. Equally, however, if one were to consistently
maintain, as some seem wont to do, that F really does deny truth, agency,
and intentionality, then nothing can be said about F's intentions, and his
text become reducible to the machinations of readers. In effect, if I use
D&P as a cookery book this would be admissable because there was no other
intention/meaning to his work. This is clearly ridiculous, but it is the
end-point for any reading of F that attempts to deny truth, agency and
intentionality. In effect, as you point out, why read F if these are denied?
More problematic however, is the use of the word truth in the unreferenced
quote you supplied, I tend to read Foucault here as referring to the
deployment of the term truth for political/social/cultural ends. This, to
me, is actually a warning about this form of truth; that is politically
prescribed truth. Truth , in this reading can actually function as untruth
and as such is the very point of critique on which he elaborates in the
piece I get my quote from. That is, a warning of the very danger of a
political system determining what counts as truth.
>By the way, the dynnamics of Thought is clearly a humanist
>moment, relating back most notably to figures such as Montaigne.
I'd probably agree with this. I don't know much about Montaigne, apart from
what Stephen Toulmin says about him in Cosmopolis. I'm reading Zizek at the
moment (another philosopher(?) BTW that people are wont to read as a
postmodernist/structuralist, depsite his many tirades against such positions)
Thanks,
--------------------------------------------------------
"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
--------------------------------------------------------