Sean writes:
I think it is in "The Subject and Power"
>that he clarifies his understanding of subjectivisation, that he does not
>reject subjectivity, but certain types of subjective formations which cause
>people to think of themselves in particular ways as essential. For
>repression assumes there is something essential which needs releasing from
>its dark confinements: towards liberation. Foucault rejects this as an
>ideological tool used in the formation of the repressed subject. His
>critique of power relations then makes sense for it would be one example of
>a movement towards new subjectivities from the rejection of the old ones.
I agree with what you say here Sean, and may writing was open to this
possibility. What I wonder, though, is why Foucault could deny Marcuse'
important when Marcuse, in Eros and Civilization, and An Essay on
Linberation, as well as other places, argues for this same kind of
non-essentiality. It seems, however, and this is what I think Marcuse,
FOucault, and other pm'ers don't realize, is that positing a
non-essentiality to people is positing an essentiality to people: namely
that they are non-essential. But ewhat they mean then is that people are
not static. People should not think of themselves in particular ways as
essential. Traditional philosophy has the habvit of imposing a particular
essentiality on us: rationality, for example. I think this positing is
absent in Aristotle and prhaps Aquinas, but now I'm repeating my earlier
post.
Jeff
I think it is in "The Subject and Power"
>that he clarifies his understanding of subjectivisation, that he does not
>reject subjectivity, but certain types of subjective formations which cause
>people to think of themselves in particular ways as essential. For
>repression assumes there is something essential which needs releasing from
>its dark confinements: towards liberation. Foucault rejects this as an
>ideological tool used in the formation of the repressed subject. His
>critique of power relations then makes sense for it would be one example of
>a movement towards new subjectivities from the rejection of the old ones.
I agree with what you say here Sean, and may writing was open to this
possibility. What I wonder, though, is why Foucault could deny Marcuse'
important when Marcuse, in Eros and Civilization, and An Essay on
Linberation, as well as other places, argues for this same kind of
non-essentiality. It seems, however, and this is what I think Marcuse,
FOucault, and other pm'ers don't realize, is that positing a
non-essentiality to people is positing an essentiality to people: namely
that they are non-essential. But ewhat they mean then is that people are
not static. People should not think of themselves in particular ways as
essential. Traditional philosophy has the habvit of imposing a particular
essentiality on us: rationality, for example. I think this positing is
absent in Aristotle and prhaps Aquinas, but now I'm repeating my earlier
post.
Jeff