Jeff writes:
"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."
OK. So I can agree with you Jeff that without repression Foucault's critique
of power relations would seem empty; subjects would be fully aware of their
interests and courses of action. And of course F doesn't deny that power
functions solely in negative ways such as repression. Perhaps his distancing
>from Marcuse was to show the positive productive effects as well as the
negative. But if F rejects essentiality (or as you say, what is essential is
non-essential) while admiting repression, what could it be that is being
repressed? I tend to want to think that it is potential courses of action
which are hidden. Such possibilities would not be present to the conscious
subjects produced by particular power configurations. Yet these hidden
possibilities, according to Foucault, would also have been produced by these
same power relations. And it doesn't seem to me that Foucault is interested
in making these possibilities conscious. Rather he begins with a critique of
power relations using genealogy, and through the historical rejection of what
he is he becomes something else.
And in another post Jeff writes:
"My argument is that, if repression were non-existent, then Foucault's notion
of productive power would be unimportant. Why? We all know that our options
for action in any given situation is limited by a number of factors, some of
which are beyond our control. FOr FOucault's notion of power to be
substantive, power must be something we control and somethin we care about
controlling."
By using words such as "substantive" and "control" you seem to mean that
power is a substance, which Foucault rejects. Is this your account or
Foucault's? Power relations, on Foucault's account, are actions acting upon
actions. To critique certain actions from within a power configuration, to
reject a subjective position, would then produce a different course of
actions. And if this new course of actions could not have been projected
prior to critique, then these new actions would be that of a newly emerged
subjectivity. I wonder how much conscious control there would be, I mean
like Foucault said about his books: "I write precisely because I don't know
yet what to think about a subject that attracts my interest....each new work
profoundly changes the terms of thinking which I had reached with the
previous work....When I write, I do it above all to change myself and not to
think the same as before." (Remarks on Marx, p.27) Which amounts to Foucault
being essentially non-essential. And now I'm losing my self.
Sean Hill
"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."
OK. So I can agree with you Jeff that without repression Foucault's critique
of power relations would seem empty; subjects would be fully aware of their
interests and courses of action. And of course F doesn't deny that power
functions solely in negative ways such as repression. Perhaps his distancing
>from Marcuse was to show the positive productive effects as well as the
negative. But if F rejects essentiality (or as you say, what is essential is
non-essential) while admiting repression, what could it be that is being
repressed? I tend to want to think that it is potential courses of action
which are hidden. Such possibilities would not be present to the conscious
subjects produced by particular power configurations. Yet these hidden
possibilities, according to Foucault, would also have been produced by these
same power relations. And it doesn't seem to me that Foucault is interested
in making these possibilities conscious. Rather he begins with a critique of
power relations using genealogy, and through the historical rejection of what
he is he becomes something else.
And in another post Jeff writes:
"My argument is that, if repression were non-existent, then Foucault's notion
of productive power would be unimportant. Why? We all know that our options
for action in any given situation is limited by a number of factors, some of
which are beyond our control. FOr FOucault's notion of power to be
substantive, power must be something we control and somethin we care about
controlling."
By using words such as "substantive" and "control" you seem to mean that
power is a substance, which Foucault rejects. Is this your account or
Foucault's? Power relations, on Foucault's account, are actions acting upon
actions. To critique certain actions from within a power configuration, to
reject a subjective position, would then produce a different course of
actions. And if this new course of actions could not have been projected
prior to critique, then these new actions would be that of a newly emerged
subjectivity. I wonder how much conscious control there would be, I mean
like Foucault said about his books: "I write precisely because I don't know
yet what to think about a subject that attracts my interest....each new work
profoundly changes the terms of thinking which I had reached with the
previous work....When I write, I do it above all to change myself and not to
think the same as before." (Remarks on Marx, p.27) Which amounts to Foucault
being essentially non-essential. And now I'm losing my self.
Sean Hill