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.
I would agree with the first part of this. I'm not sure that I understand
the last sentence. It seems to be reiterating what I am arguing against:
that is, if F's notion of power simply covers all the possibilities that we
have available, it is rather empty (I'll return to this term in sa minute)
because we are not concerned with how all of our actions our made possible,
only with those ones which act against some interest we have. Of course
the possibilities for my actions are determined by a whole number of social
factors. COnsider a woman who wants to have achild. Before, say, 1700,
she could not go to a hopsital and receive anesthesia or antispetic. This
was a limit placed on her actions, but it wasn't anything anyone could
change.
In the 1950's, by contrast, a woman basically had to go to the hospital and
get anesthtized and other stuff. This was a limitation placed on her by
the medical profession: one of the dubious sciences F aims to attack. It
was also an unnecessary limit: she could just as easily went to a midwife.
BUt this option was basicallt unavialble to mose people at that time. It
is this second kind of construction of our possibilities which I think is
important, and wehich I think F should be attacking. If he is attacking
the first, who cares? Not me. It's imp[ortant to understand those kinds of
limits and how we are constructed, but they are not something to resist
necessarily.
>
>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.
I d not mean that power has substance. although I'm not sure what the
denial actually means. It seems to be word play to me. I know F is
nominalistic about power as well as everything else. And I know F thinks
power is just actions acting upon other actions. BUt by substantive, I
meant that the above distinction must be incorporated. I siumply am not
interested, from a socio-threoretical, critical theoretical point of view,
about actions which affect my actions in some unimportant way. I realize
my actions are constrained by any number of things. THe important thing is
what constrains them such that I cannot act to fulfill my interests. This
does not imply some substance to power. Power can still be nominalistic,
can still not refer to some centered kind of thing.
Jeff
JLN
jlnich1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Philosophy
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY. 40509
>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.
I would agree with the first part of this. I'm not sure that I understand
the last sentence. It seems to be reiterating what I am arguing against:
that is, if F's notion of power simply covers all the possibilities that we
have available, it is rather empty (I'll return to this term in sa minute)
because we are not concerned with how all of our actions our made possible,
only with those ones which act against some interest we have. Of course
the possibilities for my actions are determined by a whole number of social
factors. COnsider a woman who wants to have achild. Before, say, 1700,
she could not go to a hopsital and receive anesthesia or antispetic. This
was a limit placed on her actions, but it wasn't anything anyone could
change.
In the 1950's, by contrast, a woman basically had to go to the hospital and
get anesthtized and other stuff. This was a limitation placed on her by
the medical profession: one of the dubious sciences F aims to attack. It
was also an unnecessary limit: she could just as easily went to a midwife.
BUt this option was basicallt unavialble to mose people at that time. It
is this second kind of construction of our possibilities which I think is
important, and wehich I think F should be attacking. If he is attacking
the first, who cares? Not me. It's imp[ortant to understand those kinds of
limits and how we are constructed, but they are not something to resist
necessarily.
>
>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.
I d not mean that power has substance. although I'm not sure what the
denial actually means. It seems to be word play to me. I know F is
nominalistic about power as well as everything else. And I know F thinks
power is just actions acting upon other actions. BUt by substantive, I
meant that the above distinction must be incorporated. I siumply am not
interested, from a socio-threoretical, critical theoretical point of view,
about actions which affect my actions in some unimportant way. I realize
my actions are constrained by any number of things. THe important thing is
what constrains them such that I cannot act to fulfill my interests. This
does not imply some substance to power. Power can still be nominalistic,
can still not refer to some centered kind of thing.
Jeff
JLN
jlnich1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Philosophy
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY. 40509