Gabriel Ash writes:
>
> Rejecting teleology is one of F. important corrections of Marxism. However,
> I am not sure that what a Foucaldian reading should reject in Marx should be
> termed
> 'scientific'. I would rather call it dogmatic, or ideologic. How would you
> regard in
> this respect Bourdieu's 'updating' in "The social space and the Genesis
> of Groups", Theory and Society 14/6 1985, where he adressed this exact
> issues raised in this thread, i.e. the concepts of class, class
> consciousness,
> Marx's inadequacy, etc.?
> To cite Bourdieu (ex tempore), "Marx wanted to be counted
> a scientist, and the best homage we can do him is to surpass his science."
> If we leave out the desire to correctly (truely) describe the conditions of
> opression and
> the possibilities of resistence and change, and I take science to mean here
> the full
> application of the will to know with all its present sophistication, we are
> left with a vague
> yearning for a better world. This is what Marx most criticised in the
> 'utopists'.
>
Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the Bordieu pice to which you refer. In
fact, I have only read a little bit of Bordieu's work. I think the discussion
here turns on one's conception of science, what it means to call Marx a
scientist, and what the importance is of saying that "Marx wanted to be counted
a scientist."
In my reading of Marx and Foucault, I think that Foucault rejects that aspect of
Marx that wanted to be taken as a scientist; he seems to be referring to this
element of Marx's thought when he talks about "economism" in "Two Lectures."
So, to return again to Derrida's framing of the issues, it may be that to the
extent that you feel it necessary to retain a responsibility to a certain
"scientific" spirit of Marxism, that you and I are inheriting different Marx's.
I don't want that way of putting it to close off discussion, but rather to
reveal what I think needs to be delineated before it is possible to work toward
a description of the relation between Foucalt and Marx.
Sam Chambers
University of Minnesota
>
> Rejecting teleology is one of F. important corrections of Marxism. However,
> I am not sure that what a Foucaldian reading should reject in Marx should be
> termed
> 'scientific'. I would rather call it dogmatic, or ideologic. How would you
> regard in
> this respect Bourdieu's 'updating' in "The social space and the Genesis
> of Groups", Theory and Society 14/6 1985, where he adressed this exact
> issues raised in this thread, i.e. the concepts of class, class
> consciousness,
> Marx's inadequacy, etc.?
> To cite Bourdieu (ex tempore), "Marx wanted to be counted
> a scientist, and the best homage we can do him is to surpass his science."
> If we leave out the desire to correctly (truely) describe the conditions of
> opression and
> the possibilities of resistence and change, and I take science to mean here
> the full
> application of the will to know with all its present sophistication, we are
> left with a vague
> yearning for a better world. This is what Marx most criticised in the
> 'utopists'.
>
Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the Bordieu pice to which you refer. In
fact, I have only read a little bit of Bordieu's work. I think the discussion
here turns on one's conception of science, what it means to call Marx a
scientist, and what the importance is of saying that "Marx wanted to be counted
a scientist."
In my reading of Marx and Foucault, I think that Foucault rejects that aspect of
Marx that wanted to be taken as a scientist; he seems to be referring to this
element of Marx's thought when he talks about "economism" in "Two Lectures."
So, to return again to Derrida's framing of the issues, it may be that to the
extent that you feel it necessary to retain a responsibility to a certain
"scientific" spirit of Marxism, that you and I are inheriting different Marx's.
I don't want that way of putting it to close off discussion, but rather to
reveal what I think needs to be delineated before it is possible to work toward
a description of the relation between Foucalt and Marx.
Sam Chambers
University of Minnesota