No, dear Cyuma,
I'm afraid I won't buy this. Call me ignorant. There was (at least concerning
me) no confusion of totalitarian vs. humanist version of Marxism, so I'll just
refer to your last paragraph:
> History itself is made by humans.
However, _Le mots et le choses_ wants to tell me the opposite: 'human' is made
by historical structures of organisation of knowledge (episteme).
> Humans and history are not independent.
Right. But the way humans influence history is not the way Kant's, Hegel's or
Marx' subject does. In my conception of F., 'human's' role in F's theory is a
desubjectivated one, more (but not really) related to Theory of Systems
(Luhmann) but to the tradition of 'enlighters'.
> Thus the idea that we are not an essence. No. We become.
Essence and Foucault? No, really. Please have a look at the last sentence of the ninth
chapter of _Le mots et le choses_. It's coming out quite clearly what F thinks
about human's essence: he's putting a philosophical laughter on it. Maybe
someone is so nice to quote this sentence; I don't want to bore (or amuse)
anyone with my translation from the german edition.
>Foucault's contextual/relational ways of analysis are convergent with
>Marx's human centered dialectical interpretations of the social real [...]
To me it rather seems he put human (too) in the center of (some of) his
discourses not to interpret the 'social real' but to unmask it as an ideology
- not a classes' ideology, but, so to say, the ideology of an episteme (the
era of history's episteme).
To me it sounds interesting what Thomas wrote concerning co-constitution
(even though I won't share his opinion about the role of language), because
this may open a more dialectical view on constitution of society nevertheless
referencing to F's thoughts - it's not *this* funny that this guy (F) cuts
off *all* the possibilities to talk about subject and society. IMHO he drops
the subject and the human although there is still a bunch of problems to
solve about them. Didn't he recognize that just at the time he tried to
destroy the 'subject' the real subjects began to disappear, like the
frankfurt-school showed, and it disappeared without being liberated from the
fetter of his furthermore valid name - subject, human - ? World's (not only
capitalistic) society profits by the absence of 'enlighted' subjects while it
still keeps individuals in responsibility and discipline (as subject/persons
of law, 'Rechtssubjekte' in german). No bad trick, and a good reason not to
stop talking about the subject/human! - Now just let me stop bothering you
with this stuff.
Anyway, I think it doesn't help, in order to talk about our (human's)
problems (like I want, too) *and* to include F's revealing thoughts
(also like what I'm trying), to *claim* that F belongs to a tradition he
objectively (and from his own point of view, subjectively, too) doesn't
belong.
Maybe it comforts you to know you made me curious of having a
closer look at Marx (even though not in relevance to F)? Hope so.
By the way: ever wondered if Marx could have been a thinker in the tradition
of Foucault, if any? :-) (Nietzsche would have been astonished about this,
I'm sure)
Benjamin
p.s.: If you still want to convince me, please notice that I'm on holiday from
25th of August to 15th of September.
___________________________
Netzadresse:
joeriben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm afraid I won't buy this. Call me ignorant. There was (at least concerning
me) no confusion of totalitarian vs. humanist version of Marxism, so I'll just
refer to your last paragraph:
> History itself is made by humans.
However, _Le mots et le choses_ wants to tell me the opposite: 'human' is made
by historical structures of organisation of knowledge (episteme).
> Humans and history are not independent.
Right. But the way humans influence history is not the way Kant's, Hegel's or
Marx' subject does. In my conception of F., 'human's' role in F's theory is a
desubjectivated one, more (but not really) related to Theory of Systems
(Luhmann) but to the tradition of 'enlighters'.
> Thus the idea that we are not an essence. No. We become.
Essence and Foucault? No, really. Please have a look at the last sentence of the ninth
chapter of _Le mots et le choses_. It's coming out quite clearly what F thinks
about human's essence: he's putting a philosophical laughter on it. Maybe
someone is so nice to quote this sentence; I don't want to bore (or amuse)
anyone with my translation from the german edition.
>Foucault's contextual/relational ways of analysis are convergent with
>Marx's human centered dialectical interpretations of the social real [...]
To me it rather seems he put human (too) in the center of (some of) his
discourses not to interpret the 'social real' but to unmask it as an ideology
- not a classes' ideology, but, so to say, the ideology of an episteme (the
era of history's episteme).
To me it sounds interesting what Thomas wrote concerning co-constitution
(even though I won't share his opinion about the role of language), because
this may open a more dialectical view on constitution of society nevertheless
referencing to F's thoughts - it's not *this* funny that this guy (F) cuts
off *all* the possibilities to talk about subject and society. IMHO he drops
the subject and the human although there is still a bunch of problems to
solve about them. Didn't he recognize that just at the time he tried to
destroy the 'subject' the real subjects began to disappear, like the
frankfurt-school showed, and it disappeared without being liberated from the
fetter of his furthermore valid name - subject, human - ? World's (not only
capitalistic) society profits by the absence of 'enlighted' subjects while it
still keeps individuals in responsibility and discipline (as subject/persons
of law, 'Rechtssubjekte' in german). No bad trick, and a good reason not to
stop talking about the subject/human! - Now just let me stop bothering you
with this stuff.
Anyway, I think it doesn't help, in order to talk about our (human's)
problems (like I want, too) *and* to include F's revealing thoughts
(also like what I'm trying), to *claim* that F belongs to a tradition he
objectively (and from his own point of view, subjectively, too) doesn't
belong.
Maybe it comforts you to know you made me curious of having a
closer look at Marx (even though not in relevance to F)? Hope so.
By the way: ever wondered if Marx could have been a thinker in the tradition
of Foucault, if any? :-) (Nietzsche would have been astonished about this,
I'm sure)
Benjamin
p.s.: If you still want to convince me, please notice that I'm on holiday from
25th of August to 15th of September.
___________________________
Netzadresse:
joeriben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx