>
> I would tend to agree with your asseration, that Foucault is more Kantian
> than lyotardean or derridean. I read "What is Englightment", and your
> right, Foucault's position seems to me, that of a Kantian postion, in
> that he is a strong exponent of aesthetics and progressive change through
> art, where, he believes, is the only way to trascend the power/knowledge
> schemes, he's soo fond of. That is, instead of being anti-aesthetical, a
> post-modern position, he asserts the neccessity of aesthetics, just as
> Kant did. Being aesthetical as opposed to Anti-aesthetical, I feel that
> Foucault still beliefs in the good ole values of judgement, and therefore
> Truth, With MEANING!!! therefore, depth.
> Omar Nasim
> Department of Philosophy,
> University of Manitoba
>
> .
I find this discussion of Foucault as the prototypical "modern" rather
intriguing. Foucault has now been made into one who wishes to "transcend"
power/knowledge through the "progress" of art--along the way taking up his stand
for Truth and deep meaning.
First, Foucault constantly argued the Nietzschean claim that truth is itself a
product of a history of effects that we can only understand through genealogy.
He thereby eschews any hermeneutics that would seek a deeper meaning (this is
VERY explicit in his Archeology of Knowledge, but no less so in History of
Sexuality), just as he rejects the psycho-analytical pursuit of a deeper meaning
in the individual self. Next, while he may have provided a number of techniques
by which subjects can resist various disciplinary practices of power/knowledge
regimes he ALWAYS (from Order of Things through to History of Sexuality)
stressed that there is no OUTSIDE of power/knowledge.
Finally, if we are right to characterize Foucault as a modern, then why not just
go ahead and throw him in with Habermas--defending truth and recuperating
reason???
Yes, I agree that "What is Enlightenment" helps us to complicate any naive
characterization of Foucault as a post-modern, but all of his writings make it
clear that he would never buy into a simple modern/postmodern dichotomy in the
first place. Why not return to a close reading of Foucault's texts where we
might be able to disentangle his position from both the modernists and the
so-called post-modernists (sinced I'm not sure exactly who they are, Derrida
certainly can't easily be labeled one either).
Sam Chambers
St. Olaf College