Hi Sean,
Thanks for your message. I do think you are right on about Foucault
vis-a-vis the enlightenment and enlightenment thinkers. True, Foucault
does think the enlightenment results in a trap, of sorts, such that
there is the logical possibility of one's being rational or irrational,
but one had damn well better be rational, and at any cost (to oneself,
to others). Thus, Foucault manages to characterize as "a trap" the very
rationality that Kant et al had equated, finally, with autonomy, hence
your correct observation about "the promise of free-thinking
individuals" and it being a integral part of modern consciousness (or
subjectivity, perhaps) to consider ourselves free-thinking subjects.
If I get your point, too, you are suggesting that, unlike the so-called
enlightenment thinkers themselves (and a number of people who don't
agree with Foucault!), Foucault understands that rationality to be
itself not a transcendental tool, but an historical production of sorts,
always actualized only in the form of subjectivity. (Kant's "Copernican
Revolution" began this understanding, but for Foucault Kant never
pressed it far enough.)
I think you are correct, too, when you point out the object/subject
distinction. Foucault's worry is that subjects understand themselves as
the objects about which there are truths to be found: in finding these
"truths," the apparent contradiction arrises, since as free-thinking
knowers, as you mention, a subject needs to be free of historical
limitations, yet its aim is to determine exactly that, its
historically-produced limitations (identities, etc). That - as I
understand it! - is why becoming a subject means subjecting oneself and
being subjected by others under the limits and constraints
of rules for determining truths. That's the limitation of being a
subject - being constrained by the rules for producing truth/falsity.
The limitation of being an object is being constrained by individual
truths themselves. (Ummmm, I think.)
Anyway, I think you've said it all better than I could.
Hmmmm. The two questions of subjectivity...
They are to a large extent tied up with all of the above, I think. I was
suggesting that philosophers have been concerned with an ontological
question and an epistemological question. The ontological question
concerns the nature of the subject: who/what am I? The epistemological
question is about knowledge, of course: what/how can I know?
My understanding of Foucault's importance is that in stressing
subjectivity, he in a sense elides the distinction between these two
questions, such that the question to ask is: who am I *as* a knowing
subject? In a sense, Foucault is pointing out that we tend to think of
who we are precisely in terms of what and how we know, and that this
production of our understanding of ourselves (what I, idiosyncratically,
like to call "epistemic constructivism") characterizes
post-enlightenment subjects. (A tiny example: prior to the
enlightenment, non-human animals were differentiated from human ones
often on the criterion that the former lacked souls and that the latter
did not. For moderns, though, the criterion seems all wrapped up in
epistemological concerns: do they think? can they form concepts?
etc...maybe an illustration, rather than an example of what I'm talking
about.) The point is that we are who we are largely on the basis of what
we know or are assumed to be capable of knowing.
I'm sure I haven't explained these thoughts well at all. But maybe its a
start. Feel free to push a bit and make some critical points, by all
means. Maybe I can begin to develop these thoughts for myself, too!
If it's okay, I'll leave the Marx question for a little while, both to
think about it and so that I can start making dinner. :)
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
In your message of 11:19 Dec 19 1996, you write:
> Blaine,
>
> Perhaps what is original in Foucault's work is that he sees "enlightenment
> blackmail" as a trap. Unlike, say, Horkheimer and Adorno who try to think
> against the enlightenment and encounter difficulties, Foucault recognizes
> that the attempt to flee the enlightenment as myth through more
> enlightenment is doomed to failure. His concern is more sober in that he
> doesn't think the present is necessarily significant; that it could be "a
> time just like any other." Enlightenment thinkers considered themselves to
> be living in a time of great transition, and perhaps they were. What we
> today inherit from them, the promise of free-thinking individuals from the
> constsraints of religious dogma, has largely conditioned the ways in which
> we think of ourselves. In other words, it is part of our modern
> consciousness to think of ourselves as free-thinking subjects. Foucault
> agrees with this, except that he sees this subjectivity as the interior of
> a more complex and pervasive objectivity constituted historically (through
> networks of power/knowledge). The interiorized modern subject is largely
> unaware of itself as historical object. This historical limitation is
> perhaps the limit of the phenomenological subject Foucault criticizes: the
> phenom. subject as privileged knower is displaced on F's account by the
> historical awareness of itself as object. So there is this hidden
> dimension to modern subjectivity which the genealogist finds as the
> constitution of subjectivity as object. this is what I think is the point
> of the "history of the present", that the subject takes a
> critical/historical distance on itself and finds itself as an
> historically-produced object.
>
> I'd like to know your thoughts on this, if you think I have it right or
> wrong, or don't make any sense at all. I also know there is much more to
> be added here, for instance, resistance to objectifying power, etc. But
> what I'd like to know more of is what you are considering the two questions
> of subjectivity. Could you elaborate more on the "ontological" one you
> emphasize? Also I'd like to know what you consider in relation to the
> epistemological question the difference(s) between F and Marx.
>
> Thanks
> Sean
>
--
Thanks for your message. I do think you are right on about Foucault
vis-a-vis the enlightenment and enlightenment thinkers. True, Foucault
does think the enlightenment results in a trap, of sorts, such that
there is the logical possibility of one's being rational or irrational,
but one had damn well better be rational, and at any cost (to oneself,
to others). Thus, Foucault manages to characterize as "a trap" the very
rationality that Kant et al had equated, finally, with autonomy, hence
your correct observation about "the promise of free-thinking
individuals" and it being a integral part of modern consciousness (or
subjectivity, perhaps) to consider ourselves free-thinking subjects.
If I get your point, too, you are suggesting that, unlike the so-called
enlightenment thinkers themselves (and a number of people who don't
agree with Foucault!), Foucault understands that rationality to be
itself not a transcendental tool, but an historical production of sorts,
always actualized only in the form of subjectivity. (Kant's "Copernican
Revolution" began this understanding, but for Foucault Kant never
pressed it far enough.)
I think you are correct, too, when you point out the object/subject
distinction. Foucault's worry is that subjects understand themselves as
the objects about which there are truths to be found: in finding these
"truths," the apparent contradiction arrises, since as free-thinking
knowers, as you mention, a subject needs to be free of historical
limitations, yet its aim is to determine exactly that, its
historically-produced limitations (identities, etc). That - as I
understand it! - is why becoming a subject means subjecting oneself and
being subjected by others under the limits and constraints
of rules for determining truths. That's the limitation of being a
subject - being constrained by the rules for producing truth/falsity.
The limitation of being an object is being constrained by individual
truths themselves. (Ummmm, I think.)
Anyway, I think you've said it all better than I could.
Hmmmm. The two questions of subjectivity...
They are to a large extent tied up with all of the above, I think. I was
suggesting that philosophers have been concerned with an ontological
question and an epistemological question. The ontological question
concerns the nature of the subject: who/what am I? The epistemological
question is about knowledge, of course: what/how can I know?
My understanding of Foucault's importance is that in stressing
subjectivity, he in a sense elides the distinction between these two
questions, such that the question to ask is: who am I *as* a knowing
subject? In a sense, Foucault is pointing out that we tend to think of
who we are precisely in terms of what and how we know, and that this
production of our understanding of ourselves (what I, idiosyncratically,
like to call "epistemic constructivism") characterizes
post-enlightenment subjects. (A tiny example: prior to the
enlightenment, non-human animals were differentiated from human ones
often on the criterion that the former lacked souls and that the latter
did not. For moderns, though, the criterion seems all wrapped up in
epistemological concerns: do they think? can they form concepts?
etc...maybe an illustration, rather than an example of what I'm talking
about.) The point is that we are who we are largely on the basis of what
we know or are assumed to be capable of knowing.
I'm sure I haven't explained these thoughts well at all. But maybe its a
start. Feel free to push a bit and make some critical points, by all
means. Maybe I can begin to develop these thoughts for myself, too!
If it's okay, I'll leave the Marx question for a little while, both to
think about it and so that I can start making dinner. :)
Peace,
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
In your message of 11:19 Dec 19 1996, you write:
> Blaine,
>
> Perhaps what is original in Foucault's work is that he sees "enlightenment
> blackmail" as a trap. Unlike, say, Horkheimer and Adorno who try to think
> against the enlightenment and encounter difficulties, Foucault recognizes
> that the attempt to flee the enlightenment as myth through more
> enlightenment is doomed to failure. His concern is more sober in that he
> doesn't think the present is necessarily significant; that it could be "a
> time just like any other." Enlightenment thinkers considered themselves to
> be living in a time of great transition, and perhaps they were. What we
> today inherit from them, the promise of free-thinking individuals from the
> constsraints of religious dogma, has largely conditioned the ways in which
> we think of ourselves. In other words, it is part of our modern
> consciousness to think of ourselves as free-thinking subjects. Foucault
> agrees with this, except that he sees this subjectivity as the interior of
> a more complex and pervasive objectivity constituted historically (through
> networks of power/knowledge). The interiorized modern subject is largely
> unaware of itself as historical object. This historical limitation is
> perhaps the limit of the phenomenological subject Foucault criticizes: the
> phenom. subject as privileged knower is displaced on F's account by the
> historical awareness of itself as object. So there is this hidden
> dimension to modern subjectivity which the genealogist finds as the
> constitution of subjectivity as object. this is what I think is the point
> of the "history of the present", that the subject takes a
> critical/historical distance on itself and finds itself as an
> historically-produced object.
>
> I'd like to know your thoughts on this, if you think I have it right or
> wrong, or don't make any sense at all. I also know there is much more to
> be added here, for instance, resistance to objectifying power, etc. But
> what I'd like to know more of is what you are considering the two questions
> of subjectivity. Could you elaborate more on the "ontological" one you
> emphasize? Also I'd like to know what you consider in relation to the
> epistemological question the difference(s) between F and Marx.
>
> Thanks
> Sean
>
--