This is my first post to this list and I would like to comment on
something Sean has said on Dec. 23.
> I fully agree with you here. Perhaps I was too ambiguous in that post. I
> was trying to emphasize that in his archaeological period he sees language
> as autonomous, and therefore as determining human subjectivity. I
> understand that this autonomy leads to methodological difficulties. It
> left out any account of how human subjects can act freely: subjects could
> never influence the determining mechanisms of language, they could never
> get complete access to its autonomy. The point of his books in this period
> would seem empty and certainly would be without political effect. The
> introduction of the genealogies of power was an attempt to correct the
> methodological difficulties of his archaeology: he needed an account of how
> it is possible for human agents to act freely.
Sean, I really don't agree with that. This is pretty much Habermas'
interpretation of Foucault in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
(Chapter 11). What I don't agree with is the idea that Foucault have
suddenly forgotten social activity and subordinated it entirely to
discourse. Habermas' thesis is that this led Foucault to so many
difficulties that he had to reformulate his theory entirely. Genealogy
would then have his development motivated by internal theoretical and
methodological difficulties of the archeology of Les paroles et les
choses. I think this thesis overlooks all theoretical achievements of
Foucault in Histoire de la Folie. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that
Foucault have given such a central role of social mechanisms in Histoire
de la Folie, have forgotten it in Les paroles et les choses and then
suddenly rediscovered it in his Genealogy. Perhaps we should read Les
paroles et les choses not as Habermas proposes but keeping in mind what
Foucault says in Archeology of Knowledge, where the relation of
discourse and social activity is explicited. What do you think of that?
Sincerely,
Pablo Ortellado
something Sean has said on Dec. 23.
> I fully agree with you here. Perhaps I was too ambiguous in that post. I
> was trying to emphasize that in his archaeological period he sees language
> as autonomous, and therefore as determining human subjectivity. I
> understand that this autonomy leads to methodological difficulties. It
> left out any account of how human subjects can act freely: subjects could
> never influence the determining mechanisms of language, they could never
> get complete access to its autonomy. The point of his books in this period
> would seem empty and certainly would be without political effect. The
> introduction of the genealogies of power was an attempt to correct the
> methodological difficulties of his archaeology: he needed an account of how
> it is possible for human agents to act freely.
Sean, I really don't agree with that. This is pretty much Habermas'
interpretation of Foucault in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
(Chapter 11). What I don't agree with is the idea that Foucault have
suddenly forgotten social activity and subordinated it entirely to
discourse. Habermas' thesis is that this led Foucault to so many
difficulties that he had to reformulate his theory entirely. Genealogy
would then have his development motivated by internal theoretical and
methodological difficulties of the archeology of Les paroles et les
choses. I think this thesis overlooks all theoretical achievements of
Foucault in Histoire de la Folie. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that
Foucault have given such a central role of social mechanisms in Histoire
de la Folie, have forgotten it in Les paroles et les choses and then
suddenly rediscovered it in his Genealogy. Perhaps we should read Les
paroles et les choses not as Habermas proposes but keeping in mind what
Foucault says in Archeology of Knowledge, where the relation of
discourse and social activity is explicited. What do you think of that?
Sincerely,
Pablo Ortellado