Hi Pablo,
> 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?
In an early version of the preface to HS2 published in Rabinow's Foucault
Reader, Foucault gives an overview of his work and its inter-relation:
"...in Madness and Civilization I was trying, after all, to describe a
locus of experience from the point of view of the history of thought, even
if my usage of the word "experience" was very floating. Looking at
practices of internment, on the one hand, and medical procedures, on the
other, I tried to analyze the genesis, during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, of a system of thought as the matter of possible
experiences: first, the formation of a domain of recognitions
(connaissances) which constitute themselves as specific knowledge of
"mental Illness"; second, the organization of a normative system built on a
whole technical, administrative, juridical, and medical apparatus whose
purpose was to isolate and take custody of the insane; and finally, the
definition of a relation to oneself and to others as possible subjects of
madness....
"But the relative importance of these three axes is not always the same
for all forms of experience. And, moreover, it was necessary to elaborate
the analysis of each a little more precisely, starting with the problem of
the formation of domains of knowledge." (Rabinow, p.336)
I don't want to make the claim that Foucault abandoned the notion of social
mechanisms with the Order of Things, but like he says, each of his books
focusses on a specific area of his research: in OT, discourse; in D&P and
HS1, objectification practices; and in HS2 & 3, self-objectification. He
never abandoned social mechanisms in order to make the claim that language
rules govern social action. Although he came close to that by trying to
turn archaeology into epistemology (which is where difficulties arise,
along with the mistaken accusation of being a structuralist). You could
say that M&C and HS2 &3 deal with subjective experience but the scope
dimension of those books are different because of his other research in the
20 years between those projects. There is no single book of his that can
be understood without the others in his overall project. Which is probably
why many have misunderstood him. So Pablo, I don't think he abandoned as
much as shifted his area of focus.
Sean
> 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?
In an early version of the preface to HS2 published in Rabinow's Foucault
Reader, Foucault gives an overview of his work and its inter-relation:
"...in Madness and Civilization I was trying, after all, to describe a
locus of experience from the point of view of the history of thought, even
if my usage of the word "experience" was very floating. Looking at
practices of internment, on the one hand, and medical procedures, on the
other, I tried to analyze the genesis, during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, of a system of thought as the matter of possible
experiences: first, the formation of a domain of recognitions
(connaissances) which constitute themselves as specific knowledge of
"mental Illness"; second, the organization of a normative system built on a
whole technical, administrative, juridical, and medical apparatus whose
purpose was to isolate and take custody of the insane; and finally, the
definition of a relation to oneself and to others as possible subjects of
madness....
"But the relative importance of these three axes is not always the same
for all forms of experience. And, moreover, it was necessary to elaborate
the analysis of each a little more precisely, starting with the problem of
the formation of domains of knowledge." (Rabinow, p.336)
I don't want to make the claim that Foucault abandoned the notion of social
mechanisms with the Order of Things, but like he says, each of his books
focusses on a specific area of his research: in OT, discourse; in D&P and
HS1, objectification practices; and in HS2 & 3, self-objectification. He
never abandoned social mechanisms in order to make the claim that language
rules govern social action. Although he came close to that by trying to
turn archaeology into epistemology (which is where difficulties arise,
along with the mistaken accusation of being a structuralist). You could
say that M&C and HS2 &3 deal with subjective experience but the scope
dimension of those books are different because of his other research in the
20 years between those projects. There is no single book of his that can
be understood without the others in his overall project. Which is probably
why many have misunderstood him. So Pablo, I don't think he abandoned as
much as shifted his area of focus.
Sean