John Ransom wrote:
> The citations could go on for a long time. Foucault was not "a complete
> stranger to the game of truth." I flatly do not understand it when someone
> says that Foucault doesn't say anything about the kind of truth I'm
> talking about (namely, the traditional conception of truth; the one F is
> criticizing and bending) and that a discussion of it is irrelevant to
> Foucault and that if you want to have such discussions you have to go
> somewhere else because you're not going to find it in him.
Yes, F. is clearly interested in 'truth'. The issue I think is whether
his concerns were somehow the same as, or a logical extension of the
perennial questions of philosophy. This is obviously an important
matter in terms of identifying the discursive relations and effects of
his work. A couple of points occur to me:
1) F. himself, as in so many matters, seems to have taken a strategic,
evasive and changing position regarding his relationship with
philosophy. Someone has already pointed out that 'philosopher' is a
name which F. eschewed. However in the interview "The masked
philosopher" (Politics, Philosophy and Culture) he seems to accept it.
What we might need to think through ( particularly for our own work) is
what the implications of the different possibilities might be.
2) At any rate, F.'s work does seem to analyse 'truths', not in terms of
an essential ontological nature, but as facts in themselves, i.e.
discursively constituted, or more particularly, looking at the specific
relationships between truth, power, subjects, etc. He does this, as we
all know, in a very specific way and not in order to derive a general
theory of truth or power. For this reason, I don't think it is entirely
accurate to see what Foucault was attempting as a direct engagement with
the philosophical debate about the nature of truth.
To quote from "The masked philosopher"
Christian Delacampagne. What becomes of the eternal questions of
philosophy in this learned society?... Do we still need them, these
unanswerable questions, these silences before the unknowable?
Foucault. What is philosophy if not a way of reflecting, not so much on
what is true and what is false, as on our relationship to truth?
...There is no sovereign philosophy, it's true, but a philosophy or
rather philosophy in activity. The movement by which, not without
effort and uncertainty, dreams and illusions, one detaches oneself from
what is accepted as trye and seeks other rules - that is philosophy...
It should also be added that it is a way of interrogating ourselves: if
this is the relationship that we have with truth, how must we behave: I
believe that a considerable and varied amount of work has been done and
is still being done that alters both our relation to truth and our way
of behaving... It is understandable that some people should weep over
the present void and hanker instead, in the world of ideas, after a
little monarchy. But those who, for once in their lives, have found a
new tone, a new way of looking, a new way of doing, those people, I
believe, will never feel the need to lament that the world is error,
that history is filled with people of no consequence, and that it is
time for others to keep quiet so that at last the sound of their
disapproval may be heard... (p. 330)
Sorry if this seems like soundbite Foucault, but I thought it was
germaine.
Best wishes
Murray
=================================
Murray K. Simpson,
Department of Social Work,
Frankland Building,
The University of Dundee,
Dundee DD1 4HN,
United Kingdom.
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/SocialWork/mainpage.htm
tel. 01382 344948
fax. 01382 221512
e.mail m.k.simpson@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> The citations could go on for a long time. Foucault was not "a complete
> stranger to the game of truth." I flatly do not understand it when someone
> says that Foucault doesn't say anything about the kind of truth I'm
> talking about (namely, the traditional conception of truth; the one F is
> criticizing and bending) and that a discussion of it is irrelevant to
> Foucault and that if you want to have such discussions you have to go
> somewhere else because you're not going to find it in him.
Yes, F. is clearly interested in 'truth'. The issue I think is whether
his concerns were somehow the same as, or a logical extension of the
perennial questions of philosophy. This is obviously an important
matter in terms of identifying the discursive relations and effects of
his work. A couple of points occur to me:
1) F. himself, as in so many matters, seems to have taken a strategic,
evasive and changing position regarding his relationship with
philosophy. Someone has already pointed out that 'philosopher' is a
name which F. eschewed. However in the interview "The masked
philosopher" (Politics, Philosophy and Culture) he seems to accept it.
What we might need to think through ( particularly for our own work) is
what the implications of the different possibilities might be.
2) At any rate, F.'s work does seem to analyse 'truths', not in terms of
an essential ontological nature, but as facts in themselves, i.e.
discursively constituted, or more particularly, looking at the specific
relationships between truth, power, subjects, etc. He does this, as we
all know, in a very specific way and not in order to derive a general
theory of truth or power. For this reason, I don't think it is entirely
accurate to see what Foucault was attempting as a direct engagement with
the philosophical debate about the nature of truth.
To quote from "The masked philosopher"
Christian Delacampagne. What becomes of the eternal questions of
philosophy in this learned society?... Do we still need them, these
unanswerable questions, these silences before the unknowable?
Foucault. What is philosophy if not a way of reflecting, not so much on
what is true and what is false, as on our relationship to truth?
...There is no sovereign philosophy, it's true, but a philosophy or
rather philosophy in activity. The movement by which, not without
effort and uncertainty, dreams and illusions, one detaches oneself from
what is accepted as trye and seeks other rules - that is philosophy...
It should also be added that it is a way of interrogating ourselves: if
this is the relationship that we have with truth, how must we behave: I
believe that a considerable and varied amount of work has been done and
is still being done that alters both our relation to truth and our way
of behaving... It is understandable that some people should weep over
the present void and hanker instead, in the world of ideas, after a
little monarchy. But those who, for once in their lives, have found a
new tone, a new way of looking, a new way of doing, those people, I
believe, will never feel the need to lament that the world is error,
that history is filled with people of no consequence, and that it is
time for others to keep quiet so that at last the sound of their
disapproval may be heard... (p. 330)
Sorry if this seems like soundbite Foucault, but I thought it was
germaine.
Best wishes
Murray
=================================
Murray K. Simpson,
Department of Social Work,
Frankland Building,
The University of Dundee,
Dundee DD1 4HN,
United Kingdom.
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/SocialWork/mainpage.htm
tel. 01382 344948
fax. 01382 221512
e.mail m.k.simpson@xxxxxxxxxxxx