Hi, Maja-Lisa!
I am pleased to meet you. Did you also do your work in English
or were you in another department at the U of AZ?
To Maja and everybody else, here's a question for thought:
Apologies in advance for any unfairness to Mr. Foucault's
arguments as I try to unravel them...
Well...it seems Foucault begins his _Archaeology..._ with a lot of
assertions that appear to be totally unsupported. He says that beneath
the seeming totalities of knowledge there are all these surprising
interruptions and discontinuities (21). This may be standard history
jargon, but it is all new to me. The man is very opposed to zooming
down to earth to give an example of such a discontinuity as a reality
check. What does he mean? Is he proposing the not-new theory that
knowledge advances by fits and starts, not by a continuous
progression? But this is NOT NEW! Is he only saying something that
others have said more simply using more abstruse terms?
An example of such a fit and start would be Copernicus de-centering
the earth from the universe. Is that what Foucault means here?
I am only 40 pages into the _Archaeology..._. Instead of examples,
I see that Foucault is fond of alluding to names. On page 4 he alludes
to "epistemological acts and thresholds" described by Bachelard.
(Nice of Bachelard AT LEAST to describe them.) I wonder what they
could be.
Further on Foucault continues his trot through the garden of past
theories by again ALLUDING to another theorist: G. Canguilhem, who,
he assures us, made analyses of "displacements and transformations"
of concepts that may serve as models SHOWING (hint to Foucault) that,
the history of a concept is not wholly and entirely that
of its progressive refinement, its continuously increasing
rationality, its abstraction gradient, BUT [emp. mine]
that of its various fields of constitution and validity,
that of its successive rules of use, that of the many
theoretical contexts....(4)
He goes on to comparing MACRO and MICRO scales in history of science,
RECURRENT REDISTRIBUTIONS reveal several pasts, several
forms of connection, several hierarchies of importance,
several networks of determination, several teleologies,
for one and the same science, as its present undergoes
change: thus historical descriptions are NECESSARILY
ORDERED by the present state of knowledge, they increase
with every transformation and never cease, in turn, break
with themselves...(5)
In other words, knowledge grows by fits and starts. And the whole
picture frame shifts when a breakthrough occurs. Yet, we never
reach a final picture frame, either, because each one is only good
until aother de-centering occurs.
OK--am I with him, so far? Comments? Further illustrations?
Discussion from 597r folks?
Thanks,
Glo
I am pleased to meet you. Did you also do your work in English
or were you in another department at the U of AZ?
To Maja and everybody else, here's a question for thought:
Apologies in advance for any unfairness to Mr. Foucault's
arguments as I try to unravel them...
Well...it seems Foucault begins his _Archaeology..._ with a lot of
assertions that appear to be totally unsupported. He says that beneath
the seeming totalities of knowledge there are all these surprising
interruptions and discontinuities (21). This may be standard history
jargon, but it is all new to me. The man is very opposed to zooming
down to earth to give an example of such a discontinuity as a reality
check. What does he mean? Is he proposing the not-new theory that
knowledge advances by fits and starts, not by a continuous
progression? But this is NOT NEW! Is he only saying something that
others have said more simply using more abstruse terms?
An example of such a fit and start would be Copernicus de-centering
the earth from the universe. Is that what Foucault means here?
I am only 40 pages into the _Archaeology..._. Instead of examples,
I see that Foucault is fond of alluding to names. On page 4 he alludes
to "epistemological acts and thresholds" described by Bachelard.
(Nice of Bachelard AT LEAST to describe them.) I wonder what they
could be.
Further on Foucault continues his trot through the garden of past
theories by again ALLUDING to another theorist: G. Canguilhem, who,
he assures us, made analyses of "displacements and transformations"
of concepts that may serve as models SHOWING (hint to Foucault) that,
the history of a concept is not wholly and entirely that
of its progressive refinement, its continuously increasing
rationality, its abstraction gradient, BUT [emp. mine]
that of its various fields of constitution and validity,
that of its successive rules of use, that of the many
theoretical contexts....(4)
He goes on to comparing MACRO and MICRO scales in history of science,
RECURRENT REDISTRIBUTIONS reveal several pasts, several
forms of connection, several hierarchies of importance,
several networks of determination, several teleologies,
for one and the same science, as its present undergoes
change: thus historical descriptions are NECESSARILY
ORDERED by the present state of knowledge, they increase
with every transformation and never cease, in turn, break
with themselves...(5)
In other words, knowledge grows by fits and starts. And the whole
picture frame shifts when a breakthrough occurs. Yet, we never
reach a final picture frame, either, because each one is only good
until aother de-centering occurs.
OK--am I with him, so far? Comments? Further illustrations?
Discussion from 597r folks?
Thanks,
Glo