>At 9:37 PM -0500 3/12/97, John Ransom wrote:
>
>>Power produces bodies, gestures, desires, etc.
>
>Just what is this power? Where does it reside? Or is it like God,
>everywhere and nowhere?
>
>Doug
See, this is the type of question that cannot be properly addressed in the
context of Foucault. Power (for Foucault) is not a substance; it is a
relation, a nominal term that he uses for his analyses. Power cannot be
found anywhere, but its effects can be found everywhere. It is not total
and it is always reversible. The way I read Foucault, it is enough to
study power's effects as they appear in our present practices, without
having to ontologize power as some unhistorical, transcendental object
which should be our goal to uncover. An very clear explanation of what he
means by this idea of power is "The Subject and Power" towards the end of
the Dreyfus/Rabinow book.
sean
>
>>Power produces bodies, gestures, desires, etc.
>
>Just what is this power? Where does it reside? Or is it like God,
>everywhere and nowhere?
>
>Doug
See, this is the type of question that cannot be properly addressed in the
context of Foucault. Power (for Foucault) is not a substance; it is a
relation, a nominal term that he uses for his analyses. Power cannot be
found anywhere, but its effects can be found everywhere. It is not total
and it is always reversible. The way I read Foucault, it is enough to
study power's effects as they appear in our present practices, without
having to ontologize power as some unhistorical, transcendental object
which should be our goal to uncover. An very clear explanation of what he
means by this idea of power is "The Subject and Power" towards the end of
the Dreyfus/Rabinow book.
sean