On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, John Ransom wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Mar 1997, Miles Jackson wrote:
> > (1) The philosophical question. What is truth? How do we obtain it?
> > How do we distinguish it from falsity? You find little about these
> > traditional philosophical questions in Foucault's work. And Matt and I
> > brought up Wittgenstein earlier because he makes a pretty good case that
> > this sort of philosophical diddling leads us down a dead end.
> >
>
> I dissent from the claim above. We find plenty about these traditional
> philosophical questions in Foucault's work. But I've said that and
> provided quotations from Foucault that support (though perhaps do not
> definitively prove) my claim; so I won't repeat. One question though:
> Unless you don't want to, please explain how Wittgenstein fits into the
> discussion.
All I can say here is: read Philosophical Investigations. I think it's a
good remedy for what ails traditional philosophy. Also, in earlier posts,
you quote Foucault on "Truth is--". I still argue this is not an
ontological claim; rather, it is a method. Bracket the ontological
question, and study how true statements are constituted and used in
our society. Do you think that sociologists of religion are making a
theological argument when they say "the gods are a way for society X
to maintain social cohesion?" The existence of the gods is irrelevant
here, from the perspective of the social effects. Sociologists of
religion could care less if the gods exist or not. Similarly for
Foucault and the traditional notion of truth as correspondence with
reality.
>
> > (2) The empirical question. What is socially accepted as truth? How do
> > true statements circulate in a society? What sorts of effects do these
> > true statements have? Again, note that the ontological status of these
> > statements is completely irrelevant. To understand, say, the history of
> > sexuality it is not necessary to report how essential sexual types
> > (say, homosexual/heterosexual) are masked or discovered in discourse;
> > rather, it is enough to say "At time X people constituted sexual type Y;
> > this had various ramifications".
>
> It doesn't seem to me that the ontological status is irrelevant.
> F's account is self-consciously directed against the more ontological,
> foundational, essential reading of human nature. What else is he
> criticizing in _HS_ Vol. 1 when he criticizes the "repressive hypothesis"?
>
The repressive hypothesis is just bad historical theory. If you want
to analyze
sexuality, positing sexual essences that preexist human history and
practice is absurd. Foucault and other historians have clearly shown
that sexual types emerge in historical contexts. They do not exist in
& of themselves. Even if there are "natural" sexual types like
heterosexual and homosexual, there must be discourse and practice that
makes those types socially identifiable and psychologically meaningful.
Remember, Foucault does not argue "there are no thing as essential
sexual types"; he argues "saying there are essential sexual types is
a poor explanation for the way in which sexual discourse proliferates
in Western societies". Foucault could care less whether sexual
orientation, for instance, is genetically or environmentally determined.
And despite what some social constructionists assume (I used to
believe this myself), Foucault does not consider his work to be an
argument against (or for) the idea that we have sexual essences.
> In _One-Dimensional Man_ Marcuse criticizes the post-WWII West for
> promoting what he calls "false needs" (_ODM_, Beacon Press, 1964, pp.
> 4-5). The "false" versus "true" needs opposition is an old and familiar
> one in a long tradition of critical thought. Needs can only be false or
> true relative to some preconceived human essence. Foucault is rejecting
> this oppositional, critical strategy. Doubtless, F wants us to be much
> more "ontic" in our thinking and much less "ontological." But he's doing
> it in opposition to a much more ontologically oriented tradition on the
> left (Marx and species being; Freud and the Id; Sartre and authenticity;
> Frankfurt School and true needs; etc. etc.). I think he fully wants to
> engage that discussion.
>
Yes. But I want to stress that he criticizes it as a strategy, as a
method, as politics. Foucault does not take a stand, I think, as an
anti-essentialist philosopher; rather, he points out the problems with
philosophical traditions that apply ideas such as "true needs" without
analyzing where the idea of "true needs" comes from and how the discourse
of true needs reinforces particular patterns of power relations. Again,
are there true needs? Foucault would not say. But he would point out
the strategic difficulties with using this concept and examine how this
discourse is used in specific historical contexts.
Miles Jackson
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