> Hi!
>
Hello there.
> In order to see if I am understanding Foucault's _The Archaeology
> of ideas_, allow me to try to summarize up to about Ch. 4:
>
> Please tell me if I am missimg something important.
>
> Foucault says that the common "unities" (things such as fields
> of law, psychoanalysis), etc., all have gaps and interruptions in
> their domains of objects.
>
I think that it goes a bit beyond that. The fact is that each of these
"natural unities" have a construction of their own, which history is
usually overlooked (more on this further ahead).
> Foucault is making an experimental suspension of the usual
> structural categories in order to observe, from the outside, what
> regularities he can find among diverse groups of statements. That
> these statements are in different "unities" is no problem. Foucault
> proposes "discursive formations" that show regularities in
> regulationship that cut across categories of fields, cross from one
> "unity" to another. It is not a relationship between structures, but
> a recognition of common relationships between fields or unities.
>
I'd say additionally that what such formations have in common is that one
could find regularities in the way that they transform through time, that
is, although they're not structures that persist indiferently to history,
they undergo changes that can be shown to display certain regularities.
> The new method of analysis has no empirical basis (because that
> would be too normative(?) and structural), but is rather a tentative
> method for forming a new web of ideas not based upon the old system
> of "unities" which Foucault finds filled with incompatible levels,
> gaps, thresholds, limits, inconsistencies.
>
I have some difficulty with the usage of the word "empirical" in this
content. I think that the core of Foucault's argument is that each and
every "natural" unit is, in some way or the other, fabricated, in a way
that the researcher can not control. The concept of a discursive formation
is an attempt to create such an "unit" that is not taken as self-evident,
but, created in an act of will, if you wish, in a way that can be
recognized and accounted for.
> So, how's that?
>
> Gloria
>
I liked the summary, even considering the remarks above.
Ken
Kenneth Rochel de Camargo, Jr. MD PhD
Associate Professor - Social Medicine Institute
Rio de Janeiro State U. - Brazil
e-mail: kenneth@xxxxxxx
>
Hello there.
> In order to see if I am understanding Foucault's _The Archaeology
> of ideas_, allow me to try to summarize up to about Ch. 4:
>
> Please tell me if I am missimg something important.
>
> Foucault says that the common "unities" (things such as fields
> of law, psychoanalysis), etc., all have gaps and interruptions in
> their domains of objects.
>
I think that it goes a bit beyond that. The fact is that each of these
"natural unities" have a construction of their own, which history is
usually overlooked (more on this further ahead).
> Foucault is making an experimental suspension of the usual
> structural categories in order to observe, from the outside, what
> regularities he can find among diverse groups of statements. That
> these statements are in different "unities" is no problem. Foucault
> proposes "discursive formations" that show regularities in
> regulationship that cut across categories of fields, cross from one
> "unity" to another. It is not a relationship between structures, but
> a recognition of common relationships between fields or unities.
>
I'd say additionally that what such formations have in common is that one
could find regularities in the way that they transform through time, that
is, although they're not structures that persist indiferently to history,
they undergo changes that can be shown to display certain regularities.
> The new method of analysis has no empirical basis (because that
> would be too normative(?) and structural), but is rather a tentative
> method for forming a new web of ideas not based upon the old system
> of "unities" which Foucault finds filled with incompatible levels,
> gaps, thresholds, limits, inconsistencies.
>
I have some difficulty with the usage of the word "empirical" in this
content. I think that the core of Foucault's argument is that each and
every "natural" unit is, in some way or the other, fabricated, in a way
that the researcher can not control. The concept of a discursive formation
is an attempt to create such an "unit" that is not taken as self-evident,
but, created in an act of will, if you wish, in a way that can be
recognized and accounted for.
> So, how's that?
>
> Gloria
>
I liked the summary, even considering the remarks above.
Ken
Kenneth Rochel de Camargo, Jr. MD PhD
Associate Professor - Social Medicine Institute
Rio de Janeiro State U. - Brazil
e-mail: kenneth@xxxxxxx