Sean,
Thanks once agin for taking the time to reply.
>But do the potential political repercussions lie solely with the author? I
>think Foucault was acknowledging that the function of the author could not
>have total control of the life of the interpretations of the work.
Oh I would absolutely agree. I, for example, cannot be held totally
responsible, if (as some have done) people on the list interpret my
questioning as "smashing" or "disrupting". But the point for me is that some
level of responsibility does lie with me and I accept it. Yes I acknowledge
that sometimes my posts are over polemical, absurd, and partially
incoherent. sometimes this is deliberate, sometime unintentional. Equally,
however, I don't think we would want to get into a situation where we allow
people to produce a pamphlet full of racist slogans and Fascist images and
then allow them to turn round and say "that's your interpretation of it!".
So for me it is a two way process, texts need writers and an audience.
The way I read F is that one must write
>despite the possible appropriation of one's words beyond the author's
>intentions. I don't find that irresponsible. Can you hold Hegel or Marx
>responsible for Stalin? If anything I would say that the responsibility
>lies with the reader of the text.
I think here, you might be glossing over some fundamental points. The work
of Heiddegger, for example, did not simply get appropriated by fascists and
indeed perhaps his political beliefs were a motivating factor in his
philosophy, De Man, of course has the same problem. Nietzsche, although
never directly espousing fascism (temporally, of course, this was not
possible), did provide much that licenses such a form of politics. And I
find all that stuff about supermen deeply offensive and his misogny really
troubles me. Now, I am not saying that we should stop reading these people,
but that, yes they themselves are indeed partially responsible for the way
they have been appropriated, because certainly in Nietzsche's case he was
very elitist (not _read_ this way this is what he actually meant) and
dismissive of the herd. So I don't really like Nietzsche, not simply the use
to which his work has been out, although that doesn't mean I havent used him
at times.
>I hesitate to say this, because it seems I'm conceding to your point, but I
>don't think he would act any differently than you or I or any other
>rational person in contemporary society. But he doesn't need his work to
>inform him of that.
You see I still think you are misunderstanding me here. I am not saying that
he needs his work to inform him. My point is much more fundamental. That is,
if we, or he, really took his work seriously then he would never act,
because there are no grounds for action, but rather plenty of grounds for
inaction. So as I have already stated, when Foucaults acts he only acts by
becoming not-Foucault.
I don't think anyone needs a philosophy to tell them
>how they should act.
My reply here is that the question is not whether or not to act with or
without a philosophy, but rather, one always has a philosophy. Hence, I
simply don't agree with:
And I think that is why he can perform a genealogy of
>what we do, say, and think without needing to constantly measure it against
>a moral imperative.
Because, theory, as someone in my discipline once said, is always for
someone and some purpose.
>
>Where have you read that for Foucault the background is to be constructed?
>I read him as explicating the background, although realising, following
>Heidegger, that the background can never be fully articulable. And yes, I
>read some Marx in his work as well, though I wouldn't call it Marxist.
Well the first question relates to my reading of Foucault as a discursive
idealist. If this reading is simply incorrect could someone please coorect
me with references. Now of course, discursive idealism, like any form of
idealism, hits a major problem. If discourses construct their objects what
constructs the discourses. At this point Hegelian idealism goes mystical,
Berkelyian Idealism gets theistic, I simply wonder what Foucault does, how
does he explain the fact of object producing discourse, apart form other
discourses ad infinitum (in effect a viscious regress, with that which must
be explained being used to explian itself)? If he makes the move that there
is an ontological realm independent of discourse, then why does he not
accept that this may place strategic limits on our constructions of it? It
seems to me that foucault is very, very close to Rorty's position wherein
there are simply no non-linguistic constraints on how we talk about the
world. If I am wrong about this please correct me, because there is much in
foucault I like, but deep metaphysical disagreements (and, of course, I hate
his latent Hobbesianism: war of all against all etc. Power is everywhere. A
joke, by the way. If as Foucault says power is everywhere, why do I still
have to pay my electricity bills?).
And yes I agree, this is often more Marx in there than people care to admit.
>Are you saying that he cannot avoid the role of "traditional intellectual"
>even when he pronounces otherwise?
Yes, I suppose that is exactly my point. Here I think your argument about
not being totally in control is apt. Intellectuals play a specific role
independent of what they think their role is. They are simply not totally,
although not totally not as well, in control of their role.
>
>
>>But that does not mean that
>>>these same people could not find something useful or even dangerous in his
>>>work if they read him that way. That choice, or whether to read Foucault
>>>at all, is up to them.
Absolutely, as i have said i cannot stop anyone reading my posts in certain
ways. Still, if someone takes my posts home and begins to start trying to
cook up a culinary storm with them, we might have reasonable grounds to say
they had misinterpreted them. This is why we supply textual evidence and why
we try to learn more of the lives of the writers we read. We try to situate
them to contectualise them in order to understand better what it is they are
trying to say.
>
>Yes but readers have the responsibility whether to accept it or not, that's
>critical thought.
Were that it were that simple. Power, ideology, social relations etc., all
infect the reading process. Sometimes critical thought itself is simply not
possible in a certain social field.
>
>If you were advocating fascism I certainly would not silence you from doing
>so. But I don't have to accept it and I can certainly try to persuade you
>otherwise.
Ah but there's the point if I were it might not be self evident. But it
might be if I used certain phrases. So just as I am not totally in control
of how you interpret these posts, I can deploy certain devices that would
clearly make them fascist.
>
>Consciously, yes you would and perhaps should try to avoid those
>interpretations. But perhaps you could be unintentionally writing
>something that could be interpreted as fascist. Had Nietzsche known of the
>effect his work would have on the Nazis, don't you think he would have
>written differently?
No, sorry I don't. What evidence do we have that he was a radical egalatarian?
Like I said above, you don't need a moral
>philosophy in order to act morally.
Then how would such action be possible. Without such a philosophy how could
you distinguish a moral act form an immoral one? Look I too am against
formalism in ethics of the Kantian categorical imperative form or
consequentialism, my point is that morality is only possible if orientated
to a moral subject. Would it be moral to prefer the destruction of the world
to one's own little finger as Hume put it somewhere. If not why not, what is
the moral subject in such a decision, the enviroment or humanity?
A
>"Political Theorists like Walzer and Taylor think that Foucault's social
>criticism tacitly presupposesthe ideals of freedom, truth, justice, and
>progress that he discounts. Foucault's line of response has been the
>indirect one of denying that he either is or needs to be a political
>theorist.
I simply find this naive, do you really find this a defence? I mean
seriously, I am not having a go at you. He is a political theorist. I mean
here his latent commitment to a very strange form of the fact/value
distinction is bursting out.
Not a political theorist but instead a critical historian, his
>interests are different, and require no political self-justification.
This is simply plain weird, and can only make sense within the confines of a
very impoverished notion of the political.
Broad,
>impersonal social and historical developments may have little direct
>connection with what agents chosse to do or what they think they are doing.
I absolutley agree with this, but isn't this the essence of marxism, and how
does this relate to Foucault's critique of ideology?
>As a historian of movements of longer duration, Foucault's scope of
>analysis may not seem to include factors that individuals could normally
>take into account in formulating their own plans of action." (p.12)
Ditto. See above comment on Marx
Once again thanks for your comments, which if I might be allowed to use the
phrase seem to be an attempt to Enlighten me. If you concede this then maybe
there is hope for both of us, since it would imply that the possibilty
remains that I may become enlightened and also that your are commited to the
project of enlightenment.
Thanks,
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------
Thanks once agin for taking the time to reply.
>But do the potential political repercussions lie solely with the author? I
>think Foucault was acknowledging that the function of the author could not
>have total control of the life of the interpretations of the work.
Oh I would absolutely agree. I, for example, cannot be held totally
responsible, if (as some have done) people on the list interpret my
questioning as "smashing" or "disrupting". But the point for me is that some
level of responsibility does lie with me and I accept it. Yes I acknowledge
that sometimes my posts are over polemical, absurd, and partially
incoherent. sometimes this is deliberate, sometime unintentional. Equally,
however, I don't think we would want to get into a situation where we allow
people to produce a pamphlet full of racist slogans and Fascist images and
then allow them to turn round and say "that's your interpretation of it!".
So for me it is a two way process, texts need writers and an audience.
The way I read F is that one must write
>despite the possible appropriation of one's words beyond the author's
>intentions. I don't find that irresponsible. Can you hold Hegel or Marx
>responsible for Stalin? If anything I would say that the responsibility
>lies with the reader of the text.
I think here, you might be glossing over some fundamental points. The work
of Heiddegger, for example, did not simply get appropriated by fascists and
indeed perhaps his political beliefs were a motivating factor in his
philosophy, De Man, of course has the same problem. Nietzsche, although
never directly espousing fascism (temporally, of course, this was not
possible), did provide much that licenses such a form of politics. And I
find all that stuff about supermen deeply offensive and his misogny really
troubles me. Now, I am not saying that we should stop reading these people,
but that, yes they themselves are indeed partially responsible for the way
they have been appropriated, because certainly in Nietzsche's case he was
very elitist (not _read_ this way this is what he actually meant) and
dismissive of the herd. So I don't really like Nietzsche, not simply the use
to which his work has been out, although that doesn't mean I havent used him
at times.
>I hesitate to say this, because it seems I'm conceding to your point, but I
>don't think he would act any differently than you or I or any other
>rational person in contemporary society. But he doesn't need his work to
>inform him of that.
You see I still think you are misunderstanding me here. I am not saying that
he needs his work to inform him. My point is much more fundamental. That is,
if we, or he, really took his work seriously then he would never act,
because there are no grounds for action, but rather plenty of grounds for
inaction. So as I have already stated, when Foucaults acts he only acts by
becoming not-Foucault.
I don't think anyone needs a philosophy to tell them
>how they should act.
My reply here is that the question is not whether or not to act with or
without a philosophy, but rather, one always has a philosophy. Hence, I
simply don't agree with:
And I think that is why he can perform a genealogy of
>what we do, say, and think without needing to constantly measure it against
>a moral imperative.
Because, theory, as someone in my discipline once said, is always for
someone and some purpose.
>
>Where have you read that for Foucault the background is to be constructed?
>I read him as explicating the background, although realising, following
>Heidegger, that the background can never be fully articulable. And yes, I
>read some Marx in his work as well, though I wouldn't call it Marxist.
Well the first question relates to my reading of Foucault as a discursive
idealist. If this reading is simply incorrect could someone please coorect
me with references. Now of course, discursive idealism, like any form of
idealism, hits a major problem. If discourses construct their objects what
constructs the discourses. At this point Hegelian idealism goes mystical,
Berkelyian Idealism gets theistic, I simply wonder what Foucault does, how
does he explain the fact of object producing discourse, apart form other
discourses ad infinitum (in effect a viscious regress, with that which must
be explained being used to explian itself)? If he makes the move that there
is an ontological realm independent of discourse, then why does he not
accept that this may place strategic limits on our constructions of it? It
seems to me that foucault is very, very close to Rorty's position wherein
there are simply no non-linguistic constraints on how we talk about the
world. If I am wrong about this please correct me, because there is much in
foucault I like, but deep metaphysical disagreements (and, of course, I hate
his latent Hobbesianism: war of all against all etc. Power is everywhere. A
joke, by the way. If as Foucault says power is everywhere, why do I still
have to pay my electricity bills?).
And yes I agree, this is often more Marx in there than people care to admit.
>Are you saying that he cannot avoid the role of "traditional intellectual"
>even when he pronounces otherwise?
Yes, I suppose that is exactly my point. Here I think your argument about
not being totally in control is apt. Intellectuals play a specific role
independent of what they think their role is. They are simply not totally,
although not totally not as well, in control of their role.
>
>
>>But that does not mean that
>>>these same people could not find something useful or even dangerous in his
>>>work if they read him that way. That choice, or whether to read Foucault
>>>at all, is up to them.
Absolutely, as i have said i cannot stop anyone reading my posts in certain
ways. Still, if someone takes my posts home and begins to start trying to
cook up a culinary storm with them, we might have reasonable grounds to say
they had misinterpreted them. This is why we supply textual evidence and why
we try to learn more of the lives of the writers we read. We try to situate
them to contectualise them in order to understand better what it is they are
trying to say.
>
>Yes but readers have the responsibility whether to accept it or not, that's
>critical thought.
Were that it were that simple. Power, ideology, social relations etc., all
infect the reading process. Sometimes critical thought itself is simply not
possible in a certain social field.
>
>If you were advocating fascism I certainly would not silence you from doing
>so. But I don't have to accept it and I can certainly try to persuade you
>otherwise.
Ah but there's the point if I were it might not be self evident. But it
might be if I used certain phrases. So just as I am not totally in control
of how you interpret these posts, I can deploy certain devices that would
clearly make them fascist.
>
>Consciously, yes you would and perhaps should try to avoid those
>interpretations. But perhaps you could be unintentionally writing
>something that could be interpreted as fascist. Had Nietzsche known of the
>effect his work would have on the Nazis, don't you think he would have
>written differently?
No, sorry I don't. What evidence do we have that he was a radical egalatarian?
Like I said above, you don't need a moral
>philosophy in order to act morally.
Then how would such action be possible. Without such a philosophy how could
you distinguish a moral act form an immoral one? Look I too am against
formalism in ethics of the Kantian categorical imperative form or
consequentialism, my point is that morality is only possible if orientated
to a moral subject. Would it be moral to prefer the destruction of the world
to one's own little finger as Hume put it somewhere. If not why not, what is
the moral subject in such a decision, the enviroment or humanity?
A
>"Political Theorists like Walzer and Taylor think that Foucault's social
>criticism tacitly presupposesthe ideals of freedom, truth, justice, and
>progress that he discounts. Foucault's line of response has been the
>indirect one of denying that he either is or needs to be a political
>theorist.
I simply find this naive, do you really find this a defence? I mean
seriously, I am not having a go at you. He is a political theorist. I mean
here his latent commitment to a very strange form of the fact/value
distinction is bursting out.
Not a political theorist but instead a critical historian, his
>interests are different, and require no political self-justification.
This is simply plain weird, and can only make sense within the confines of a
very impoverished notion of the political.
Broad,
>impersonal social and historical developments may have little direct
>connection with what agents chosse to do or what they think they are doing.
I absolutley agree with this, but isn't this the essence of marxism, and how
does this relate to Foucault's critique of ideology?
>As a historian of movements of longer duration, Foucault's scope of
>analysis may not seem to include factors that individuals could normally
>take into account in formulating their own plans of action." (p.12)
Ditto. See above comment on Marx
Once again thanks for your comments, which if I might be allowed to use the
phrase seem to be an attempt to Enlighten me. If you concede this then maybe
there is hope for both of us, since it would imply that the possibilty
remains that I may become enlightened and also that your are commited to the
project of enlightenment.
Thanks,
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------