Murray,
Thanks for your reply, you said:
>Now I do not see this as being radically different from Foucault's
>position and in this respect I side with those who do not regard
>Foucault as a post-modernist, indeed I would share many of Colin's
>concerns expressed about Foucault but in relation to post-modernists. I
>may be wrong, but it seems to me, Colin, that you are situating F in
>this camp, to a large degree at least.
Yes, when I am critical of him this is indeed probably true. But, I think if
Foucault is not best described, or situated in this camp, then the
reappropriation of him is very important and how to show that this reading
is incorrect becomes crucial.
>
>Now you rightly point out that F. regarded truth as an effect of power,
>indeed this is so, but as I read it a) he is talking precisely about
>episemological truth,
Yes, I think here you are absolutely right.
b) he does not imply that all things which are
>called 'truths' have equal value, he clearly priveleges critical and
>scientific reason over other approaches,
Well he does, but what I fail to see if how he does it? This relates to the
relationship betwen truth and power. Because is he simply saying that the
'truths' he priveleges are true in virtue of the power that proscribes them,
or, in virtue of their intrisic truth value? These are two very different
things, not least because I don't think the powerful are always in
possession of the truth, or that the powerless have no truths. In effect, on
what grounds is he distinguishing between competing claims to 'truths'?
and c) following on from this,
>to take one example, F. is fairly clear in OT that he does not think
>that the human sciences are all bogus and have no 'scientific'
>credibility whatsoever, he is I think trying to destabilise them in a
>much more general way. Although still skeptical, even Habermas
>conceded, in the final instance, that F was an Enlightenment thinker in
>the Kantian tradition ('Taking aim at the heart of the present').
I couldn't agree more, but, there is a problems here. That is, the problem
of truth articulated above, which tends to cut the ground beneath him and is
in danger of sending him veering into the anti-Enlightenment camp
irrespective of his wishes. If foucault sees truth as an effect of power is
he really an ally of the Enlightenment. You see for me I don't dispute the
validity of his insights into the way truths are constructed, but what makes
this interesting, for me, is that it actually exposes the way these truths
are not really truths but are claims to truth which can be unmasked as such.
>
>So why is there no recognition of this or discussion of ontological
>truth in Foucault? Well, I'll resist the temptation to say it was
>irrelevant, for me, I take F's silence on this to be borne out of the
>futility of it as an enterprise, ontology is doomed to epistemology in
>the very act of speaking about it.
This is where we fundamentally begin to disagree and it also seems to be the
point where I think all manner of philosophical errors begin to emerge. the
central one being the conflation of ontology with epistemology, an error BTW
that effects empiricism (of course Foucault accepted this label for himself
so we can see how he was ensnared within this problematic prior to his
investigations), for which of course, 'to be' was 'to be percieved'
(ontology becomes epistemology). Now I don't doubt the epistemological
difficulties of coming to know the specifics of the ontological, and I
accept that we can only know the world through our descriptions of it and
there is simply no way of suspending our decriptions to see how they match
up to the world. But our description do not simply exist in an ontological
vacuum and it is not simply other descriptions and power which validate
which descriptions dominate. For example, Marx's jibe in, I think the
preface to the German Ideology, about a drowning man saving himself by
divesting himself of the concept of gravity seem apt here. there are
non-linguistic constraints on how we can describe the world. Our descrptions
are not free floating but embedded.
Of course 'we can only know things under certain descriptions'. But there
is no inference from 'there is no way to know a thing except under a
particular description' to 'there is no way to know that that thing exists
(and acts) independently of its particular description (and descriptions in
general)'. We can 'know' that the cosmos existed prior to the emergence of
humanity just as
we can 'know' that the earth was not once flat, whatever the inhabitants of
that particular paradigm believed and that the depletion of the ozone layer
did not simply begin when we became aware, and formulated discourses of it.
What is always missing is formulations of this form of naive anti-realism
which claims "we create the world in our descriptions of it" is any
specification on who exactly does and does not constitute the "we". Even
worse, if the "we" could be coherently specified, which is doubtful, the
creating of ozone layer depletion can only be described as a moment of
'perfect harmony', in which we all conspire to create a moment of perfect
auto-genesis. Yet, as Charcot said to Freud, 'Theory is good but it doesn't
stop things from existing'.
Equally, if reality is created in and through our language-games, theories,
discourses, Umwelts, and paradigms, etc., then no sense can be given to the
notion of particular language-games, theories, discourses, Umwelts, and
paradigms being wrong. Taken to its logical conclusion the denial of reality
independent of us can only lead to a denial that there is anything to be
wrong about. Subject now not only equals object but is its moment of genesis
and the formula can now be rewritten as "subject = b " (where b = object
created by subject). The world, reality, the cosmos itself just is as we say
it is. Humanity now becomes firmly secured in its rightful place, as
meaning-bestowing, reality-creating, manifestations of Geist/God. We didn't
discover the moons of Jupiter we made them. This is, as Raymond Murphy puts
it, 'a sociological theory of Disneyworld: a synthetic world inhabited by
artificial creatures, including humans, constructed by humans. It postulates
an all-powerful interpretation that creates what little reality it perceives'.
, but the point
>I am making is that F is not committed to denying the ontological basis
>of discourse in order to undermine it.
Yes, but you see, as far as I read him this is an empty realism, a
superficial sop to avoid the charge of idealism. What role does the real,
considered as mind independent reality (I accept that this formulation may
be too strong in the social world, but would still argue that the
preexistence of the social world prior to our birth enables talk of relative
independece from any particular interpretation of it), play shaping our
discourses?
Many thanks,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your reply, you said:
>Now I do not see this as being radically different from Foucault's
>position and in this respect I side with those who do not regard
>Foucault as a post-modernist, indeed I would share many of Colin's
>concerns expressed about Foucault but in relation to post-modernists. I
>may be wrong, but it seems to me, Colin, that you are situating F in
>this camp, to a large degree at least.
Yes, when I am critical of him this is indeed probably true. But, I think if
Foucault is not best described, or situated in this camp, then the
reappropriation of him is very important and how to show that this reading
is incorrect becomes crucial.
>
>Now you rightly point out that F. regarded truth as an effect of power,
>indeed this is so, but as I read it a) he is talking precisely about
>episemological truth,
Yes, I think here you are absolutely right.
b) he does not imply that all things which are
>called 'truths' have equal value, he clearly priveleges critical and
>scientific reason over other approaches,
Well he does, but what I fail to see if how he does it? This relates to the
relationship betwen truth and power. Because is he simply saying that the
'truths' he priveleges are true in virtue of the power that proscribes them,
or, in virtue of their intrisic truth value? These are two very different
things, not least because I don't think the powerful are always in
possession of the truth, or that the powerless have no truths. In effect, on
what grounds is he distinguishing between competing claims to 'truths'?
and c) following on from this,
>to take one example, F. is fairly clear in OT that he does not think
>that the human sciences are all bogus and have no 'scientific'
>credibility whatsoever, he is I think trying to destabilise them in a
>much more general way. Although still skeptical, even Habermas
>conceded, in the final instance, that F was an Enlightenment thinker in
>the Kantian tradition ('Taking aim at the heart of the present').
I couldn't agree more, but, there is a problems here. That is, the problem
of truth articulated above, which tends to cut the ground beneath him and is
in danger of sending him veering into the anti-Enlightenment camp
irrespective of his wishes. If foucault sees truth as an effect of power is
he really an ally of the Enlightenment. You see for me I don't dispute the
validity of his insights into the way truths are constructed, but what makes
this interesting, for me, is that it actually exposes the way these truths
are not really truths but are claims to truth which can be unmasked as such.
>
>So why is there no recognition of this or discussion of ontological
>truth in Foucault? Well, I'll resist the temptation to say it was
>irrelevant, for me, I take F's silence on this to be borne out of the
>futility of it as an enterprise, ontology is doomed to epistemology in
>the very act of speaking about it.
This is where we fundamentally begin to disagree and it also seems to be the
point where I think all manner of philosophical errors begin to emerge. the
central one being the conflation of ontology with epistemology, an error BTW
that effects empiricism (of course Foucault accepted this label for himself
so we can see how he was ensnared within this problematic prior to his
investigations), for which of course, 'to be' was 'to be percieved'
(ontology becomes epistemology). Now I don't doubt the epistemological
difficulties of coming to know the specifics of the ontological, and I
accept that we can only know the world through our descriptions of it and
there is simply no way of suspending our decriptions to see how they match
up to the world. But our description do not simply exist in an ontological
vacuum and it is not simply other descriptions and power which validate
which descriptions dominate. For example, Marx's jibe in, I think the
preface to the German Ideology, about a drowning man saving himself by
divesting himself of the concept of gravity seem apt here. there are
non-linguistic constraints on how we can describe the world. Our descrptions
are not free floating but embedded.
Of course 'we can only know things under certain descriptions'. But there
is no inference from 'there is no way to know a thing except under a
particular description' to 'there is no way to know that that thing exists
(and acts) independently of its particular description (and descriptions in
general)'. We can 'know' that the cosmos existed prior to the emergence of
humanity just as
we can 'know' that the earth was not once flat, whatever the inhabitants of
that particular paradigm believed and that the depletion of the ozone layer
did not simply begin when we became aware, and formulated discourses of it.
What is always missing is formulations of this form of naive anti-realism
which claims "we create the world in our descriptions of it" is any
specification on who exactly does and does not constitute the "we". Even
worse, if the "we" could be coherently specified, which is doubtful, the
creating of ozone layer depletion can only be described as a moment of
'perfect harmony', in which we all conspire to create a moment of perfect
auto-genesis. Yet, as Charcot said to Freud, 'Theory is good but it doesn't
stop things from existing'.
Equally, if reality is created in and through our language-games, theories,
discourses, Umwelts, and paradigms, etc., then no sense can be given to the
notion of particular language-games, theories, discourses, Umwelts, and
paradigms being wrong. Taken to its logical conclusion the denial of reality
independent of us can only lead to a denial that there is anything to be
wrong about. Subject now not only equals object but is its moment of genesis
and the formula can now be rewritten as "subject = b " (where b = object
created by subject). The world, reality, the cosmos itself just is as we say
it is. Humanity now becomes firmly secured in its rightful place, as
meaning-bestowing, reality-creating, manifestations of Geist/God. We didn't
discover the moons of Jupiter we made them. This is, as Raymond Murphy puts
it, 'a sociological theory of Disneyworld: a synthetic world inhabited by
artificial creatures, including humans, constructed by humans. It postulates
an all-powerful interpretation that creates what little reality it perceives'.
, but the point
>I am making is that F is not committed to denying the ontological basis
>of discourse in order to undermine it.
Yes, but you see, as far as I read him this is an empty realism, a
superficial sop to avoid the charge of idealism. What role does the real,
considered as mind independent reality (I accept that this formulation may
be too strong in the social world, but would still argue that the
preexistence of the social world prior to our birth enables talk of relative
independece from any particular interpretation of it), play shaping our
discourses?
Many thanks,
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA
--------------------------------------------------------