5/29/97 9:22 am: COLIN WIGHT writes...
>One can't help but be amazed at the power play that hides behind the vulgar
>labelling that pervades Steve's post.
Fine point.
> However, i don't expect many of
>the Foucault crowd to know of these other aproaches because in my experience
>Foucault readers tend not to stray too far beyond what confirms their world
>view.
What is this if not another form of power play lurking behind some sort
of loose categorization of "the Foucault crowd"? I don't post much to
this list anymore, but when I was more active on it I found most of its
members to be quite diverse in their thinking--with, it seems to me,
quite large number of list members who took highly critical views of
Foucault's writings.
If you have the expectation that the members of this list are a bunch of
ignorant, unread, blind "followers" of Foucault, then I wonder why it's
necessary to enter into a process of communication with all of them. I
think your first point is an excellent one; it makes no sense to
caricature a realist position and then criticize it. But as a close
reader of Foucault and a close reader of many other authors in both
continental AND analytic philosophy, I must protest your own caricature.
I don't read Foucault's works (or anyone else's for that matter) in order
to "confirm my own world view"--just the opposite in fact. The
historical sense that Foucault develops from Nietzsche is what makes it
possible to render our own worldview contingent; it therefore creates the
conditions for change--in the way we think, act, write. Whether we want
to defend or criticize Foucault's positions (and there are more than one
of them), doesn't his writing at least give us this ability to think
differently.
"But, then, what is philosophy today--philosophical activity, I mean--if
it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In
what does it consist, if not in the endeavor to know how and to what
extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating
what is already known?" (HoS Vol. II, pp.8-9)
Maybe, to the extent I try to do just this, I am a member of the
"Foucault crowd," but if so it is precisely because I DO familiarize
myself with "other" approaches, never because I seek to confirm my own
world view.
--Sam
>One can't help but be amazed at the power play that hides behind the vulgar
>labelling that pervades Steve's post.
Fine point.
> However, i don't expect many of
>the Foucault crowd to know of these other aproaches because in my experience
>Foucault readers tend not to stray too far beyond what confirms their world
>view.
What is this if not another form of power play lurking behind some sort
of loose categorization of "the Foucault crowd"? I don't post much to
this list anymore, but when I was more active on it I found most of its
members to be quite diverse in their thinking--with, it seems to me,
quite large number of list members who took highly critical views of
Foucault's writings.
If you have the expectation that the members of this list are a bunch of
ignorant, unread, blind "followers" of Foucault, then I wonder why it's
necessary to enter into a process of communication with all of them. I
think your first point is an excellent one; it makes no sense to
caricature a realist position and then criticize it. But as a close
reader of Foucault and a close reader of many other authors in both
continental AND analytic philosophy, I must protest your own caricature.
I don't read Foucault's works (or anyone else's for that matter) in order
to "confirm my own world view"--just the opposite in fact. The
historical sense that Foucault develops from Nietzsche is what makes it
possible to render our own worldview contingent; it therefore creates the
conditions for change--in the way we think, act, write. Whether we want
to defend or criticize Foucault's positions (and there are more than one
of them), doesn't his writing at least give us this ability to think
differently.
"But, then, what is philosophy today--philosophical activity, I mean--if
it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In
what does it consist, if not in the endeavor to know how and to what
extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating
what is already known?" (HoS Vol. II, pp.8-9)
Maybe, to the extent I try to do just this, I am a member of the
"Foucault crowd," but if so it is precisely because I DO familiarize
myself with "other" approaches, never because I seek to confirm my own
world view.
--Sam