(continued from previous post)
>>>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.
>
I can only partially agree with this as well. From a Foucaultian
perspective I think you are placing too much emphasis on the author's
intentionality for the locus of meaning. In many cases to always refer
back to the author's own self-understanding of a work may deemphasize the
rich criticisms and receptions that follow a work's initial appearance. Not
to say that understandings and misunderstandings are relatively valid. The
test of a good understanding is not by direct reference back to the
author's conscious intentions, since the author may have written in another
language, in another part of the world, and in another time, and it would
be impossible to recreate those conditions. We as readers today will read
a text within our own situations which we cannot divorce from our
understanding of the text and which the author cannot possibly account for.
>>
>>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.
>>
Exactly. There can be no reading that is not infected by some latent
idealogy. This is why I think Habermas sometimes sounds naively utopistic
about uncoerced speech situations. So as idealogies can always be found
beneath the conscious surface, I, unlike some critics of Foucault, do not
think that we are totally bound by them. I think critical thought must
always be possible. The question is whether it is actualizable in a
situation or not.
>>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?
>
Nietzsche I think found his enemies in belief systems rather than in
people. And many times the two get confused with each other especially as
he uses the image of certain people to represent certain beliefs. Now, I'm
by no means claiming he's an egalitarian, only that the focus of his attack
is complex and not immediately clear. The Nazi use of Nietzsche, for
example, does focus on a racial hatred, on particular groups.
> 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?
>
I think I understand your concern about the need for morality to be
anchored in a subject. I don't think Foucault was as anti-subjective as
many have made him out to be. I think it was in "The Subject and Power"
where he says something to the effect: what we need to do is not abandon
the subject, but find the capability to modify or change it, rather than be
condemned to the one we're given. There is a clear recognition of the
subject as a historical contingency, that although necessary for moral
action in any situation, can also change itself, but not rid itself of
subjectivity. Subjectivity is always situational and therefore contains a
moral sense. But the point is that this moral sense is specific to the
situation, and to abstract from that specificity (environment or humanity)
may force the subject into despondency and inaction, which reinforces the
status quo. (I think Rorty says something to this effect.) Rooting
morality in universals: whose universals can we all agree on?
>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.
>
Its not so much a defense as a clarification of his project. The
genealogical method does not necessarily inform moral agents, though it may
peer through cracks in history to see how it is we have become the moral
agents we are today. What genealogy finds about the hidden history of
moral agency may not be useful or necessary for agents to act in a moral
way. But since history today is understood as contingent anyway, what does
it mean to require theorists do only what is "necessary".
>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.
>
See my previous response.
> 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?
>
Well there are obviously common points between Foucault and Marx. However,
Foucault's concern is less about production than power. And what interests
me here is to what extent do people's self-understandings of moral agency
reinforce the status quo, that prevent them from acting? In other words,
to what degree do moral agents exercise power over themselves, preventing
them from recognizing internal breakdowns in their morality, and from
forming new self-interpretations correcting the older breakdowns. I'm not
as familiar with Marx, but it seems to me that he sees power as an effect
of production, as coming from above, that it is not internalized and thus
exercised over agents themselves. For Foucault, if people are corrupted by
idealogy, they themselves are implicated in the process. In other words,
they, perhaps unknowingly do it to themselves. Just because one acts
according to one's self-understanding of morality, does not mean that one
is acting to avoid oppressive conditions. Such effects may escape moral
understanding, which is a very difficult problem.
>>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,
While I don't think understandings can be made perfectly transparent to
each other, it certainly is valuable to test them in discussion. And this
discussion has given me the opportunity to rethink my position, consider my
possible mistakes. And yes I am committed to the project of enlightenment
but I am not quite thoroughly convinced that it doesn't produce its own
monsters or its own blindnesses.
Thanks again.
Sean
>>>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.
>
I can only partially agree with this as well. From a Foucaultian
perspective I think you are placing too much emphasis on the author's
intentionality for the locus of meaning. In many cases to always refer
back to the author's own self-understanding of a work may deemphasize the
rich criticisms and receptions that follow a work's initial appearance. Not
to say that understandings and misunderstandings are relatively valid. The
test of a good understanding is not by direct reference back to the
author's conscious intentions, since the author may have written in another
language, in another part of the world, and in another time, and it would
be impossible to recreate those conditions. We as readers today will read
a text within our own situations which we cannot divorce from our
understanding of the text and which the author cannot possibly account for.
>>
>>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.
>>
Exactly. There can be no reading that is not infected by some latent
idealogy. This is why I think Habermas sometimes sounds naively utopistic
about uncoerced speech situations. So as idealogies can always be found
beneath the conscious surface, I, unlike some critics of Foucault, do not
think that we are totally bound by them. I think critical thought must
always be possible. The question is whether it is actualizable in a
situation or not.
>>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?
>
Nietzsche I think found his enemies in belief systems rather than in
people. And many times the two get confused with each other especially as
he uses the image of certain people to represent certain beliefs. Now, I'm
by no means claiming he's an egalitarian, only that the focus of his attack
is complex and not immediately clear. The Nazi use of Nietzsche, for
example, does focus on a racial hatred, on particular groups.
> 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?
>
I think I understand your concern about the need for morality to be
anchored in a subject. I don't think Foucault was as anti-subjective as
many have made him out to be. I think it was in "The Subject and Power"
where he says something to the effect: what we need to do is not abandon
the subject, but find the capability to modify or change it, rather than be
condemned to the one we're given. There is a clear recognition of the
subject as a historical contingency, that although necessary for moral
action in any situation, can also change itself, but not rid itself of
subjectivity. Subjectivity is always situational and therefore contains a
moral sense. But the point is that this moral sense is specific to the
situation, and to abstract from that specificity (environment or humanity)
may force the subject into despondency and inaction, which reinforces the
status quo. (I think Rorty says something to this effect.) Rooting
morality in universals: whose universals can we all agree on?
>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.
>
Its not so much a defense as a clarification of his project. The
genealogical method does not necessarily inform moral agents, though it may
peer through cracks in history to see how it is we have become the moral
agents we are today. What genealogy finds about the hidden history of
moral agency may not be useful or necessary for agents to act in a moral
way. But since history today is understood as contingent anyway, what does
it mean to require theorists do only what is "necessary".
>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.
>
See my previous response.
> 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?
>
Well there are obviously common points between Foucault and Marx. However,
Foucault's concern is less about production than power. And what interests
me here is to what extent do people's self-understandings of moral agency
reinforce the status quo, that prevent them from acting? In other words,
to what degree do moral agents exercise power over themselves, preventing
them from recognizing internal breakdowns in their morality, and from
forming new self-interpretations correcting the older breakdowns. I'm not
as familiar with Marx, but it seems to me that he sees power as an effect
of production, as coming from above, that it is not internalized and thus
exercised over agents themselves. For Foucault, if people are corrupted by
idealogy, they themselves are implicated in the process. In other words,
they, perhaps unknowingly do it to themselves. Just because one acts
according to one's self-understanding of morality, does not mean that one
is acting to avoid oppressive conditions. Such effects may escape moral
understanding, which is a very difficult problem.
>>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,
While I don't think understandings can be made perfectly transparent to
each other, it certainly is valuable to test them in discussion. And this
discussion has given me the opportunity to rethink my position, consider my
possible mistakes. And yes I am committed to the project of enlightenment
but I am not quite thoroughly convinced that it doesn't produce its own
monsters or its own blindnesses.
Thanks again.
Sean