Althusser and Foucault

At 02:16 09/10/97 +0900, you wrote:
>
>At 9:10 AM 97.10.8, John Ransom wrote:
>> Thanks. I'll check it out. Not that we need him for this, but Foucault
>> himself recommends Althusser. Foucault was a student of Althusser's, if
>> I'm not mistaken.
>

Yes, he does 'recommend' Althusser. In an interview in 1967 Foucault says:

"Having been [Althusser's] student and owing him much, perhaps I tend to
place under his sign an effort that he might challenge, so much that I
can't respond to what concerns him. But all the same, I would say: open
Althusser's books. There remains, however, between Althusser and myself,
an obvious difference: he employs the word epistemological break in
relation to Marx, while I affirm that Marx does not represent such a
break." (in FOucault Live, 1989 version, p. 14, 1996 version, p. 21).

THis difference relating to the epistemological break by Marx was also
argued in THe Order of THings, (p. 261-262).

Any thoughts on this?



-------------------
Campbell Jones
University of Otago
New Zealand
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