Yoshie wrote:
>The major differences between them [Foucault and Marx/Althusser on
>ideology] are the following.
>
>1) Foucault doesn't counterpose science to discourse/ideology. He probably
>thought that doing so would merely get us 'deeper' in a game of truth and
>ruse of power (though the depth metaphor here is rather infelicitous, given
>the subject in question: the rhetoric of 'depth' in bourgeois
>individualism).
>
>2) Foucault doesn't seem to think it important to ask a question about
>interests: who benefits from a discourse/ideology in question?
But this is exatly the point, I think. The science/ideology dichotomy
seems to suggest that there is a 'truth' that can be discovered, revealed.
That scientific methods will eventually get us there. And that once we
have truth at our disposal, then ideologies can be simply falsified. This
is what I understand to be ideology critique. And, this is exaclty what I
see Foucault making a departure from.
In the "Truth and Power" lecture, Foucault says this, I think--see pg. 118.
And I think he is arguing agianst Marxists here, including Althusser.
The notion of the subject which you bring up is also one of Foucault's
points of contention with ideology (same page as above).
So, it seems to me that F is very different on the question of ideology
than Marxist even Althusserian folks. I am confused as to why, Yoshie, you
started your message off saying that my reading of F's notion of ideology
was "narrow" and then turned around to posit the very points I was trying
to address. Or, were you saying that Foucault has a narrow interpretation
of ideology? That he misreads Marx and Althusser? Or that F reads them
right but is just wrong in his own ideas of discourse and power?
Matt
>The major differences between them [Foucault and Marx/Althusser on
>ideology] are the following.
>
>1) Foucault doesn't counterpose science to discourse/ideology. He probably
>thought that doing so would merely get us 'deeper' in a game of truth and
>ruse of power (though the depth metaphor here is rather infelicitous, given
>the subject in question: the rhetoric of 'depth' in bourgeois
>individualism).
>
>2) Foucault doesn't seem to think it important to ask a question about
>interests: who benefits from a discourse/ideology in question?
But this is exatly the point, I think. The science/ideology dichotomy
seems to suggest that there is a 'truth' that can be discovered, revealed.
That scientific methods will eventually get us there. And that once we
have truth at our disposal, then ideologies can be simply falsified. This
is what I understand to be ideology critique. And, this is exaclty what I
see Foucault making a departure from.
In the "Truth and Power" lecture, Foucault says this, I think--see pg. 118.
And I think he is arguing agianst Marxists here, including Althusser.
The notion of the subject which you bring up is also one of Foucault's
points of contention with ideology (same page as above).
So, it seems to me that F is very different on the question of ideology
than Marxist even Althusserian folks. I am confused as to why, Yoshie, you
started your message off saying that my reading of F's notion of ideology
was "narrow" and then turned around to posit the very points I was trying
to address. Or, were you saying that Foucault has a narrow interpretation
of ideology? That he misreads Marx and Althusser? Or that F reads them
right but is just wrong in his own ideas of discourse and power?
Matt