On Sat, 4 Jul 1998, malgosia askanas wrote:
> This is not to deny what you say about Foucault, but it seems to me that
> this notion of theorizing suffers from a problem similar to the one you
> talk about in connection with freedom. It treats "theorizing" as if its
> purpose was to lay an egg and then sit on it. But theorizing, it seems to me,
> is always provisional
Turns out to have been provisional, maybe, but the practitioners of theory
have not typically thought themselves engaged in a provisional enterprise,
I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong. I agree that the word "theory" doesn't
have to be understood in the sense of a systematic exploration of what
something *is*, but I think that that's how the word has usually been
understood, and I think it's the sense that Larry had in mind when he
asked if there could be a Foucauldian theory of freedom--what he wanted, I
think, is some systematic exposition of *the nature of freedom* as far as
Foucault is concerned ... as opposed to just provisional riffing on what
freedom *might* be and how you *might* go about looking for it. That kind
of provisional riffing Foucault does plenty of himself; if that was what
one had in mind by "theory", one wouldn't find an absence of it in
Foucault and a need to construct one on his behalf.
Matthew
----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster University----
"The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
-----------------------------(Michel Foucault)--------------------------------