I think that Foucault's own attitude is very informative in its
doubleness.
One aspect is that he obviously thought it worthwhile, purposeful, to
spend twelve hours a day in a library researching.
The other aspect is that he also claimed that all he had ever written
were fictions, nothing but fictions.
Truth is the most powerful rhetorical trope there is. There's just
nothing quite as affective as claiming something to be true to get
people to pay attention.
Foucault, I believe, was too much of a Nietzschean ever to think that
truth was the most important valuational mechanism ("and why not a will
to untruth?") and if you don't think there is any significant "property"
called truth anyway, then you are forced to a)stop doing epistemology
(phew) and b) have some other way of ordering ideas eg. the Nietzschean
method of asking "which one" believes and seeing this as either
life-affirming or life-denying.
Which is categorically not some kind of mystical hippy bollocks.
And just to complicate things, many life-denying beliefs also make
things more interesting ...
(some bodily actions may only be possible if they have been disciplined
- technically accomplished musicianship for example?)
Jon.
______________________________________________________
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doubleness.
One aspect is that he obviously thought it worthwhile, purposeful, to
spend twelve hours a day in a library researching.
The other aspect is that he also claimed that all he had ever written
were fictions, nothing but fictions.
Truth is the most powerful rhetorical trope there is. There's just
nothing quite as affective as claiming something to be true to get
people to pay attention.
Foucault, I believe, was too much of a Nietzschean ever to think that
truth was the most important valuational mechanism ("and why not a will
to untruth?") and if you don't think there is any significant "property"
called truth anyway, then you are forced to a)stop doing epistemology
(phew) and b) have some other way of ordering ideas eg. the Nietzschean
method of asking "which one" believes and seeing this as either
life-affirming or life-denying.
Which is categorically not some kind of mystical hippy bollocks.
And just to complicate things, many life-denying beliefs also make
things more interesting ...
(some bodily actions may only be possible if they have been disciplined
- technically accomplished musicianship for example?)
Jon.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com