On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Nesta wrote:
> Matthew King wrote:
> > This is basically the question Habermas asks in _The Philosophical
> > Discourse of Modernity_. The answer is: why do you want *grounds*? You
> > do genealogical analyses when you find that the truth hurts, that some
> > formation of knowledge is hurting people with whom you're sympathetic.
>
> Why is 'some formation of knowledge' assumed to be the same as truth, if
> we are dealing not in the Foucauldian sense of knowledge as constructed
> but in a sense in which it does make sense to talk of 'truth' as some
> kind of absolute? Is it not, in that scenario, possible that some
> instances of the 'formation of knowledge' are so poorly grounded that
> they are not 'true' at all?
Yes. Some of what is "within the true", say, is not true (see "Discourse
on Language" / "The Order of Discourse"). In any event, as Barry Allen
argues in _Truth in Philosophy_, the question whether what *passes* for
true really *is* true remains open. There used to be racist bodies of
knowledge--truths, but also practices; you're right that we ought not
identify knowledge with truth, because knowledge is not only (maybe not
even mostly) propositional--which are not true. Is the truth about the
equality of races an absolute, acontextual truth? No, but it is based on
*things on which we all agree*, things which, if people had known them at
the time, would have been inconsistent with their racist beliefs. (For
instance, we know now that IQ tests were, for a long time, highly
culturally biassed (and inevitably are at least somewhat so)).
> It is true that one is more likely to do a 'genealogical analysis ' when
> one thinks that the power of knowledge is having an adverse effect: what
> would be the motivation for working in an alternative context: 'I am
> very happy with the state of the world, therefore I am going to go to
> the effort of thinking how it could be otherwise'? Even technologists
> don't invent labour-saving devices unless labour is being expended in a
> way they conceive to be inefficient - or expensive.
My point was that we needn't worry about a Foucauldian critique of truth
launching us into a vertiginous abyss where there are no footholds of
truth to cling to (as, say, Cartesian scepticism might). This is because
Foucault does not propose a critique of truth *in general*, but only a
critique of those truths which are found politically problematic.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows they learned to swim
--------------------------------(U2)---------------------------------------
> Matthew King wrote:
> > This is basically the question Habermas asks in _The Philosophical
> > Discourse of Modernity_. The answer is: why do you want *grounds*? You
> > do genealogical analyses when you find that the truth hurts, that some
> > formation of knowledge is hurting people with whom you're sympathetic.
>
> Why is 'some formation of knowledge' assumed to be the same as truth, if
> we are dealing not in the Foucauldian sense of knowledge as constructed
> but in a sense in which it does make sense to talk of 'truth' as some
> kind of absolute? Is it not, in that scenario, possible that some
> instances of the 'formation of knowledge' are so poorly grounded that
> they are not 'true' at all?
Yes. Some of what is "within the true", say, is not true (see "Discourse
on Language" / "The Order of Discourse"). In any event, as Barry Allen
argues in _Truth in Philosophy_, the question whether what *passes* for
true really *is* true remains open. There used to be racist bodies of
knowledge--truths, but also practices; you're right that we ought not
identify knowledge with truth, because knowledge is not only (maybe not
even mostly) propositional--which are not true. Is the truth about the
equality of races an absolute, acontextual truth? No, but it is based on
*things on which we all agree*, things which, if people had known them at
the time, would have been inconsistent with their racist beliefs. (For
instance, we know now that IQ tests were, for a long time, highly
culturally biassed (and inevitably are at least somewhat so)).
> It is true that one is more likely to do a 'genealogical analysis ' when
> one thinks that the power of knowledge is having an adverse effect: what
> would be the motivation for working in an alternative context: 'I am
> very happy with the state of the world, therefore I am going to go to
> the effort of thinking how it could be otherwise'? Even technologists
> don't invent labour-saving devices unless labour is being expended in a
> way they conceive to be inefficient - or expensive.
My point was that we needn't worry about a Foucauldian critique of truth
launching us into a vertiginous abyss where there are no footholds of
truth to cling to (as, say, Cartesian scepticism might). This is because
Foucault does not propose a critique of truth *in general*, but only a
critique of those truths which are found politically problematic.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows they learned to swim
--------------------------------(U2)---------------------------------------