I don't think Foucault had a distinctive methodology or point of view. I think
he was always playing offense. When Foucault put forward an interpretation, he
was not saying "this is truth":He was saying "here is an alternative narrative
about X which, on its own terms, is fully as plausible and rich in meaning and
implication as the conventional story we normally hear told about X. Please
notice that this alternative story about X takes as essential precisely those
anomilies which most be ignored if the conventional story told about X is to
achieve coherence and closure." Foucault never attempted to put forth the "real
story" about anything. This attempt to tell the "real story" is what he
disparaged under the name of "commentary". His point is that there is no "real
story" that can be told about anything of much importance to human beings. His
point is that any telling of any story is told from one particular perspective.
This perspective determines what will be seen as essential or central to the
story and what will be seen as anomilous or trivial and therefor get left out
of the story. Foucaults' central point about power/knowledge is that power is
finally the power to impose the sense of what is essential determined by ones
own perspective on persons who do not share that perspective. Knowledge is the
power to define the real and to define anyone who dissents as "mad" "perverted"
"criminal" or "an F student". There is no knowledge in the absence of power and
no power which does not generate its own special knowledge. Educational
Psychology, for example, is the knowledge generated by the power of teachers
and administrators to define students from a perspective determined by the
demands made upon students by the public school system. Any student who does
not meet these demands is labeled as "lacking in social skills" or
"behavoirally disturbed". If the public school system disappeared tommarrow,
Educational Psychology would go the way of phrenology. If the demands made of
students within the public schools where to dramatically change for what ever
reason, the result would be a great leap forward by Educational Psychology. New
knowledge would be generated at a breath taking rate as all the pedogical
bigotries of the dark past melted away before the bright, warm light of
enligthened scientific thought.
Any comments,
Tony Michael Roberts
he was always playing offense. When Foucault put forward an interpretation, he
was not saying "this is truth":He was saying "here is an alternative narrative
about X which, on its own terms, is fully as plausible and rich in meaning and
implication as the conventional story we normally hear told about X. Please
notice that this alternative story about X takes as essential precisely those
anomilies which most be ignored if the conventional story told about X is to
achieve coherence and closure." Foucault never attempted to put forth the "real
story" about anything. This attempt to tell the "real story" is what he
disparaged under the name of "commentary". His point is that there is no "real
story" that can be told about anything of much importance to human beings. His
point is that any telling of any story is told from one particular perspective.
This perspective determines what will be seen as essential or central to the
story and what will be seen as anomilous or trivial and therefor get left out
of the story. Foucaults' central point about power/knowledge is that power is
finally the power to impose the sense of what is essential determined by ones
own perspective on persons who do not share that perspective. Knowledge is the
power to define the real and to define anyone who dissents as "mad" "perverted"
"criminal" or "an F student". There is no knowledge in the absence of power and
no power which does not generate its own special knowledge. Educational
Psychology, for example, is the knowledge generated by the power of teachers
and administrators to define students from a perspective determined by the
demands made upon students by the public school system. Any student who does
not meet these demands is labeled as "lacking in social skills" or
"behavoirally disturbed". If the public school system disappeared tommarrow,
Educational Psychology would go the way of phrenology. If the demands made of
students within the public schools where to dramatically change for what ever
reason, the result would be a great leap forward by Educational Psychology. New
knowledge would be generated at a breath taking rate as all the pedogical
bigotries of the dark past melted away before the bright, warm light of
enligthened scientific thought.
Any comments,
Tony Michael Roberts