Re: foucault and adorno on enlightenment

In a message dated 5/4/99 9:31:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time, dickins@xxxxxx
writes:

> The primary feature of Enlightenment for Adorno is *domination* -- of man
> over nature, of man over man. The primary feature of Enlightenment for
> Foucault, on the other hand, involves probing the boundaries of our current
> thrownness both to understand better what we are and to investigate the
> possibilities of becoming something else.

I think you are drawing the lines too sharply. For Adorno, the human
condition is not somehow dramatically effected simply by the turn of the 18th
century. The Dialectic of Enlightment does make extensive commentary on the
functions of myth in society
which have been effective since the dawn of civiliation. Also, Foucault is
deeply aware of the domination of man by man. His writings on the strategies
of domination as seen in the clinic, family and prison where power and
strategy are predominant
seem to me to indicate a strong resemblance to Adorno and the critical
theorists. In fact, Foucault states that he was going to be a critical
theorist himself because he so loved reading the Frankfurt School. I have
never thought that Foucault was following Heidegger as you see to imply with
the use of words like 'throwness.'

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