Regarding the recent post on Foucault's use of the term technology:
It is my understanding that Foucault uses the word technology in a
similar sense to the early Greek word techne- to mean an "art, skill,
trade, applied science".. or, more generally put, a 'technique'.
The Greeks understood techne to be the primary human activity refering
to a physical or mental act of constructing reality- or, as a practice.
Moreover, as Heidegger has pointed out, techne, like episteme, was once
considered a mode of aletheuin.. that is, a form of truth-making.
Thus, when Foucault talks about technologies of power, he recognizes
that for every technology deployed there is simultaneously constituted
domain of knowledge, or truth. Thus the inseprability of
Power/Knowledge.
I think that in using this term technology Foucault is sharply aligning
himself with Heidegger and the notion that human beings are essentially
constructed by the nondiscursive background practices into which they
are thrown. This lies directly against the epistemic tradition that
holds that the World is representable by the right set of ideas,
meanings, or interpretations.
It is my understanding that Foucault uses the word technology in a
similar sense to the early Greek word techne- to mean an "art, skill,
trade, applied science".. or, more generally put, a 'technique'.
The Greeks understood techne to be the primary human activity refering
to a physical or mental act of constructing reality- or, as a practice.
Moreover, as Heidegger has pointed out, techne, like episteme, was once
considered a mode of aletheuin.. that is, a form of truth-making.
Thus, when Foucault talks about technologies of power, he recognizes
that for every technology deployed there is simultaneously constituted
domain of knowledge, or truth. Thus the inseprability of
Power/Knowledge.
I think that in using this term technology Foucault is sharply aligning
himself with Heidegger and the notion that human beings are essentially
constructed by the nondiscursive background practices into which they
are thrown. This lies directly against the epistemic tradition that
holds that the World is representable by the right set of ideas,
meanings, or interpretations.