>From: Yves Winter <yves.winter@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: Power and the Subject
>Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 03:13:04 +0100
>
>Criticising the Kantian conception of autonomy does not necessarily imply a
>defence of "determinism". The opposition free will/ determinism is very
>metaphysical and is exceeded by Foucault's analysis. For Foucault the
>modern subject is not transcendental in the Cartesian sense, so it cannot
>serve as a fixed point from which you can construct an ethics. At the same
>time Foucault is not advocating a determinism. Determinism equally requires
>a transcendental point which structures our very existence according to
>some principle (be it some kind of notion of God, Hegel's dialectics or the
>Marxian oppositions of relations of production and productive forces).
I disagree. I remember a passage by Nietzche (I can't find it) talking
about how a superior being could calculate every action, emotion,
thought before it happened. There is also the determinism of
existentialism. If all there is is simply matter in motion, then the
laws of phisics will determine. Thus there is no trancendental point
from which it begins, there is simply the laws of phisics. Or in
the sense of F., the laws of the game of power relations. Without some
sort of transendental free will, the outcome is determinism.
>
>You mention Kant in your email. I think Kant's Third Critique is a good
>starting point for a Foucaultian ethics. Instead of trying to ground
>judgement and legitimate it according to some fixed and unassailable
>principle, Kant argues we should judge "as if" there was order rather than
>chaos in our world and hence act "as if" there was an effect of our action.
>Kant justifies this movement on the existential terror we feel if we
>consider history to have no purpose.
>
>Obviously this is not a clean "way out" of the problem: you could always
>argue that even the analogical movement of the "as if" remains locked in a
>logic of the subject (albeit be it now a very different subject, reduced to
>a capacity for a sentiment of terror).
>
>You are right that there can be no "ethical system", if by this term you
>mean a system of rational norms and rules which is universally valid across
>time and space and has some kind of foundation. This does not entail that
>there cannot be other forms of ethical action, localised and not attempting
>to construct a system.
I fail to see how any action, local or grand, can be considered to
have value without fundamental principles. Why should I create myself?
There is no answer.
>
>The opposition between "true" and "untrue" when it comes to ideas seems to
>me to be misplaced. Truth depends on a form of validity which functions
>according to a set of rules of verification. Verification in the positivist
>discourse system (which is what I suppose you mean by "modernism") requires
>you to demonstrate the object of your idea. Yet the Kantian concept of
>"Idea" is exactly that which exceeds demonstration. If you cannot
>demonstrate the object of justice, the good, the beautiful or what have
>you, than how can you ever verify the truth or reality of the idea itself?
I agree that positivist logic is self destructive. I simply cannot bring
myself to reject it for the alternative is the horror of absolute nihil-
ism. I simply choose to have faith in non-contradiction and build from
there. But I also see no other theory that describes situations. I have
never been given an example of when a proposition is both true and false.
>
>If ideas are neither true nor untrue, but beyond verification, this also
>entails that they are not "worthless". For how could you assign a value to
>an idea if you cannot even assign it a truth value?
If so, how can there be ethical action anymore. I think I must have
some fundamental misconceptions about F's care of the self. My
fundamental question is, absent an objective value, why care for
the self? What is it that lends value to certain localized actions?
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>Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: Power and the Subject
>Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 03:13:04 +0100
>
>Criticising the Kantian conception of autonomy does not necessarily imply a
>defence of "determinism". The opposition free will/ determinism is very
>metaphysical and is exceeded by Foucault's analysis. For Foucault the
>modern subject is not transcendental in the Cartesian sense, so it cannot
>serve as a fixed point from which you can construct an ethics. At the same
>time Foucault is not advocating a determinism. Determinism equally requires
>a transcendental point which structures our very existence according to
>some principle (be it some kind of notion of God, Hegel's dialectics or the
>Marxian oppositions of relations of production and productive forces).
I disagree. I remember a passage by Nietzche (I can't find it) talking
about how a superior being could calculate every action, emotion,
thought before it happened. There is also the determinism of
existentialism. If all there is is simply matter in motion, then the
laws of phisics will determine. Thus there is no trancendental point
from which it begins, there is simply the laws of phisics. Or in
the sense of F., the laws of the game of power relations. Without some
sort of transendental free will, the outcome is determinism.
>
>You mention Kant in your email. I think Kant's Third Critique is a good
>starting point for a Foucaultian ethics. Instead of trying to ground
>judgement and legitimate it according to some fixed and unassailable
>principle, Kant argues we should judge "as if" there was order rather than
>chaos in our world and hence act "as if" there was an effect of our action.
>Kant justifies this movement on the existential terror we feel if we
>consider history to have no purpose.
>
>Obviously this is not a clean "way out" of the problem: you could always
>argue that even the analogical movement of the "as if" remains locked in a
>logic of the subject (albeit be it now a very different subject, reduced to
>a capacity for a sentiment of terror).
>
>You are right that there can be no "ethical system", if by this term you
>mean a system of rational norms and rules which is universally valid across
>time and space and has some kind of foundation. This does not entail that
>there cannot be other forms of ethical action, localised and not attempting
>to construct a system.
I fail to see how any action, local or grand, can be considered to
have value without fundamental principles. Why should I create myself?
There is no answer.
>
>The opposition between "true" and "untrue" when it comes to ideas seems to
>me to be misplaced. Truth depends on a form of validity which functions
>according to a set of rules of verification. Verification in the positivist
>discourse system (which is what I suppose you mean by "modernism") requires
>you to demonstrate the object of your idea. Yet the Kantian concept of
>"Idea" is exactly that which exceeds demonstration. If you cannot
>demonstrate the object of justice, the good, the beautiful or what have
>you, than how can you ever verify the truth or reality of the idea itself?
I agree that positivist logic is self destructive. I simply cannot bring
myself to reject it for the alternative is the horror of absolute nihil-
ism. I simply choose to have faith in non-contradiction and build from
there. But I also see no other theory that describes situations. I have
never been given an example of when a proposition is both true and false.
>
>If ideas are neither true nor untrue, but beyond verification, this also
>entails that they are not "worthless". For how could you assign a value to
>an idea if you cannot even assign it a truth value?
If so, how can there be ethical action anymore. I think I must have
some fundamental misconceptions about F's care of the self. My
fundamental question is, absent an objective value, why care for
the self? What is it that lends value to certain localized actions?
_________________________________________________________________
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