on 1/28/01 9:43 PM, Bryan C at kirk728@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> 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.
>
Which is the problem with how you set up your argument. Foucault undermines
the possibility to see it in such absolutes.
All of your objections are based upon a notion of emergence (of the subject)
that understands the subject as a _result_ of relations of power. My point
is that there is no result - it is a here and now matter. The subject comes
into existence and exists _only_insofar_as_ there are relations of power.
That means that influencing those relations of power and changing the way
the relate changes the subject they produce.
You also ignore my articulation of the manner in which the subject is
constructed as an acting subject - meaning that those actions _necessarily_
change the relations of power and thus the type of acting subject.
> 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.
>
You presume that Foucault tells you that you _should_ resist (or create
yourself) - he never does. The point is that we are always resisting and
that is how the subject (which is a resistant subject) comes into existence
to begin with.
This is not a normative question. It is a descriptive question. Perhaps
Foucault is _wrong_ (it is always a possibility) but that cannot be proven
by demonstrating philosophical inconsistencies in normative terms.
>>
>> 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.
Yet another opposition. Why must we have these oppositions? Why must
absolute nihilism result in the refusal of positivism? It is the joke of
positivism itself - that refusal means certain destruction and thus we
cannot refuse.
Perhaps instead we must embrace nihilism? What is the problem with that,
anyway? Better do nothing than fuck more up.
Besides, what is wrong with nihilism? Perhaps in order to get somewhere we
must first recognize that everything _is_ meaningless.
>
>>
>> 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?
Who cares if action is ethical or not? I think the problem you are creating
is blurring the line between ethical and moral.
Ethics are not normative - they are frameworks, structures that are created.
You add a normative framework - that is not an ethics, that is a moral
system designed to create new normative structures. That is not at issue,
here.
Why, you ask, should anyone care for the self? To ask that question misses
the point entirely - we are always already caring for the self in discreet
ways. Every action is certain, particular, specific, localized. The question
is not _why_ but _how_ are different types of care possible. How can we (if
we determine that is what we desire) transform such relations of power that
thoroughly construct us in order to come up with a new politics of the self?
---
Asher Haig ahaig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dartmouth 2004
>> 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.
>
Which is the problem with how you set up your argument. Foucault undermines
the possibility to see it in such absolutes.
All of your objections are based upon a notion of emergence (of the subject)
that understands the subject as a _result_ of relations of power. My point
is that there is no result - it is a here and now matter. The subject comes
into existence and exists _only_insofar_as_ there are relations of power.
That means that influencing those relations of power and changing the way
the relate changes the subject they produce.
You also ignore my articulation of the manner in which the subject is
constructed as an acting subject - meaning that those actions _necessarily_
change the relations of power and thus the type of acting subject.
> 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.
>
You presume that Foucault tells you that you _should_ resist (or create
yourself) - he never does. The point is that we are always resisting and
that is how the subject (which is a resistant subject) comes into existence
to begin with.
This is not a normative question. It is a descriptive question. Perhaps
Foucault is _wrong_ (it is always a possibility) but that cannot be proven
by demonstrating philosophical inconsistencies in normative terms.
>>
>> 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.
Yet another opposition. Why must we have these oppositions? Why must
absolute nihilism result in the refusal of positivism? It is the joke of
positivism itself - that refusal means certain destruction and thus we
cannot refuse.
Perhaps instead we must embrace nihilism? What is the problem with that,
anyway? Better do nothing than fuck more up.
Besides, what is wrong with nihilism? Perhaps in order to get somewhere we
must first recognize that everything _is_ meaningless.
>
>>
>> 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?
Who cares if action is ethical or not? I think the problem you are creating
is blurring the line between ethical and moral.
Ethics are not normative - they are frameworks, structures that are created.
You add a normative framework - that is not an ethics, that is a moral
system designed to create new normative structures. That is not at issue,
here.
Why, you ask, should anyone care for the self? To ask that question misses
the point entirely - we are always already caring for the self in discreet
ways. Every action is certain, particular, specific, localized. The question
is not _why_ but _how_ are different types of care possible. How can we (if
we determine that is what we desire) transform such relations of power that
thoroughly construct us in order to come up with a new politics of the self?
---
Asher Haig ahaig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dartmouth 2004