(My apologies to all, this message will probably come through twice)
Jivko
Thanks for explaining your perspective. On this point at least now we'
re not as far apart as you seem to think.
I think that whilst you make the claim that "I am not defining here
what is philosophy", your later suggestions that you "try to explain
why Foucault was philosopher" and that "philososphy is not a country,
whitch have borders with the other disciplines, but it is rather
notions making - whatever a philosopher do, he always does notion of it"
show that you are assuming a definition of what philosophy is, and
therefore (non explicitly perhaps) you _are_ offering a definition. And
it is one which is open to dispute.
>In the Philosophy faculty of Sofia U.
>we assume, that he was a Kantian.
Of course, you must accept that this is not a closed question. In many
respects I would agree that he was, but of a particular kind and with a
particular take. Others would counter that argument though.
and stuart, he might be concerned with
>deeper problematic ( "the deeper problematic" is the
>exact level of the philosophical), but that deeper
>problematic is not only the historical ontology - he
>investigates the Being of The Man - the space of the
>man, his body and the relation between the power and
>the body of the man, the problematic of the Life ( The
>birth of the clinic and, ofcourse, L'Histoire de la
>Sexualite)And , most of all - the freedom!
It's difficult to explain the thesis of my book and other work in a
brief paragraph, but let me just say that I think that Foucault is
investigating those kinds of questions, but all at the level of
historical ontology. There's the line in the late Foucault about 'a
historical ontology of ourselves, a historical ontology of the present'.
Ontology is the study of being. Heidegger reads Kant's first critique
as a work of ontology, not of epistemology (as the neo-Kantians of
Marburg did). Following this lead I read Foucault's Archaeology of
Knowledge as a work of ontology, or rather historical ontology, because
for Foucault, like the later Heidegger, and unlike the early Heidegger
or Kant, this is always a historical (to be understood in a non-
disciplinary sense) investigation. Historical ontology, following
Heidegger, I read as a historicisation of the Kantian problematic, and
I trace its thought through Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault. I think
that Foucault's investigations of power, freedom, space, etc. are all
working at this level. What would _you_ understand as historical
ontology then?
>I dont know how it is nowadays in the
>west. Maybe they hide the philosophical from you,
>because the power want to keep the right to workout
>the philosophical for itself. Maybe the power wants
>the questions on the Being, Life and the Freedom to
>be only priority of the power. :-))
Well, don't generalise about the 'west'... we've been there before...
There's a peculiar notion behind your suggestion here, which implies
that because you have a take on Foucault which may or not be novel, '
true', interesting, etc., anyone who doesn't have the same view is
either deficient in their philosophical 'training', or has been
brainwashed or denied the revelation you have found or been given in
Bulgaria. But given that I now teach politics and philosophy I must be
complicit in this hiding, or at least its accomplice.
Stuart
--
Jivko
Thanks for explaining your perspective. On this point at least now we'
re not as far apart as you seem to think.
I think that whilst you make the claim that "I am not defining here
what is philosophy", your later suggestions that you "try to explain
why Foucault was philosopher" and that "philososphy is not a country,
whitch have borders with the other disciplines, but it is rather
notions making - whatever a philosopher do, he always does notion of it"
show that you are assuming a definition of what philosophy is, and
therefore (non explicitly perhaps) you _are_ offering a definition. And
it is one which is open to dispute.
>In the Philosophy faculty of Sofia U.
>we assume, that he was a Kantian.
Of course, you must accept that this is not a closed question. In many
respects I would agree that he was, but of a particular kind and with a
particular take. Others would counter that argument though.
and stuart, he might be concerned with
>deeper problematic ( "the deeper problematic" is the
>exact level of the philosophical), but that deeper
>problematic is not only the historical ontology - he
>investigates the Being of The Man - the space of the
>man, his body and the relation between the power and
>the body of the man, the problematic of the Life ( The
>birth of the clinic and, ofcourse, L'Histoire de la
>Sexualite)And , most of all - the freedom!
It's difficult to explain the thesis of my book and other work in a
brief paragraph, but let me just say that I think that Foucault is
investigating those kinds of questions, but all at the level of
historical ontology. There's the line in the late Foucault about 'a
historical ontology of ourselves, a historical ontology of the present'.
Ontology is the study of being. Heidegger reads Kant's first critique
as a work of ontology, not of epistemology (as the neo-Kantians of
Marburg did). Following this lead I read Foucault's Archaeology of
Knowledge as a work of ontology, or rather historical ontology, because
for Foucault, like the later Heidegger, and unlike the early Heidegger
or Kant, this is always a historical (to be understood in a non-
disciplinary sense) investigation. Historical ontology, following
Heidegger, I read as a historicisation of the Kantian problematic, and
I trace its thought through Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault. I think
that Foucault's investigations of power, freedom, space, etc. are all
working at this level. What would _you_ understand as historical
ontology then?
>I dont know how it is nowadays in the
>west. Maybe they hide the philosophical from you,
>because the power want to keep the right to workout
>the philosophical for itself. Maybe the power wants
>the questions on the Being, Life and the Freedom to
>be only priority of the power. :-))
Well, don't generalise about the 'west'... we've been there before...
There's a peculiar notion behind your suggestion here, which implies
that because you have a take on Foucault which may or not be novel, '
true', interesting, etc., anyone who doesn't have the same view is
either deficient in their philosophical 'training', or has been
brainwashed or denied the revelation you have found or been given in
Bulgaria. But given that I now teach politics and philosophy I must be
complicit in this hiding, or at least its accomplice.
Stuart
--