re: unconscious of knowledge

<html><div style='background-color:'>Stuart
Thanks for recent comments. I will add mine beneath yours. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
 ?First, sure the level of analysis is at the level of connaissance, but in<o:p></o:p>
order to illuminate the conditions of its possibility, that is the level of<o:p></o:p>
savoir. Which might explain our dialogue. (I think it's kind of like<o:p></o:p>
Heidegger taking the analysis of a being [Dasein] as a way into the problem<o:p></o:p>
of being itself - an ontological inquiry whose mode of access is ontic<o:p></o:p>
knowledge. The problem is people then read Being and Time as an<o:p></o:p>
anthropology, which completely misses the point. And I think people do<o:p></o:p>
similar to Foucault, that is miss the fundamental level)?<o:p></o:p>
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I think your above comments hit the nail. Heidegger?s example is most appropriate and your subsequent observation totally agreed upon. But where I still find bit of disagreement is this: You say ?the level of analysis is at the level of connaissance?. I totally agree. Now you add that this is ?in order to illuminate the conditions of possibility?. Agreed but here is an ambiguity which might be the cause of disagreement, and that ambiguity concerns two different levels on which we can talk about ?conditions of possibility? of connaissance. The level of the formation of ?subject? and ?object? i.e the level of savior is surely the condition of the possibility of connaisance but this is not the level of Foucault?s analysis in OT, at least not mainly. On the other hand at the level of conniasance we can discover ?the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalized systems . . . .?. (AK p. 191). Foucault calls this episteme of that given period and says that it cannot be equated with connaisance. Now this episteme is also the condition of the possibility of connaisance. This is precisely the level of archaeology. This is the level on which Foucault is doing relational ontology. While the first level that is the level of the formation of savior is the level of genealogy. Foucault differentiates between the process of the formation of knowledge (connaissance) and the ?movement of knowledge (savior). I think first is the level of archaeology while second is the level of genealogy. Now this difference between the level of ?formation of knoweldge? (archaeological) level of ?movement of knowledge? (genealogical) level is in fact an abstraction and that?s why it is so much difficult to understand this distinction. It is abstraction because the struggle to grasp ?formation of knowledge? is also a new ?movement of knowledge? [that is why History for Foucault is the combination of process and structures).  Foucault himself struggles throughout to distinguish them and he often confused two levels of the conditions of the possibility of connaisance. I think later on by the ?introduction? of the notion of ?thought? gives Foucault extra tool to straighten out this ambiguity and confusion and in later works like (What is Enlightenment) he treats archeology and genealogy as two arms of a single method.  <o:p></o:p>
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?Do you think that the conceptual apparatus of AK disappears in the later<o:p></o:p>
work??<o:p></o:p>
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I think the above answers this also. I think yes Foucault never ceases to do archeology at any stage so if you treat Discipline and punish as later work, it is both archeological and genealogical work.  In later work on History of Sexuality genealogical is more prominent because his prime objective here is to trace the movement of the formation of modern ?subject?.  <o:p></o:p>
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What do you mean by the conditions of possibility of savoir? (I know what is<o:p></o:p>
meant by the conditions of possibility of connaissance; and i know what you<o:p></o:p>
mean about conditions of possibility)<o:p></o:p>
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that was a mistake. I realized that after I had posted it. Although I think one can make sense of ?the condition possibility of savior?. <o:p></o:p>
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That's interesting as a formulation, but what would you mean is different<o:p></o:p>
between archaeology and genealogy? I think the differences can be overblown.<o:p></o:p>
The incorporation of power is obviously an issue. But beyond that? To my<o:p></o:p>
mind the formulation you have that you cannot understand is the exact object<o:p></o:p>
of AK, albeit without the particular phrasing of 'positive unconscious'.<o:p></o:p>
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Beside what I have already said above, I would like to add that genealogy for Foucault is to ?record the singularity of events outside of any monotonous finality? (NGH p. 139). Archeology also traces ?singularity ? outside of any monotonous finality? but on the spatial plane, the metaphor here is table, while metaphor in the first case is ?long silent motions?. Having said that I agree with you that ?difference can be overblown?. To treat ?spatial? and ?temporal? in such a manner is abstraction. That?s why archeology and genealogy should be treated as two sides, two arms of a single method. And treating them separately is just for conceptual requirements.<o:p></o:p>
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?I don't find this a particular problem. I'm more struck by the continuity of<o:p></o:p>
Foucault's work, at least until the very late pieces (which is one of the<o:p></o:p>
issues I'm currently working on). To my mind Folie et deraison is not that<o:p></o:p>
dissimilar to Surveiller et Punir for example. The explicit methodological<o:p></o:p>
tools might be more overt, or may be altered by the topic reviewed, but i<o:p></o:p>
think the differences of his approaches can be overexaggerated?.<o:p></o:p>
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I am totally with you here, and I was not talking about this at all. I think there is no ?later? Foucault in this sense. I was rather talking about Foucault?s loose use of terms. Like recently I had experience that first he distinguishes between subjection and domination and then sometimes he uses domination in the sense of subjection, sometimes according to the original distinction and then again in the broad sense to include both.<o:p></o:p>
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I think the publication of his lecture courses is going to do similar things<o:p></o:p>
to what happened when Heidegger's courses were published. It is going to<o:p></o:p>
radically alter our view of Foucault. Those 'silent' periods between<o:p></o:p>
Foucault's major publications i.e. 1968 (or 1970) to 1975; 1976 to 1984 are<o:p></o:p>
already being filled with interesting new material.<o:p></o:p>
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It all depends on what our view is and I would like to hear more about you as I am not much aware of lecture courses and my sense is that Foucault had ironical awareness of the limitation of transformation notwithstanding his obsession with transformation and change.<o:p></o:p>
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Regadrs<o:p></o:p>
ali<o:p></o:p>
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