>From: John Patrick <panoptician@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>The common expression "knowledge is power" seems to summarize his
>position.There doesn't seem to be anything revolutionary about that.
>Is the interpretation that "knowledge is power" an oversimplification of
>his work?
While I don't know exactly what the common expression means as well as I'm
not particularly familiar with the genealogy of the expression, I would say
the expression "knowledge is power" is too simplistic if 'knowledge' here is
understood as a "system" of representations of the (pre-existing) "reality."
As some people discussed recently within the context of Said, a discourse
can create the very "reality" that it purports to re-present. For instance,
by drawing on Foucault's concept of discourse, Said argues that the
Orientalism constitutes the reality of the Orient through statements that
claim to re-present or express the reality of the Orient. Thus, power or
domination can creep into knowledge as the constitution of what counts as
real.
Well, it's Saturday morning....
Hiro
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>The common expression "knowledge is power" seems to summarize his
>position.There doesn't seem to be anything revolutionary about that.
>Is the interpretation that "knowledge is power" an oversimplification of
>his work?
While I don't know exactly what the common expression means as well as I'm
not particularly familiar with the genealogy of the expression, I would say
the expression "knowledge is power" is too simplistic if 'knowledge' here is
understood as a "system" of representations of the (pre-existing) "reality."
As some people discussed recently within the context of Said, a discourse
can create the very "reality" that it purports to re-present. For instance,
by drawing on Foucault's concept of discourse, Said argues that the
Orientalism constitutes the reality of the Orient through statements that
claim to re-present or express the reality of the Orient. Thus, power or
domination can creep into knowledge as the constitution of what counts as
real.
Well, it's Saturday morning....
Hiro
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com