Re: power/knowledge

Hi Daniel,
I would have thought, *Wissen* is closer to learned *Knowledge* than to
natural Wisdom. Just think of *Arbeit macht Frei*, over the entrances of
Dacchau, Buchenwald et al. What they both imply are concrete voluntary or
involuntary decisions.

Stephen Bean.
National University of Ireland. Cork

> From: Daniel Smith <t22ds@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 10:26:04 +0100
> To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: power/knowledge
>
> At 10:00 29/07/02 +0000, you wrote:
>> Hi Stephen Bean here,
>> I remember seeing the equivalent over the doorway to a school in Germany,
>> Wissen ist Macht, (Knowledge is Power). The school was dated, I think, 1895
>>
>> Stephen
>
> That's interesting, etymologically speaking. Crudely transliterated into
> English, 'Wissen ist Macht' becomes 'Wisdom is Might', which seems much
> closer to the conventional understanding of the English phrase 'knowledge
> is power'. That seems to me to be because 'power' in western society is
> synonymous with energy, in that power/energy has no apparent existence
> until it is used. The french formation as used by Foucault ('to be able
> to') seems to lay a far greater stress on the potential nature of power, on
> its conditional (both grammatically and in actuality) qualities.
>
> Nice to see the list discussing some real fundamentals of Foucault's work.
>
> Daniel Smith
> University of Aberdeen
>
> ------------
> Daniel Smith
> t22ds@xxxxxxxxxx
>


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