Re: Order of Things

Thanks for that Ali. Further understanding for me. Does the following make
sense to you?

Perhaps what I benefited from reading Foucault was his empirical insight.
The four components of the social order that I have assembled (largely from
Harre's work) perhaps provide a way to articulate the unsayable.

Lionel

Lionel Boxer - 0411267256 - lboxer@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://intergon.freeyellow.com
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In 1976 Michale Foucualt said: ... terrorism ... has a totally opposite
effect which is to make the bourgeois class even more closely attached to
its ideology ... (original in French) 'Le Savoir Comme Crime'
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>From: Ali Rizvi <ali_m_rizvi@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: Order of Things
>Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:02:25 +0000
>
>
>Robert,
>
>I will also give it a try.
>
>[>The fundamental codes of a culture - those governing its language,
>>its schemas of perceptions, its exchanges, its techniques, its values, the
>>hierarchy of its practices - establish for every man , from the very
>>first, the empirical orders with which he will be dealing, and within
>>which he will be at home.]
>
>This is what may be termed as cultral a priori. For Foucualt it is both
>historical and empirical. It establishes in any culture what is syable and
>what is unsayable. It is much like Heidegger's concept of fore
>understanding with the exception that it is more structured then
>Heidegger's 'fluid' conception of pre understanding [may be explained by
>the influence of structuralism on Foucault beside his Heideggerian deep
>roots].
>
>People have trouble about such passages in Foucault mainly because they
>miss the key Foucauldian innovation of combining a priori with empirical.
>These structures are a priori to the extent that they historically define
>the whole field of experience but they are emprical to the extent that they
>are transcendentable and replaceable by wholly new a priori sturctures.
>
>[ At the other extremity
>>of thought, there are the scientific theories or the phloshophical
>>interpretations which explain why order exists in general, what universal
>>law it obeys, what principle can account for it, and why this particular
>>order has been established and not some other.
>>(Order of Things - Preface page xx).]
>
>As far as the cultural a priori is concerned it is unthematized. But as
>Kant's critique of pure reason testifies to it, what is unthematized can be
>'thematized' in philosophical thought. Heidegger calls this enterprise
>phenomenology. As Heidegger writes, "In the horizon of the Kantian problem
>what is understood phenomenologically by the term phenomenon (disregarding
>the other differences) can be illustrated when we say that what already
>shows itself in appearence prior to and always accompanying what we
>commonly understand as phenomenon, though unthematically, can be brought
>thematically to self showing. What thus shows itself . . . are the
>phenomeonon of phenomenology" (BT, section 7, p. 31 of the original and pp.
>27-28 of Joan Stambaugh trans.). In this context Focuault's cutlrual a
>priori can be roughly understood as corresponding to Heidegger's pheonomeon
>(disregarding differences) while phenomonology would correspond to the
>efforts of thematizing that cutltural a priori and a priori order. But we
>also know from Heidegger that pheonomonology can be turned into bad
>theorization where it forgets its roots in a priori, where theory tries to
>level the ambiguites and ambivalences of thought and tries to give a
>general account of the order in transperent manner. I think with theories
>and philosophical interpretations above, Focuault has these second sorts of
>endeavours in mind which he distinguishes from thought proper, which would
>correspond more to phenomenology in Heiddeger's sense.
>
>
>Sorry if I have made it more complicated. But I did not have enough time
>and did not have the OT available at the moment to check the context. Hope
>meomory did not deceive me totally.
>
>If you need any further clarifications please right back. Others are
>welcome to correct me.
>
>best
>ali
>
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