I don't share Marsden's realism, but I don't think it is fair to say
that he tacked on Foucault to make his book on Marx sexier. His argument
is that, to get a comprehensive account of capital, one should put
Foucault and Marx together: "Marx explains the 'why' of power and the
law
of motion of society and Foucault explains the 'how' of power and the
microphysics of society. To marry the 'why' and the 'how' of power, it
proved necessary to explicate the 'what': to reconstruct and synthesize
Marx and Foucault's respective objects, which I took to be 'relations of
production' and 'disciplinary power'."
My sense is that, in putting these two thinkers together, he forgets his
realist framework, but I lack the expertise to work that point out. In
any case his is a substantial argument and not just window dressing.
David McInerney complains that this discussion is superficial but does
not tell us what is so good about the writings that he cites. Except for
Macherey, who has turned Foucauldian in his later work, the other
Althusserians repudiate Foucault as relativist and defend the early
scientific project which Althusser himself repudiated later on.
Philip Goldstein
Mark Kelly wrote:
>
> I haven't read all of marsden's book - I gave up on it because it didn't
> really seem to have much to do with Foucault. It seemed a really interesting
> book about Marx though. Marsden in the early stages started pursuing lines
> like 'if Foucault is influenced by Althusser, then he was a realist' which
> seemed to be superficial to say the least as Foucault scholarship. My
> impression was that Foucault had been tacked on to make a book on Marx
> sexier. Not that I remotely blame Marsden for that or think that there is
> anything wrong with his scholarship in general.
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that he tacked on Foucault to make his book on Marx sexier. His argument
is that, to get a comprehensive account of capital, one should put
Foucault and Marx together: "Marx explains the 'why' of power and the
law
of motion of society and Foucault explains the 'how' of power and the
microphysics of society. To marry the 'why' and the 'how' of power, it
proved necessary to explicate the 'what': to reconstruct and synthesize
Marx and Foucault's respective objects, which I took to be 'relations of
production' and 'disciplinary power'."
My sense is that, in putting these two thinkers together, he forgets his
realist framework, but I lack the expertise to work that point out. In
any case his is a substantial argument and not just window dressing.
David McInerney complains that this discussion is superficial but does
not tell us what is so good about the writings that he cites. Except for
Macherey, who has turned Foucauldian in his later work, the other
Althusserians repudiate Foucault as relativist and defend the early
scientific project which Althusser himself repudiated later on.
Philip Goldstein
Mark Kelly wrote:
>
> I haven't read all of marsden's book - I gave up on it because it didn't
> really seem to have much to do with Foucault. It seemed a really interesting
> book about Marx though. Marsden in the early stages started pursuing lines
> like 'if Foucault is influenced by Althusser, then he was a realist' which
> seemed to be superficial to say the least as Foucault scholarship. My
> impression was that Foucault had been tacked on to make a book on Marx
> sexier. Not that I remotely blame Marsden for that or think that there is
> anything wrong with his scholarship in general.
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