Hi to the group. I was just in a few meetings the other day where this very question came up, and I'd like to offer my perspective by giving you an extract from an emprical study I conducted (using Foucault) and where I had tried to make the distintion for myself. I'd be glad to follow up with anyone, if any of it appears to need further elaboration of my take, so to speak.
Thank you,
Scot Hamilton.
here you are:
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Foucault also describes the boundaries of epistemes. And he does this in such a way that states that a historical episteme (what makes it distinctive and identifiable) will transcend any seminal theorists thought to be important to the development of a given scientific field; and also any state (or limitation) of scientific technologies that one could attribute to a given historical period. These qualifications tend to make the concept of episteme more fathomable in the sense that they remove its meaning from any substantial resemblance with Kuhnian paradigm:
?the episteme is not what may be known at a given period, due account taken of inadequate techniques, mental attitudes, or the limitations imposed by tradition; it is what, in the positivity of discursive practices, make possible the existence of epistemological figures (i.e. important scientists and theorists) and sciences.?
(Foucault, 1972, p. 192; parenthesis added)
Foucault, quite like Kuhn (1970), however, did come to his idea of episteme (and to the method of establishing one identifiable historical episteme from another) by laying emphasis upon all-encompassing alterations in scientific thought that have occurred over periods of time. The observed evidence for such changes were unearthed by Foucault?s characteristic mode of research: the painstaking discursive analysis of the historical archive. But on the importance of the idea of change and this specific type of investigative approach, he elaborates that:
?In fact, two things in particular struck me: the suddenness and thoroughness with which certain sciences were sometimes reorganized; and the fact that at the same time similar changes occurred in apparently different disciplines?It seemed to me that different kinds of changes were taking place in scientific discourse ? changes that did not occur at the same level, proceed at the same pace, or obey the same laws; the way in which, within a particular science, new propositions were produced, new facts isolated, or new concepts built-up?? (Foucault, 1970 p. xii)
So in that ?changes did not occur at the same level?? and that those which do excite Foucault?s interest are not linearly of the same science, then herein lies the fundamental difference between an archaeology of changes, and a (Kuhnian) sociology of shifts. While the latter is practiced on sciences, scientists and the scientific, the former is more concerned with conditions prior to all and not exhaustible in any. This distinguishes ?episteme? from ?paradigm,? and what Foucault would render as the discursive and non-discursive distinction.
For example, the reality of important historical events and the influence of instrumental theorists are not repudiated. Rather they are cast as non-discursive. The following rather lengthy quotation from Fox (1998) makes this somewhat comprehendible.
By being, ?determined in their situation?their perceptive capacity? and in ??conditions that dominate and even overwhelm them,? Foucault is making reference to the ontology of discourse (the discursive/non-discursive distinction). The surface level of discourse, is for Foucault, underpinned by ?rules? which operate independent of subjectivity. While it is agreed that discursive practices are agentic human activities, ?embodied in technical processes, in institutions, in patterns for general behavior, in forms for transmission and diffusion, and in pedagogical forms which, at once impose and maintain them?, the rules that govern them are mediated by power. This power is not a matter of personalized will, but a general impetus to ?create the possibilities to be able to speak the truth? (Fox, 1998 p. 418).
By instantiating, or being the environment in which discourses become historically possible and ?live,? however, power creates knowledge. But this is not a unilateral process. Knowledge also acts in an interdependent fashion by providing the very means or conditions in which power-relations are sustained. And in this vein, Foucault often speaks of this reciprocity in terms of the conjunction power/knowledge: i.e., that which makes it possible to say something about the world in a particular system of truth. Therefore, isolated historic facts, actual theorists, or real physical events do not play any role in such regimes.
Therefore, here Foucault is not strictly interested in what is spoken about a topic, but more the culture-wide circumstances that obtain in something being able to be spoken of at all. And this developed ability and what may be socially significant about it, is ascertained by juxtaposing a given discourse with other geographical or historical conditions in which it, the discourse, did not, or could not exist (for example, the subject of biology before the end of the Eighteenth century ? a discourse which demanded a type of ordering or classification system that was not hitherto needed nor even perceivable; [Foucault, 1970]). Therefore, on one level of discursive analysis, it is less important what form of activity the speaking has emerged from (or ?in?), because the conceptual conditions relevant to an episteme operate across disciplines, and on different planes. Consequently, a certain neutrality is purposefully adopted towards the sum and substance of topic-related discourse, as it was never Foucault?s mission to tap the truth or falsity of scientific statements, their progressive passage or otherwise (Rabinow, 1984). But the maxim that it is not the formal structure of what is said in a scientific discourse, but the very existence of it that interests Foucault ? entails, however, that he must pay some attention to content. It is only that the significance of it suspended or bracketed for the purposes of his historical comparisons (Prado, 1995).
From: "Tourette's Syndrome, Foucault and Discourse: a grounded analysis."
Scot Hamilton, Ph.d.
--- On Wed 03/17, Arianna < ari@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:
From: Arianna [mailto: ari@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 19:04:16 -0800
Subject: Re: Foucault and Kuhn
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/agamben/agamben-what-is-a-paradigm-2002.html<br><br>This is Agamben's take on it. <br><br>----- Original Message ----- <br>From: "Iara Onate {PG}" <i.v.d.onate@xxxxxxxxxx><br>To: <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx><br>Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 3:51 AM<br>Subject: Foucault and Kuhn<br><br><br>> <br>> Dear colleagues,<br>> <br>> I am looking for references about studies relating the concept of episteme<br>> to paradigms. Does anyone could help me with that? Thank you very much in<br>> advance for any kind of help.<br>> Iara <br>> <br>> -- <br>> The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by<br>> charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may<br>> be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated<br>> in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such<br>> person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone<br>> and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is<br>> prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this<br>> message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise<br>> immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email<br>> for messages of this kind.<br>> <br>
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