Hi Clare
> I completely agree with you here. These things are already there in
> his work in the notions of power-knowledge. They are just in a
> slightly different format. The same ideas are also there right from
> his earliest work - he merely keeps on changing his terminology and
> developing things from slightly different angles and refining his
> analysis.
I'm just wondering if you think that this formulation might not present a
notion of 'the author' and 'his ouevre' that Foucault himself rejected? It
seems to suggest that the work of Foucault consists in the unfolding of
something that was always present. Can you clarify exactly how you
understand the relation between the early and later work - do you mean that
the ideas in the earlier work persist alongside new, unprecedented concepts
that emerge later? Or that the later ideas are somehow entirely a
'development' of the earlier ideas?
Not that I accept Foucault's suggestion (in the quote you gave) that the
shift from power-knowledge to government represents anything like the
difference between 'dominant ideology' and 'power-knowledge' - it seems that
his work on government entails the power-knowledge relation even if not
entirely reducible to it - but I think we have to allow for substantial and
unforseeable shifts in Foucault's conceptual apparatus.
David
> I completely agree with you here. These things are already there in
> his work in the notions of power-knowledge. They are just in a
> slightly different format. The same ideas are also there right from
> his earliest work - he merely keeps on changing his terminology and
> developing things from slightly different angles and refining his
> analysis.
I'm just wondering if you think that this formulation might not present a
notion of 'the author' and 'his ouevre' that Foucault himself rejected? It
seems to suggest that the work of Foucault consists in the unfolding of
something that was always present. Can you clarify exactly how you
understand the relation between the early and later work - do you mean that
the ideas in the earlier work persist alongside new, unprecedented concepts
that emerge later? Or that the later ideas are somehow entirely a
'development' of the earlier ideas?
Not that I accept Foucault's suggestion (in the quote you gave) that the
shift from power-knowledge to government represents anything like the
difference between 'dominant ideology' and 'power-knowledge' - it seems that
his work on government entails the power-knowledge relation even if not
entirely reducible to it - but I think we have to allow for substantial and
unforseeable shifts in Foucault's conceptual apparatus.
David