I sent this list early details of this event a while ago. We now have more
details about speakers and programme, which are reproduced below. Please
contact me if you are interested in registering. We are very pleased the event will
now include Daniel Defert and Darius Rejali, and will be preceded on the
evening of the 15th by an event with Daniel Defert and Frederic Gros (editor of
Foucault lectures from 1982-4) at the Institut Francais.
kind regards
Colin
Michel Foucault (1926-1984): Other questions, new paths
_http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/conf904.html_ (http://www.foucault.
qut.edu.au/conf904.html)
A public seminar on Foucaultâ??s new publications, marking the 20th
anniversary of his death.
London School of Economics, 16 September 2004
with the support of the History of the Present Network
Foucaultâ??s published work has grown significantly in the past few years, in
volume and in its scope, scale and complexity. This one-day pubic seminar
will focus on what is new in seven recent and forthcoming volumes of Foucaultâ??s
lectures, how they change our view of his enterprise, and what new spaces of
enquiry and discussion they open up.
Books and topics discussed will include:
â??Society Must be defendedâ?? : Class, race and war
Security, Territory, Population and The Birth of Biopolitics:
Governmentality, power and rights
The Abnormal and Psychiatric Power : other genealogies of knowledge and
norm
Hermeneutics of the Subject and Fearless Speech : self, truth and ethics
Contributors will include:
Daniel Defert (Professor of Sociology, Univeristy of Paris 8): â??How Michel
Foucault wrote his lecturesâ??
Paul Patton (Professor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales): â??
Governmentality, Power and Rightsâ??
James Tully (Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, University of
Victoria): â??Fearless speech: Parrhesia and the critical attitudeâ??
Giovanna Procacci (Associate Professor of Sociology, Milan University)
Darius Rejali (Professor of Political Science, Reed College): â??Pastoral
Power, Torture and Democracyâ??
Tom Osborne (Reader in Social Theory, Bristol University): â??Foucault as
Educatorâ??
Nikolas Rose (Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics)
Graham Burchell (translator of Michel Foucault, The Abnormal and other
works; freelance writer): â??Confession and Spiritual Governmentâ??
Colin Gordon (editor, Power/Knowledge; co-author and editor, The Foucault
Effect): â??Philosophy and â??political spiritualityâ?? in the later Foucaultâ??
Registration:
Registration details will be announced shortly.
For enquiries and to express interest in attending please contact
[email protected]_ (mailto:colinngordon@xxxxxxx)
Michel Foucault (1926-1984): Other questions, new paths
_http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/conf904.html_
(http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/conf904.html)
A public seminar on Foucaultâ??s new publications, marking the 20th
anniversary of his death.
London School of Economics, 16 September 2004
Speakers and _Abstracts_ (aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#Abstracts)
Daniel Defert
Daniel Defert has been Assistant (1969-1970), Maître-assistant (1971-1985),
then Maître de
Conférence (from 1985) at the Centre Universitaire of Vincennes, which
became in 1972, Université Paris VIII Vincennes.
He was the founding president of Aides (_www.aides.org_
(http://www.aides.org/) : a leading European organization in the fight against AIDS)
(1984-91);he has been a member of the scientific committee for human sciences of the
International Conference on AIDS (1986-94); member of the world commission
for AIDS (WHO) (1988-93); member of the National Committee for AIDS (1989-98),
of the Global Aids Policy Coalition of Harvard (1994-1997), and of the
French "Haut Comité de la Santé Publique" (from 1998).
Daniel Defert is author of numerous articles in the domain of
ethnoiconography and public health. He is the co-editor of the Dits et Ecrits of Michel
Foucault (4 Vol., 1994). He has been awareded the decoration of Chevalier de la
Légion dâ??Honneur and received in 1998 the Prix Alexander Onassis for the
creation of Aides.
James Tully
_http://web.uvic.ca/polisci/tully/_ (http://web.uvic.ca/polisci/tully/)
(see also _http://web.uvic.ca/igov/people/faculty/tully_james.html_
(http://web.uvic.ca/igov/people/faculty/tully_james.html) )
_www.trudeaufoundation.ca_ (http://www.trudeaufoundation.ca/) . click on
News or Fellows for information and an article on modern parrhesia, 'Civic
Freedom in a Globalizing Age'.
An Approach to political philosophy: Locke in contexts (Cambridge U.P.,
1993)
Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an age of diversity.(Cambridge
U.P., 1995).
Multinational Democracies, ed. With Alain Gagnon (Cambridge U.P. 2001)
'To Think and Act Differently: Foucault's reciprocal objections to
Habermas', in S.
Ashenden and D. Owen, ed. Foucault Contra Habermas, Sage 1999.
â??The Agonic Freedom of Citizensâ??, Economy and Society, 28, 2 (May 1999).
â??Democracy and Globalizationâ??, Canadian Political Philosophy, ed. R. Beiner
and W. Norman (Oxford U.P. 2001)
â??Michel Foucault (1926-1984)â??, Encyclopaedia of Ethics, ed. Lawrence and
Charlotte Becker (Routledge 2001), Volume 1.
â??The Unfreedom of the Moderns in relation the ideals of constitutional
democracyâ??, Modern Law Review, 65, 2 (March 2002).
'Political Philosophy as a Critical Activity', in Political Theory, 30, 4,
August 2002.
â??The Kantian Idea of Europe: Critical versus Cosmopolitan Perspectivesâ??,
The Idea of Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden (Cambridge U.P. 2002).
'La liberte civique en contexte de globalisation', Les Cahiers du Juin 27,
1, 2 (October 2003).
â??Wittgenstein and Political Philosophyâ??, The Grammar of Politics, ed.
Cressida Heyes (Cornell U.P. 2003).
â??Diverse Enlightenmentsâ??, Economy and Society, 32, 3 (August 2003).
Paul Patton
_http://philosophy.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff/academic_staff/p_patton/prp/index.ht
ml_
(http://philosophy.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff/academic_staff/p_patton/prp/index.html)
Paul Patton and John Protevi eds Between Deleuze and Derrida, London and New
York: Continuum, 2003.
Paul Patton and Terry Smith eds Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction Engaged â??
The Sydney Seminars, Sydney: Power Publications, 2001.
Paul Patton Deleuze and the Political, London and New York: Routledge,
2000.
Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton, Will Sanders eds Political Theory and the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
â??Power and Right in Nietzsche and Foucaultâ??, International Studies in
Philosophy XXXVI (3), 2004, pp.43-61.
â??Foucaultâ?? in David Boucher and Paul Kelly eds Political Thinkers: From
Socrates to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp.516-35.
â??Foucaultâ??s Subject of Powerâ?? in Jeremy Moss ed The Later Foucault:
Politics and Philosophy, London: Sage, 1998, pp.64-77.
â??Foucaultâ?? in Simon Critchley and William R. Schroeder eds A Companion to
Continental Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, pp.537-48.
Darius Rejali
_http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/rejali/index.html_
(http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/rejali/index.html)
Books:
Torture, Technology and Democracy (forthcoming Princeton University Press,
2005)
Approaches to Violence (Forthcoming Princeton University Press, 2006).
Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in Modern Iran (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1994).
Recent Articles:
â??Friend and Enemy, East or West: Political Realism in the work of Usama bin
Ladin, Carl Schmitt, Niccolo Machiavelli and Kai Kaâ??us ibn Iskandarâ??
Historical Reflections 3 (2004)
â??Whom Do You Trust? What Do You Count On?â?? in Nineteen Eight-Four: Orwell
and Our Future (Princeton University Press, Forthcoming 2004)
â??Torture as a Civic Marker: Solving a Global Anxiety with a New Political
Technologyâ?? Journal of Human Rights 2:2 (June 2003): 153-171.
â??Electric Torture: A Global History of a Torture Technologyâ?? Connect:
art.politics.theory.practice (June 2001): 101-109
â??Studying a Practice: An Inquiry into Lapidationâ?? Critique: Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies (Spring 2001): 67-100
â??Ordinary Betrayals: Conceptualizing Refugees Who Have Been Tortured in the
Global Villageâ?? Human Rights Review (July-September 2000): 8-25.
â??After Feminist Analyses of Bosnian Violenceâ?? Peace Review (September,
1997). Republished in The Women and War Reader. Edited by Lois Ann Lorentzen
and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York University Press, 1998. (Paperback
1998)
Interventions on Abu Ghraib Torture:
â??Use of Torture Damages US Ability to Gather Intelligence,â?? The Oregonian
(May 6, 2004)
http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/10838
44
62899110.xml
â??A Long-Standing Trick of the Torturerâ??s Artâ?? The Seattle Times (May 14,
2004)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001928172_torture14.html
â??The Real Shame of Abu Ghraib,â?? Time (May 20, 2004)
_http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,640375,00.html_
(http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,640375,00.html) ).
â??Tortureâ??s dark allureâ?? and â??Does torture work?â??, Salon 18/6/04 and
21/6/04.
_http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_1/index.html_
(http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_1/index.html)
Tom Osborne
_http://www.bris.ac.uk/sociology/staff/thomasosborne.html_
(http://www.bris.ac.uk/sociology/staff/thomasosborne.html)
_Aspects of Enlightenment: Social Theory and the Ethics of Truth _
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0847690776/qid=1080157910/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_10_5
/202-5638154-3875837) Routledge, 1998.
Co-editor: Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and
Rationalities of Government Routledge 1996.
Co-editor: Society and the Life Science: in honour of Georges Canguilhem.
Economny and Society 27:2/3, 1998.
Recent papers include:
Celui qui disait non (on Pierre Bourdieu), International Journal of Cultural
Studies, 2002, 5 (3), 259-62
Samuel Beckett's literary anthropology, Journal of Beckett Studies, Spring,
2002, 11, 2, 74-89.
Utopia, counter-utopia, History of the Human Sciences, special issue, 2003,
6, 1, 121-34
What is neo-enlightenment? Human rights culture and juridical reason,
Journal of Human Rights, 2003, 2, 3
Against Creativity - a philistine rant, Economy and Society, November, 2003
Nikolas Rose
_http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/whoswho/rose.htm_
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/whoswho/rose.htm)
Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge University Press
(1999)
Governing the Soul (Second edition with new Preface and Afterword), Free
Associations Books (1999)
Inventing Our Selves, Cambridge University Press (1996)
The Psychological Complex, Routledge (1985)
_Biopower today _
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/RabinowandRose-BiopowerToday03.pdf) (with Paul Rabinow), Vital Politics: Health,
Medicine and Bioeconomics into the Twenty First Century, London School of Economics,
5-7 September 2003.
_Biological Citizenship_
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/RoseandNovasBiologicalCitizenship2002.pdf) , for Aihwa Ong and Stephen Collier,
eds., Blackwell Companion to Global Anthropology, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003
(with Carlos Novas)
_Introduction to The Essential Foucault : Selections from Essential Works of
Foucault_
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/RabinowandRose-IntrotoEssentialFoucault2003.pdf) , 1954-1984, New York: New Press, 2003 (with
Paul Rabinow)
Giovanna Procacci
Gouverner la misère. La question sociale en France 1789-1848. Paris. Seuil,
1997.
De la responsabilité solidaire - Mutations dans les politiques sociales
d'aujourd'hui
(with Colette Bec,Michel Messu) . Paris Syllepse 2003.
(with Arpad Szakolczai). La scoperta della società . Carocci 2003
Co-translator: Michel Foucault: Microfisica del potere (Einaudi 1977); La
volonta di sapere (Feltrinelli 1978).
â??Notes on the government of the social.â?? Law and Society. History of the
Present n° 3, Fall 1987; Barry Smart (ed.), Michel Foucault, Critical
Assessments, Routledge, 1995.
â??Social Economy and the Government of Povertyâ??. In The Foucault Effect,
1991 (1978).
â??Governing poverty: sources of the social question in nineteenth-century
Franceâ??. In Jan Goldstein (ed.), Foucault and the writing of history. Cambridge,
Blackwell. 1995.
Graham Burchell
Translations:
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (with Hugh Tomlinson;
Verso 1994).
Luc Boltanski, Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics (Cambridge
U.P. 1999).
Gilbert Somondon, L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (Zone, in
press)
Michel Foucault, Abnormal (St Martinâ??s Press/Verso 2003)
Michel Foucault, Hermeneutics of the Subject (St Martinâ??s Press,
forthcoming)
Michel Foucault, Psychiatric Power (St Martinâ??s Press, forthcoming)
Co-editor:
(with Colin Gordon and Peter Miller), The Foucault Effect. Studies in
Governmentality (Harvester, 1991)
Articles:
â??Peculiar Interests: Civil Society and Governing â??The System of Natural
Libertyâ?? in The Foucault Effect;
â??Liberal government and techniques of the selfâ?? in Andrew Barry, Thomas
Osborne, and Nikolas Rose, eds., Foucault and Political Reason, UCL Press,
1996.
â??Historische subjekte: Rassen, Nationen, Klassen. Die Grenzen Liberaler
Regierungrationalitätâ?? in Instituts für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Demokratie,
selbst, arbeit. Analysen liberal-demokratischer gesellschaften im anschluss an
Michel Foucault (Mitteeilungen des IWK, 2001)
Colin Gordon
Editor, co-translator, Michel Foucault Power/Knowledge. Selectes essays and
interview 1972-77 (Harvester, 1980).
Co-editor, co-translator: (with Graham Burchell and Peter Miller), The
Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality (Harvester, 1991)
Introduction and selection of contents: Michel Foucault (J Faubion ed.),
Power. Essential Works 3. New Press, 2001.
"The Soul of the Citizen: Max Weber and Michel Foucault on Rationality and
Government." In Max Weber: Rationality and Modernity. Edited by Sam Whimster
and Scott Lash. London, 1986. 293-316.
â??Governmental Rationality: An Introductionâ?? in The Foucault Effect.
â??Histoire de la Folie:an unknown book by Michel Foucaultâ?? and â??Rewriting
the History of Misreadingâ?? pp 19-42, 167-184 in (Arthur Still, Irving Velody
eds.) Rewriting the History of Madness. Studies in Foucault's Histoire de la
Folie (1992).
â??Question, Ethos, Event: Foucault on Kant and Enlightenmentâ?? in M Gane and
Terry Johnson eds., Foucaultâ??s New Domains, London 1993.
â??Foucault in Britainâ??, in A. Barry, T Osborne, N Rose eds., Foucault and
Political Reason, London 1996.
Abstracts
Colin Gordon: Philosophy and â??political spiritualityâ?? in the later Foucault
The paper compares Foucault and Hadotâ??s views on philosophical life,
spirituality and self: Hadotâ??s critique of Foucault, and Foucaultâ??s divergences
from Hadot as set out in the 1982 lectures. I discuss the implications of
Foucaultâ??s analysis for the later history of â??care of in the selfâ?? Europe
(Montaigne, modern moral philosophy and the â??invention of autonomyâ??.) I discuss
what is distinctive in Foucaultâ??s methodology of historical ontology and
nominalism as applied to the problematisation of â??selfâ??, the genealogical
intentions of Foucaultâ??s later work and his views on the question of enlightenment.
I review the architecture of certain themes in Foucaultâ??s 80s lectures:
souci de soi, truth-telling and truth-manifesting; truth and politico-critical
subjectivities; counter-conducts, militancy and dissidence.
Following on from these theme and responding to commentaries by Jim Tully,
I discuss the relationship of Foucaultâ??s work from 1976-84 to the Cambridge
school and Peter Brown, in terms of (1) Non-negative freedom as exercise
in Foucault and â??liberty before liberalismâ?? (Skinner); (2) â??political
spiritualityâ?? and civil/civic republicanism (Skinner, Pocock); (3) â??negativeâ??
freedom as the positive object of liberal government.
James Tully: Fearless Speech: Parrhesia And The Critical Attitude
The aim of this presentation is to open a discussion on two related themes
in the six lectures that Michel Foucault gave at Berkeley in 1983. They have
been transcribed from a tape recording and published under the title of
Fearless Speech (Semiotext(e) 2001).
The first theme is the problematization of practices of truth-telling or
truthful-speaking (parrhesia) in a number of Greek texts from Euripides to
Socrates. The second is the attempt to construct a genealogy of the critical
attitude in Western philosophy, which Foucault identifies as the objective of
the seminar.
Foucault analyzed the speaking subject within and against relationships of
communication, governance, subjectification, ethics, spirituality and
domination at different times and in different ways throughout his career, focusing
especially on the subjectâ??s relation to truth in his later works. If his
interpretation of practices of truthful-speaking in Fearless Speech is viewed in
light of his lifelong reflections on the speaking subject it is possible to
see a modification and perhaps even a reformulation of his understanding of the
history of the speaking subject here, especially with respect to the
dialogical dimension of speech. Moreover, in the lectures Foucault sought to draw a
connection between practices of truthful-speaking and what he called the
critical attitude in the west.
Foucault analyzed the tradition of critical reflection in the west in which
he located his own work (of writing and speaking) at various times and in
different ways throughout his career, focusing especially on the tradition of a â??
critical attitudeâ??, which he traced back through Kant to the 16thc and
contrasted with the â??analytics of truthâ??, from his lecture on â??What is Critique?â??
onward. In Fearless Speech he suggests that not only is his interpretation
of the problematization of practices of truthful-speaking a contribution to
the tradition of a critical attitude in the west, but that the Greek practices
of truthful-speaking are themselves a part of this tradition. If this
suggestion (that practices of truthful-speaking can be interpreted as forms of the
critical attitude) is viewed in light of his other remarks on the critical
attitude in the west, it is possible to see a modification and development in
his understanding of the tradition of the critical attitude, and so of his own
philosophical approach or ethos, in these lectures, especially with respect
to his various attempts to locate the exercise of the critical attitude
within practice.
These lectures are clearly unfinished, unrevised and somewhat preliminary in
composition. Nevertheless, I think it is worthwhile to discuss the two great
themes that Foucault attempts to connect and think anew in the lectures
(speaking truthfully and embodying a critical attitude); themes that were of
fundamental importance to him and remain at the heart of what is worth
simultaneously respecting and transforming in the west today.
Graham Burchell: Confession and spiritual government
The notion of confession is used in many contexts: confession extracted by
judicial or extra-judicial torture; political practices of self-criticism and
re-education; a technique of psychiatric power with applications in
pyschotherapy and psychoanalysis; a form of autobiography; everyday admissions to
parents, teachers, lovers, and television chat show hosts; and, of course, the
confession of sins in Christian penance. What is confessed and how, how the
material of confession is interpreted and processed, and the overall purpose of
confession will vary widely across these practical settings, as will the
relation of confessant to confessor.
Across this diversity of forms, it may be useful to see confession â?? at
least, as it appears in Foucaultâ??s work â?? as operating between two basic poles:
on the one hand, confession in which the confessant is essentially â??
subjectifiedâ?? through his or her â??subjectionâ??, and, on the other, confession in
which the confessant is to a much greater extent â??subjectifiedâ?? by a lengthy and
elaborate work of self on self, or by a â??spiritualâ?? practice of
self-transformation. These two poles or faces of confession can be illustrated through
an examination of Foucaultâ??s treatment of confession in his lectures Le
pouvoir psychiatrique and Les anormaux. In Le pouvoir pychiatrique, the â??ritualâ??
of confession is analysed as a â??techniqueâ?? or â??tacticâ?? of psychiatric
power in a â??battle of willsâ?? within the disciplinary space of the nineteenth
century asylum. In Les anormaux Foucault looks at Christian confession in the
history of the practice and sacrament of penance, and especially at Catholic
confession after the Council of Trent in the new Christian pastoral. Here
confession opens out onto a much richer field of practical relations of self to
self which, even if they exist within structures of â??directionâ?? and
obedience, are in a sense more open-ended, or at least not reducible to forms of
disciplinary subjection.
Another way of thinking about the double-sided nature of confession might be
in terms of Foucaultâ??s description of government as the point of contact
between structures of coercion and techniques of the self. Recent work by
Italian historians has provided rich material for the analysis of the importance
of confession in a Tridentine strategy for a â??discipline of the Christian
peopleâ??. Foucaultâ??s treatment of confession can be usefully examined in this
wider context of a network and practices making up a Counter-Reformation system
of spiritual government.
If Foucaultâ??s discussion of confession brings to light its essentially
double-sided character, it is possible to see a kind of continuity between his
thought in the mid-seventies and his later work where he is concerned to
distinguish between self-examination in ancient Greek and Roman practices of the
self and the self-exegesis and self-renunciation of Christian examination of
conscience and confession. The question of â??resistanceâ?? â?? discussed in both Le
pouvoir psychiatrique and Les anormaux â?? arises here: can we, today,
conceive of a relation of self to self that is not subject to structures of
obedience or the fixation of identity?
Tom Osborne: Foucault as Educator: on style, spirituality and the ethics of
knowledge
â??Of all the offence Schopenhauer has given to numerous scholars, nothing has
offended them more than the unfortunate fact that he does not resemble them.â??
(Nietzsche 1874).
On 7th January 1976, in the opening lecture of the Society Must Be Defended
series, Michel Foucault made some striking remarks about the very ethics of
what he had been doing in his lectures as a whole. What after all is a
lecture? In the context of his work at the Collège de France, Foucault observed
that his role was not so much to teach as to report on research. However,
perhaps â?? he reflected â?? even research was too strong a term for it; at most it
was a question only of a â??useless eruditionâ??; of â??fragments of research, none
of which was completed, and none of which was followed through; bits and
pieces of researchâ?¦ always falling into the same rut, the same themes, the same
conceptsâ?? (p. 3). Clearly what was at stake here, then, was not research of an
orthodox, positive or â??scientificâ?? sort. So what was it? Foucault pointed to
two themes in particular that had concerned him in his work; the recovery of
buried knowledges and of subjugated knowledges. In each case, what was
involved was the exposure of the lines of battle and force that traversed the
production of forms of knowledge. In short, it was a question of producing
genealogical knowledges. And for Foucault such genealogical knowledges were
specifically to be countered to the image of Science; they were, in fact,
anti-sciences (p. 9).
This paper will offer some reflections on this question of the politics and
ethics of knowledge, especially as these appear in Foucaultâ??s lectures. Two
themes are important; the analyses of forms of knowledge itself that Foucault
offers, and Foucaultâ??s own practice of knowledge. Let us call these the
themes of the image of knowledge and the methodology of thought. Obviously these
two themes are connected, usually intimately so. In the 1976 lectures,
Foucault provides some striking reflections on the image of knowledge in the
Enlightenment and the extent to which genealogy entails â??outwittingâ?? this image.
Instead of taking at face value the Enlightenment view that knowledge was a
question of illuminating darkness with light, we need, he argued, to think of
knowledges in terms of multiplicity. The Enlightenment invented the image of
Science and, of course, the disciplines. In these 1976 lectures Foucaultâ??s
alternative ethic of knowledge, his methodology of thought, is integrally
connected to the discourse of war. These lectures should be read, in this case, not
just as an excavation of themes of war in the history of philosophy and other
forms of thought but as problematisations of Foucaultâ??s own practice as a
particular kind of philosopher, historian and intellectual. In this sense, the
1976 lectures effect a kind of reflexive work or work upon the self on
Foucaultâ??s part; a form of work that in its own way could be said actually to
prefigure the theme of practices of self in his later writings. In Foucaultâ??s
thought, his own studies were always folded back upon themselves to become
reflections on his own practice. This is the role of Foucault as educator; a figure
devoted not simply to the discovery of truths â?? to â??researchâ?? â?? but who
exemplified a certain attitude to knowledge in his own practice. This practice â??
as instanced so wonderfully in his lectures â?? never took a final form, but
always presented itself as an exercise, an on-going apprenticeship, a search.
What occurs in Foucaultâ??s later writings is not least that these themes come
closer together than ever and begin to take on, as it were, an
ethico-political as opposed to a politico-ethical form; as in, for instance, the concern
with parrhesia and truth-telling in the Berkeley lectures published as
Fearless Speech; in Foucaultâ??s interest in the figure of Socrates in particular; and
not least in the notion of â??spiritualityâ?? as this is developed in the
1981-2 lectures on Lâ??Hermeneutique du Sujet. This latter theme is of particular
interest. Here, Foucault observed the way in which â??spiritualâ?? forms of
knowledge might be counterposed to the image of philosophy as a form of positive
thought (pp. 16-17). The â??spiritualâ?? aspect of philosophy and knowledge was a
casualty of the growth of scientific and disciplinary forms of knowledge
since the Enlightenment; its last, nostalgic outing appearing in Goetheâ??s Faust
(p. 297). But this invocation of Faustâ??s spiritual odyssey towards the end of
Foucaultâ??s life in fact returns us to the reflections in Society Must Be
Defended, where Foucault invoked as animating his work, not perhaps entirely
tongue in cheek, the notion of the â??warm and tender freemasonry of useless
eruditionâ?? that characterised certain secret societies (p. 5). Is it too much to
suggest that Foucault perhaps saw himself as a kind of Faustian figure,
excavating strange and useless knowledges in order to re-animate them and give life
to thought as such? If so, his work was assuredly less a question of either
teaching or research but of â??learningâ?? (in Michael Oakeshottâ??s sense) and
even of scandal (in the sense of the Cynics).
The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to indicate a certain
continuity of thought across Foucaultâ??s oeuvre in the intermingling of these
questions of the image of knowledge and the methodology of thought, and as part of
this to make some observations concerning the genre differences between
Foucaultâ??s books, lectures and interviews. Second, to examine the respective roles
of politics and ethics in this on-going concern. And third, to indicate
various features of Foucaultâ??s own thought as a particular kind of style, one
which is present not just in his writings but in his educational practice as a
lecturer, a writer of books, and as an intellectual; and to analyse this not
merely as a style of thought but as something like a style of life also. â??But
if thereâ??s a whole ethics in this, thereâ??s an aesthetics too. Style, in a
great writer, is always a style of life too, not anything at all personal, but
inventing a possibility of life, a way of existingâ?? (Gilles Deleuze,
Negotations, p. 100).
Darius Rejali, Speaking Frankly about Torture
I relate Foucaultâ??s work on parrhesia to recent changes in the practice of
torture. I describe how the received practices of truth telling in violence
have become increasingly problematic over the last century as the nature of
torture has changed. I ask when and under what conditions can people speak the
truth about torture to power? And under what conditions are reports of
torture believed? What practices must modern parrhesiastes adopt in order to shape
themselves to speak about violence to power? Thus, I relate Foucaultâ??s later
reflections on the care of the self to his earlier reflections on violence
and punishment.
I begin by considering what it means to speak thoughtfully and attentively
about violence. Attentiveness depends on certain skills of the eye and ear
that catch not just why but how violence happens. Critical reflection depends
on understanding these contingent particulars. Social movements catalog new
and ignored forms of violence in this manner, drawing out the theoretical
relevance of contingent particulars. Through this activity, they have
transformed fields of politics and knowledge. I distinguish this set of skills from
other ways of approaching violence that promote thoughtlessness.
Next, I consider two powerful, received traditions in the West that modern
parrhesiastes use to speak frankly about violence and persuade others that
what they report is true. The first account draws on the juridical and
scientific rules of evidence while the second account draws on a hermeneutics that
privileges the victimâ??s standpoint.
Then I argue that it is no longer enough to relate a first person account
about violence (whether that of victim, observer or perpetrator) and pronounce
it true under one or another set of rules. People who depend on this
strategy soon find that they are vulnerable to fairly devastating skeptical attack
and serious challenges regarding their integrity. This is also true for
scholars of violence who ultimately depend on precisely the same practices. We
too have to make the case in a way that is credible to our audience just like
every day actors do and ultimately we have to meet challenges to our
integrity.
I illustrate these problems using my work on Torture and Democracy. My
main thesis in this work is that torturers have increasingly privileged torture
techniques that leave few marks. I explore the disturbing implications of the
truth that we are less likely to complain about violence committed by
stealth. Indeed, we are less likely even to have the opportunity to complain. And
by â??we,â?? I mean citizens of modern states, especially democracies. I argue
not only that the demand for stealth but the supply of stealth techniques is
associated with processes of democratization.
Such changes yield three related problems for modern parrhesiastes concerned
with torture.
â?¢The problem of stealthy torture. Without wounds to show, modern torture
victims have little to authorize their words to a skeptical public. They have
a dramatically different relationship to their families, health providers,
politicians and the public. Indeed, the point of stealthy techniques is to
undermine victimsâ?? ability to speak credibly to others, even to those closest to
them. Stealthy techniques also undermine democratic oversight and human
rights monitoring. They allow public observers to deny torture or to
mis-recognize it (in good or bad faith).
â?¢The problem of marginal voices. Particularly after the Cold War, torture
is increasingly the lot of the criminal and marginal individual, not prisoners
of conscience. Democratization and globalization drive this transformation
of torture. This compounds the problem of stealth torture, for these marginal
figures lack the social prerequisites to speak and win no public sympathy
when they do (indeed, unlike famous non-violent political prisoners, human
rights organizations have a hard time speaking on behalf of common criminals).
â?¢The problem of expert knowledge. As stealth torture undermines both the
victimâ??s ability to show the truth of violence and the ability of ordinary
observers to affirm it, confirming torture becomes a battle of experts. First
person accounts are vulnerable to fairly sweeping skeptical attacks by experts,
either in government or in universities. These attacks undermine the
credibility of first person accounts by questioning the rules of truth telling to
which they appeal. Indeed, these attacks reveal major theoretical aporias at
the heart of our received traditions of truth-telling.
One would think that modern parrhesiastes would be unable to surmount such
formidable obstacles. But in fact they do. There are any number of social
movements that have surmounted challenges to their integrity. It seems that
problems that appear theoretically insoluble are resolved in the practical ways
modern parrhesiastes assemble and present violence.
All this forces one to consider what qualities it takes to present oneself
as a source with integrity. Part of this involves recognizing that integrity
is property of cultural systems. To recognize a source has integrity is to
recognize that we learn to associate truth-telling with certain kinds of
people and certain types of virtues. Those who speak truth to power about
violence must understand various games of integrity, some highly specific and
professionalized and others more accessible.
But the other part, perhaps the far more difficult part, is to consider what
the internal capabilities of this exercise are and how to cultivate them.
Anyone who works in the field of violence knows that care of the self has to
be a priority but what practices that pertain to this activity? How does one
cultivate skills of eyes, ears and voice? What does the history of modern
torture tell one about what it takes to speak truth to power and its
consequences? I conclude with some person reflections on this drawn on recent events
at Abu Ghraib and relate these to Foucaultâ??s own reflections on the Vietnamese
boat people.
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details about speakers and programme, which are reproduced below. Please
contact me if you are interested in registering. We are very pleased the event will
now include Daniel Defert and Darius Rejali, and will be preceded on the
evening of the 15th by an event with Daniel Defert and Frederic Gros (editor of
Foucault lectures from 1982-4) at the Institut Francais.
kind regards
Colin
Michel Foucault (1926-1984): Other questions, new paths
_http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/conf904.html_ (http://www.foucault.
qut.edu.au/conf904.html)
A public seminar on Foucaultâ??s new publications, marking the 20th
anniversary of his death.
London School of Economics, 16 September 2004
with the support of the History of the Present Network
Foucaultâ??s published work has grown significantly in the past few years, in
volume and in its scope, scale and complexity. This one-day pubic seminar
will focus on what is new in seven recent and forthcoming volumes of Foucaultâ??s
lectures, how they change our view of his enterprise, and what new spaces of
enquiry and discussion they open up.
Books and topics discussed will include:
â??Society Must be defendedâ?? : Class, race and war
Security, Territory, Population and The Birth of Biopolitics:
Governmentality, power and rights
The Abnormal and Psychiatric Power : other genealogies of knowledge and
norm
Hermeneutics of the Subject and Fearless Speech : self, truth and ethics
Contributors will include:
Daniel Defert (Professor of Sociology, Univeristy of Paris 8): â??How Michel
Foucault wrote his lecturesâ??
Paul Patton (Professor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales): â??
Governmentality, Power and Rightsâ??
James Tully (Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, University of
Victoria): â??Fearless speech: Parrhesia and the critical attitudeâ??
Giovanna Procacci (Associate Professor of Sociology, Milan University)
Darius Rejali (Professor of Political Science, Reed College): â??Pastoral
Power, Torture and Democracyâ??
Tom Osborne (Reader in Social Theory, Bristol University): â??Foucault as
Educatorâ??
Nikolas Rose (Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics)
Graham Burchell (translator of Michel Foucault, The Abnormal and other
works; freelance writer): â??Confession and Spiritual Governmentâ??
Colin Gordon (editor, Power/Knowledge; co-author and editor, The Foucault
Effect): â??Philosophy and â??political spiritualityâ?? in the later Foucaultâ??
Registration:
Registration details will be announced shortly.
For enquiries and to express interest in attending please contact
[email protected]_ (mailto:colinngordon@xxxxxxx)
Michel Foucault (1926-1984): Other questions, new paths
_http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/conf904.html_
(http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/conf904.html)
A public seminar on Foucaultâ??s new publications, marking the 20th
anniversary of his death.
London School of Economics, 16 September 2004
Speakers and _Abstracts_ (aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#Abstracts)
Daniel Defert
Daniel Defert has been Assistant (1969-1970), Maître-assistant (1971-1985),
then Maître de
Conférence (from 1985) at the Centre Universitaire of Vincennes, which
became in 1972, Université Paris VIII Vincennes.
He was the founding president of Aides (_www.aides.org_
(http://www.aides.org/) : a leading European organization in the fight against AIDS)
(1984-91);he has been a member of the scientific committee for human sciences of the
International Conference on AIDS (1986-94); member of the world commission
for AIDS (WHO) (1988-93); member of the National Committee for AIDS (1989-98),
of the Global Aids Policy Coalition of Harvard (1994-1997), and of the
French "Haut Comité de la Santé Publique" (from 1998).
Daniel Defert is author of numerous articles in the domain of
ethnoiconography and public health. He is the co-editor of the Dits et Ecrits of Michel
Foucault (4 Vol., 1994). He has been awareded the decoration of Chevalier de la
Légion dâ??Honneur and received in 1998 the Prix Alexander Onassis for the
creation of Aides.
James Tully
_http://web.uvic.ca/polisci/tully/_ (http://web.uvic.ca/polisci/tully/)
(see also _http://web.uvic.ca/igov/people/faculty/tully_james.html_
(http://web.uvic.ca/igov/people/faculty/tully_james.html) )
_www.trudeaufoundation.ca_ (http://www.trudeaufoundation.ca/) . click on
News or Fellows for information and an article on modern parrhesia, 'Civic
Freedom in a Globalizing Age'.
An Approach to political philosophy: Locke in contexts (Cambridge U.P.,
1993)
Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an age of diversity.(Cambridge
U.P., 1995).
Multinational Democracies, ed. With Alain Gagnon (Cambridge U.P. 2001)
'To Think and Act Differently: Foucault's reciprocal objections to
Habermas', in S.
Ashenden and D. Owen, ed. Foucault Contra Habermas, Sage 1999.
â??The Agonic Freedom of Citizensâ??, Economy and Society, 28, 2 (May 1999).
â??Democracy and Globalizationâ??, Canadian Political Philosophy, ed. R. Beiner
and W. Norman (Oxford U.P. 2001)
â??Michel Foucault (1926-1984)â??, Encyclopaedia of Ethics, ed. Lawrence and
Charlotte Becker (Routledge 2001), Volume 1.
â??The Unfreedom of the Moderns in relation the ideals of constitutional
democracyâ??, Modern Law Review, 65, 2 (March 2002).
'Political Philosophy as a Critical Activity', in Political Theory, 30, 4,
August 2002.
â??The Kantian Idea of Europe: Critical versus Cosmopolitan Perspectivesâ??,
The Idea of Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden (Cambridge U.P. 2002).
'La liberte civique en contexte de globalisation', Les Cahiers du Juin 27,
1, 2 (October 2003).
â??Wittgenstein and Political Philosophyâ??, The Grammar of Politics, ed.
Cressida Heyes (Cornell U.P. 2003).
â??Diverse Enlightenmentsâ??, Economy and Society, 32, 3 (August 2003).
Paul Patton
_http://philosophy.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff/academic_staff/p_patton/prp/index.ht
ml_
(http://philosophy.arts.unsw.edu.au/staff/academic_staff/p_patton/prp/index.html)
Paul Patton and John Protevi eds Between Deleuze and Derrida, London and New
York: Continuum, 2003.
Paul Patton and Terry Smith eds Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction Engaged â??
The Sydney Seminars, Sydney: Power Publications, 2001.
Paul Patton Deleuze and the Political, London and New York: Routledge,
2000.
Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton, Will Sanders eds Political Theory and the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
â??Power and Right in Nietzsche and Foucaultâ??, International Studies in
Philosophy XXXVI (3), 2004, pp.43-61.
â??Foucaultâ?? in David Boucher and Paul Kelly eds Political Thinkers: From
Socrates to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp.516-35.
â??Foucaultâ??s Subject of Powerâ?? in Jeremy Moss ed The Later Foucault:
Politics and Philosophy, London: Sage, 1998, pp.64-77.
â??Foucaultâ?? in Simon Critchley and William R. Schroeder eds A Companion to
Continental Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, pp.537-48.
Darius Rejali
_http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/rejali/index.html_
(http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/rejali/index.html)
Books:
Torture, Technology and Democracy (forthcoming Princeton University Press,
2005)
Approaches to Violence (Forthcoming Princeton University Press, 2006).
Torture and Modernity: Self, Society and State in Modern Iran (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1994).
Recent Articles:
â??Friend and Enemy, East or West: Political Realism in the work of Usama bin
Ladin, Carl Schmitt, Niccolo Machiavelli and Kai Kaâ??us ibn Iskandarâ??
Historical Reflections 3 (2004)
â??Whom Do You Trust? What Do You Count On?â?? in Nineteen Eight-Four: Orwell
and Our Future (Princeton University Press, Forthcoming 2004)
â??Torture as a Civic Marker: Solving a Global Anxiety with a New Political
Technologyâ?? Journal of Human Rights 2:2 (June 2003): 153-171.
â??Electric Torture: A Global History of a Torture Technologyâ?? Connect:
art.politics.theory.practice (June 2001): 101-109
â??Studying a Practice: An Inquiry into Lapidationâ?? Critique: Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies (Spring 2001): 67-100
â??Ordinary Betrayals: Conceptualizing Refugees Who Have Been Tortured in the
Global Villageâ?? Human Rights Review (July-September 2000): 8-25.
â??After Feminist Analyses of Bosnian Violenceâ?? Peace Review (September,
1997). Republished in The Women and War Reader. Edited by Lois Ann Lorentzen
and Jennifer Turpin. New York: New York University Press, 1998. (Paperback
1998)
Interventions on Abu Ghraib Torture:
â??Use of Torture Damages US Ability to Gather Intelligence,â?? The Oregonian
(May 6, 2004)
http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/10838
44
62899110.xml
â??A Long-Standing Trick of the Torturerâ??s Artâ?? The Seattle Times (May 14,
2004)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001928172_torture14.html
â??The Real Shame of Abu Ghraib,â?? Time (May 20, 2004)
_http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,640375,00.html_
(http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,640375,00.html) ).
â??Tortureâ??s dark allureâ?? and â??Does torture work?â??, Salon 18/6/04 and
21/6/04.
_http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_1/index.html_
(http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_1/index.html)
Tom Osborne
_http://www.bris.ac.uk/sociology/staff/thomasosborne.html_
(http://www.bris.ac.uk/sociology/staff/thomasosborne.html)
_Aspects of Enlightenment: Social Theory and the Ethics of Truth _
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0847690776/qid=1080157910/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_10_5
/202-5638154-3875837) Routledge, 1998.
Co-editor: Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and
Rationalities of Government Routledge 1996.
Co-editor: Society and the Life Science: in honour of Georges Canguilhem.
Economny and Society 27:2/3, 1998.
Recent papers include:
Celui qui disait non (on Pierre Bourdieu), International Journal of Cultural
Studies, 2002, 5 (3), 259-62
Samuel Beckett's literary anthropology, Journal of Beckett Studies, Spring,
2002, 11, 2, 74-89.
Utopia, counter-utopia, History of the Human Sciences, special issue, 2003,
6, 1, 121-34
What is neo-enlightenment? Human rights culture and juridical reason,
Journal of Human Rights, 2003, 2, 3
Against Creativity - a philistine rant, Economy and Society, November, 2003
Nikolas Rose
_http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/whoswho/rose.htm_
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/whoswho/rose.htm)
Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought, Cambridge University Press
(1999)
Governing the Soul (Second edition with new Preface and Afterword), Free
Associations Books (1999)
Inventing Our Selves, Cambridge University Press (1996)
The Psychological Complex, Routledge (1985)
_Biopower today _
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/RabinowandRose-BiopowerToday03.pdf) (with Paul Rabinow), Vital Politics: Health,
Medicine and Bioeconomics into the Twenty First Century, London School of Economics,
5-7 September 2003.
_Biological Citizenship_
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/RoseandNovasBiologicalCitizenship2002.pdf) , for Aihwa Ong and Stephen Collier,
eds., Blackwell Companion to Global Anthropology, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003
(with Carlos Novas)
_Introduction to The Essential Foucault : Selections from Essential Works of
Foucault_
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/RabinowandRose-IntrotoEssentialFoucault2003.pdf) , 1954-1984, New York: New Press, 2003 (with
Paul Rabinow)
Giovanna Procacci
Gouverner la misère. La question sociale en France 1789-1848. Paris. Seuil,
1997.
De la responsabilité solidaire - Mutations dans les politiques sociales
d'aujourd'hui
(with Colette Bec,Michel Messu) . Paris Syllepse 2003.
(with Arpad Szakolczai). La scoperta della società . Carocci 2003
Co-translator: Michel Foucault: Microfisica del potere (Einaudi 1977); La
volonta di sapere (Feltrinelli 1978).
â??Notes on the government of the social.â?? Law and Society. History of the
Present n° 3, Fall 1987; Barry Smart (ed.), Michel Foucault, Critical
Assessments, Routledge, 1995.
â??Social Economy and the Government of Povertyâ??. In The Foucault Effect,
1991 (1978).
â??Governing poverty: sources of the social question in nineteenth-century
Franceâ??. In Jan Goldstein (ed.), Foucault and the writing of history. Cambridge,
Blackwell. 1995.
Graham Burchell
Translations:
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (with Hugh Tomlinson;
Verso 1994).
Luc Boltanski, Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics (Cambridge
U.P. 1999).
Gilbert Somondon, L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (Zone, in
press)
Michel Foucault, Abnormal (St Martinâ??s Press/Verso 2003)
Michel Foucault, Hermeneutics of the Subject (St Martinâ??s Press,
forthcoming)
Michel Foucault, Psychiatric Power (St Martinâ??s Press, forthcoming)
Co-editor:
(with Colin Gordon and Peter Miller), The Foucault Effect. Studies in
Governmentality (Harvester, 1991)
Articles:
â??Peculiar Interests: Civil Society and Governing â??The System of Natural
Libertyâ?? in The Foucault Effect;
â??Liberal government and techniques of the selfâ?? in Andrew Barry, Thomas
Osborne, and Nikolas Rose, eds., Foucault and Political Reason, UCL Press,
1996.
â??Historische subjekte: Rassen, Nationen, Klassen. Die Grenzen Liberaler
Regierungrationalitätâ?? in Instituts für Wissenschaft und Kunst, Demokratie,
selbst, arbeit. Analysen liberal-demokratischer gesellschaften im anschluss an
Michel Foucault (Mitteeilungen des IWK, 2001)
Colin Gordon
Editor, co-translator, Michel Foucault Power/Knowledge. Selectes essays and
interview 1972-77 (Harvester, 1980).
Co-editor, co-translator: (with Graham Burchell and Peter Miller), The
Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality (Harvester, 1991)
Introduction and selection of contents: Michel Foucault (J Faubion ed.),
Power. Essential Works 3. New Press, 2001.
"The Soul of the Citizen: Max Weber and Michel Foucault on Rationality and
Government." In Max Weber: Rationality and Modernity. Edited by Sam Whimster
and Scott Lash. London, 1986. 293-316.
â??Governmental Rationality: An Introductionâ?? in The Foucault Effect.
â??Histoire de la Folie:an unknown book by Michel Foucaultâ?? and â??Rewriting
the History of Misreadingâ?? pp 19-42, 167-184 in (Arthur Still, Irving Velody
eds.) Rewriting the History of Madness. Studies in Foucault's Histoire de la
Folie (1992).
â??Question, Ethos, Event: Foucault on Kant and Enlightenmentâ?? in M Gane and
Terry Johnson eds., Foucaultâ??s New Domains, London 1993.
â??Foucault in Britainâ??, in A. Barry, T Osborne, N Rose eds., Foucault and
Political Reason, London 1996.
Abstracts
Colin Gordon: Philosophy and â??political spiritualityâ?? in the later Foucault
The paper compares Foucault and Hadotâ??s views on philosophical life,
spirituality and self: Hadotâ??s critique of Foucault, and Foucaultâ??s divergences
from Hadot as set out in the 1982 lectures. I discuss the implications of
Foucaultâ??s analysis for the later history of â??care of in the selfâ?? Europe
(Montaigne, modern moral philosophy and the â??invention of autonomyâ??.) I discuss
what is distinctive in Foucaultâ??s methodology of historical ontology and
nominalism as applied to the problematisation of â??selfâ??, the genealogical
intentions of Foucaultâ??s later work and his views on the question of enlightenment.
I review the architecture of certain themes in Foucaultâ??s 80s lectures:
souci de soi, truth-telling and truth-manifesting; truth and politico-critical
subjectivities; counter-conducts, militancy and dissidence.
Following on from these theme and responding to commentaries by Jim Tully,
I discuss the relationship of Foucaultâ??s work from 1976-84 to the Cambridge
school and Peter Brown, in terms of (1) Non-negative freedom as exercise
in Foucault and â??liberty before liberalismâ?? (Skinner); (2) â??political
spiritualityâ?? and civil/civic republicanism (Skinner, Pocock); (3) â??negativeâ??
freedom as the positive object of liberal government.
James Tully: Fearless Speech: Parrhesia And The Critical Attitude
The aim of this presentation is to open a discussion on two related themes
in the six lectures that Michel Foucault gave at Berkeley in 1983. They have
been transcribed from a tape recording and published under the title of
Fearless Speech (Semiotext(e) 2001).
The first theme is the problematization of practices of truth-telling or
truthful-speaking (parrhesia) in a number of Greek texts from Euripides to
Socrates. The second is the attempt to construct a genealogy of the critical
attitude in Western philosophy, which Foucault identifies as the objective of
the seminar.
Foucault analyzed the speaking subject within and against relationships of
communication, governance, subjectification, ethics, spirituality and
domination at different times and in different ways throughout his career, focusing
especially on the subjectâ??s relation to truth in his later works. If his
interpretation of practices of truthful-speaking in Fearless Speech is viewed in
light of his lifelong reflections on the speaking subject it is possible to
see a modification and perhaps even a reformulation of his understanding of the
history of the speaking subject here, especially with respect to the
dialogical dimension of speech. Moreover, in the lectures Foucault sought to draw a
connection between practices of truthful-speaking and what he called the
critical attitude in the west.
Foucault analyzed the tradition of critical reflection in the west in which
he located his own work (of writing and speaking) at various times and in
different ways throughout his career, focusing especially on the tradition of a â??
critical attitudeâ??, which he traced back through Kant to the 16thc and
contrasted with the â??analytics of truthâ??, from his lecture on â??What is Critique?â??
onward. In Fearless Speech he suggests that not only is his interpretation
of the problematization of practices of truthful-speaking a contribution to
the tradition of a critical attitude in the west, but that the Greek practices
of truthful-speaking are themselves a part of this tradition. If this
suggestion (that practices of truthful-speaking can be interpreted as forms of the
critical attitude) is viewed in light of his other remarks on the critical
attitude in the west, it is possible to see a modification and development in
his understanding of the tradition of the critical attitude, and so of his own
philosophical approach or ethos, in these lectures, especially with respect
to his various attempts to locate the exercise of the critical attitude
within practice.
These lectures are clearly unfinished, unrevised and somewhat preliminary in
composition. Nevertheless, I think it is worthwhile to discuss the two great
themes that Foucault attempts to connect and think anew in the lectures
(speaking truthfully and embodying a critical attitude); themes that were of
fundamental importance to him and remain at the heart of what is worth
simultaneously respecting and transforming in the west today.
Graham Burchell: Confession and spiritual government
The notion of confession is used in many contexts: confession extracted by
judicial or extra-judicial torture; political practices of self-criticism and
re-education; a technique of psychiatric power with applications in
pyschotherapy and psychoanalysis; a form of autobiography; everyday admissions to
parents, teachers, lovers, and television chat show hosts; and, of course, the
confession of sins in Christian penance. What is confessed and how, how the
material of confession is interpreted and processed, and the overall purpose of
confession will vary widely across these practical settings, as will the
relation of confessant to confessor.
Across this diversity of forms, it may be useful to see confession â?? at
least, as it appears in Foucaultâ??s work â?? as operating between two basic poles:
on the one hand, confession in which the confessant is essentially â??
subjectifiedâ?? through his or her â??subjectionâ??, and, on the other, confession in
which the confessant is to a much greater extent â??subjectifiedâ?? by a lengthy and
elaborate work of self on self, or by a â??spiritualâ?? practice of
self-transformation. These two poles or faces of confession can be illustrated through
an examination of Foucaultâ??s treatment of confession in his lectures Le
pouvoir psychiatrique and Les anormaux. In Le pouvoir pychiatrique, the â??ritualâ??
of confession is analysed as a â??techniqueâ?? or â??tacticâ?? of psychiatric
power in a â??battle of willsâ?? within the disciplinary space of the nineteenth
century asylum. In Les anormaux Foucault looks at Christian confession in the
history of the practice and sacrament of penance, and especially at Catholic
confession after the Council of Trent in the new Christian pastoral. Here
confession opens out onto a much richer field of practical relations of self to
self which, even if they exist within structures of â??directionâ?? and
obedience, are in a sense more open-ended, or at least not reducible to forms of
disciplinary subjection.
Another way of thinking about the double-sided nature of confession might be
in terms of Foucaultâ??s description of government as the point of contact
between structures of coercion and techniques of the self. Recent work by
Italian historians has provided rich material for the analysis of the importance
of confession in a Tridentine strategy for a â??discipline of the Christian
peopleâ??. Foucaultâ??s treatment of confession can be usefully examined in this
wider context of a network and practices making up a Counter-Reformation system
of spiritual government.
If Foucaultâ??s discussion of confession brings to light its essentially
double-sided character, it is possible to see a kind of continuity between his
thought in the mid-seventies and his later work where he is concerned to
distinguish between self-examination in ancient Greek and Roman practices of the
self and the self-exegesis and self-renunciation of Christian examination of
conscience and confession. The question of â??resistanceâ?? â?? discussed in both Le
pouvoir psychiatrique and Les anormaux â?? arises here: can we, today,
conceive of a relation of self to self that is not subject to structures of
obedience or the fixation of identity?
Tom Osborne: Foucault as Educator: on style, spirituality and the ethics of
knowledge
â??Of all the offence Schopenhauer has given to numerous scholars, nothing has
offended them more than the unfortunate fact that he does not resemble them.â??
(Nietzsche 1874).
On 7th January 1976, in the opening lecture of the Society Must Be Defended
series, Michel Foucault made some striking remarks about the very ethics of
what he had been doing in his lectures as a whole. What after all is a
lecture? In the context of his work at the Collège de France, Foucault observed
that his role was not so much to teach as to report on research. However,
perhaps â?? he reflected â?? even research was too strong a term for it; at most it
was a question only of a â??useless eruditionâ??; of â??fragments of research, none
of which was completed, and none of which was followed through; bits and
pieces of researchâ?¦ always falling into the same rut, the same themes, the same
conceptsâ?? (p. 3). Clearly what was at stake here, then, was not research of an
orthodox, positive or â??scientificâ?? sort. So what was it? Foucault pointed to
two themes in particular that had concerned him in his work; the recovery of
buried knowledges and of subjugated knowledges. In each case, what was
involved was the exposure of the lines of battle and force that traversed the
production of forms of knowledge. In short, it was a question of producing
genealogical knowledges. And for Foucault such genealogical knowledges were
specifically to be countered to the image of Science; they were, in fact,
anti-sciences (p. 9).
This paper will offer some reflections on this question of the politics and
ethics of knowledge, especially as these appear in Foucaultâ??s lectures. Two
themes are important; the analyses of forms of knowledge itself that Foucault
offers, and Foucaultâ??s own practice of knowledge. Let us call these the
themes of the image of knowledge and the methodology of thought. Obviously these
two themes are connected, usually intimately so. In the 1976 lectures,
Foucault provides some striking reflections on the image of knowledge in the
Enlightenment and the extent to which genealogy entails â??outwittingâ?? this image.
Instead of taking at face value the Enlightenment view that knowledge was a
question of illuminating darkness with light, we need, he argued, to think of
knowledges in terms of multiplicity. The Enlightenment invented the image of
Science and, of course, the disciplines. In these 1976 lectures Foucaultâ??s
alternative ethic of knowledge, his methodology of thought, is integrally
connected to the discourse of war. These lectures should be read, in this case, not
just as an excavation of themes of war in the history of philosophy and other
forms of thought but as problematisations of Foucaultâ??s own practice as a
particular kind of philosopher, historian and intellectual. In this sense, the
1976 lectures effect a kind of reflexive work or work upon the self on
Foucaultâ??s part; a form of work that in its own way could be said actually to
prefigure the theme of practices of self in his later writings. In Foucaultâ??s
thought, his own studies were always folded back upon themselves to become
reflections on his own practice. This is the role of Foucault as educator; a figure
devoted not simply to the discovery of truths â?? to â??researchâ?? â?? but who
exemplified a certain attitude to knowledge in his own practice. This practice â??
as instanced so wonderfully in his lectures â?? never took a final form, but
always presented itself as an exercise, an on-going apprenticeship, a search.
What occurs in Foucaultâ??s later writings is not least that these themes come
closer together than ever and begin to take on, as it were, an
ethico-political as opposed to a politico-ethical form; as in, for instance, the concern
with parrhesia and truth-telling in the Berkeley lectures published as
Fearless Speech; in Foucaultâ??s interest in the figure of Socrates in particular; and
not least in the notion of â??spiritualityâ?? as this is developed in the
1981-2 lectures on Lâ??Hermeneutique du Sujet. This latter theme is of particular
interest. Here, Foucault observed the way in which â??spiritualâ?? forms of
knowledge might be counterposed to the image of philosophy as a form of positive
thought (pp. 16-17). The â??spiritualâ?? aspect of philosophy and knowledge was a
casualty of the growth of scientific and disciplinary forms of knowledge
since the Enlightenment; its last, nostalgic outing appearing in Goetheâ??s Faust
(p. 297). But this invocation of Faustâ??s spiritual odyssey towards the end of
Foucaultâ??s life in fact returns us to the reflections in Society Must Be
Defended, where Foucault invoked as animating his work, not perhaps entirely
tongue in cheek, the notion of the â??warm and tender freemasonry of useless
eruditionâ?? that characterised certain secret societies (p. 5). Is it too much to
suggest that Foucault perhaps saw himself as a kind of Faustian figure,
excavating strange and useless knowledges in order to re-animate them and give life
to thought as such? If so, his work was assuredly less a question of either
teaching or research but of â??learningâ?? (in Michael Oakeshottâ??s sense) and
even of scandal (in the sense of the Cynics).
The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to indicate a certain
continuity of thought across Foucaultâ??s oeuvre in the intermingling of these
questions of the image of knowledge and the methodology of thought, and as part of
this to make some observations concerning the genre differences between
Foucaultâ??s books, lectures and interviews. Second, to examine the respective roles
of politics and ethics in this on-going concern. And third, to indicate
various features of Foucaultâ??s own thought as a particular kind of style, one
which is present not just in his writings but in his educational practice as a
lecturer, a writer of books, and as an intellectual; and to analyse this not
merely as a style of thought but as something like a style of life also. â??But
if thereâ??s a whole ethics in this, thereâ??s an aesthetics too. Style, in a
great writer, is always a style of life too, not anything at all personal, but
inventing a possibility of life, a way of existingâ?? (Gilles Deleuze,
Negotations, p. 100).
Darius Rejali, Speaking Frankly about Torture
I relate Foucaultâ??s work on parrhesia to recent changes in the practice of
torture. I describe how the received practices of truth telling in violence
have become increasingly problematic over the last century as the nature of
torture has changed. I ask when and under what conditions can people speak the
truth about torture to power? And under what conditions are reports of
torture believed? What practices must modern parrhesiastes adopt in order to shape
themselves to speak about violence to power? Thus, I relate Foucaultâ??s later
reflections on the care of the self to his earlier reflections on violence
and punishment.
I begin by considering what it means to speak thoughtfully and attentively
about violence. Attentiveness depends on certain skills of the eye and ear
that catch not just why but how violence happens. Critical reflection depends
on understanding these contingent particulars. Social movements catalog new
and ignored forms of violence in this manner, drawing out the theoretical
relevance of contingent particulars. Through this activity, they have
transformed fields of politics and knowledge. I distinguish this set of skills from
other ways of approaching violence that promote thoughtlessness.
Next, I consider two powerful, received traditions in the West that modern
parrhesiastes use to speak frankly about violence and persuade others that
what they report is true. The first account draws on the juridical and
scientific rules of evidence while the second account draws on a hermeneutics that
privileges the victimâ??s standpoint.
Then I argue that it is no longer enough to relate a first person account
about violence (whether that of victim, observer or perpetrator) and pronounce
it true under one or another set of rules. People who depend on this
strategy soon find that they are vulnerable to fairly devastating skeptical attack
and serious challenges regarding their integrity. This is also true for
scholars of violence who ultimately depend on precisely the same practices. We
too have to make the case in a way that is credible to our audience just like
every day actors do and ultimately we have to meet challenges to our
integrity.
I illustrate these problems using my work on Torture and Democracy. My
main thesis in this work is that torturers have increasingly privileged torture
techniques that leave few marks. I explore the disturbing implications of the
truth that we are less likely to complain about violence committed by
stealth. Indeed, we are less likely even to have the opportunity to complain. And
by â??we,â?? I mean citizens of modern states, especially democracies. I argue
not only that the demand for stealth but the supply of stealth techniques is
associated with processes of democratization.
Such changes yield three related problems for modern parrhesiastes concerned
with torture.
â?¢The problem of stealthy torture. Without wounds to show, modern torture
victims have little to authorize their words to a skeptical public. They have
a dramatically different relationship to their families, health providers,
politicians and the public. Indeed, the point of stealthy techniques is to
undermine victimsâ?? ability to speak credibly to others, even to those closest to
them. Stealthy techniques also undermine democratic oversight and human
rights monitoring. They allow public observers to deny torture or to
mis-recognize it (in good or bad faith).
â?¢The problem of marginal voices. Particularly after the Cold War, torture
is increasingly the lot of the criminal and marginal individual, not prisoners
of conscience. Democratization and globalization drive this transformation
of torture. This compounds the problem of stealth torture, for these marginal
figures lack the social prerequisites to speak and win no public sympathy
when they do (indeed, unlike famous non-violent political prisoners, human
rights organizations have a hard time speaking on behalf of common criminals).
â?¢The problem of expert knowledge. As stealth torture undermines both the
victimâ??s ability to show the truth of violence and the ability of ordinary
observers to affirm it, confirming torture becomes a battle of experts. First
person accounts are vulnerable to fairly sweeping skeptical attacks by experts,
either in government or in universities. These attacks undermine the
credibility of first person accounts by questioning the rules of truth telling to
which they appeal. Indeed, these attacks reveal major theoretical aporias at
the heart of our received traditions of truth-telling.
One would think that modern parrhesiastes would be unable to surmount such
formidable obstacles. But in fact they do. There are any number of social
movements that have surmounted challenges to their integrity. It seems that
problems that appear theoretically insoluble are resolved in the practical ways
modern parrhesiastes assemble and present violence.
All this forces one to consider what qualities it takes to present oneself
as a source with integrity. Part of this involves recognizing that integrity
is property of cultural systems. To recognize a source has integrity is to
recognize that we learn to associate truth-telling with certain kinds of
people and certain types of virtues. Those who speak truth to power about
violence must understand various games of integrity, some highly specific and
professionalized and others more accessible.
But the other part, perhaps the far more difficult part, is to consider what
the internal capabilities of this exercise are and how to cultivate them.
Anyone who works in the field of violence knows that care of the self has to
be a priority but what practices that pertain to this activity? How does one
cultivate skills of eyes, ears and voice? What does the history of modern
torture tell one about what it takes to speak truth to power and its
consequences? I conclude with some person reflections on this drawn on recent events
at Abu Ghraib and relate these to Foucaultâ??s own reflections on the Vietnamese
boat people.
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