This is my first posting to the list, so please pardon me if any of these questions are repetitions. I've been
reading, slowly and methodically, "The Order of Things," and I have a few questions that just might clarify the
whole experience much better for me. The questions refer particularly to the "Mand and his Doubles" chapter,
but some of them relate to the book as a whole. I've listed them by number so you can answer those you feel
comfortable and/or interested in answering. Thanks...Daniel
1. Foucault often uses the words "visual" or "visually" in relation to statements on empirical knowledge. Does his
use of "empirical" stress visual observation?
2. Further, is his emphasis on the "body" really a reference to the observed body?
3. And can his use of "transcendental" be defined as "that which cannot be visually observed?"
These questions may be obvious, but I am stuck trying to figure out how much emphasis he is placing on the
knowing subject who knows through his apparatus of vision. My last two question are in reference to a quote:
"If man is indeed, in the world, the locus of an empirico-transcendental doublet, if he is that paradoxical figure
in which the empirical contents of knowledge necessarily release, of themselves, the conditions that have made
them possible, then man cannot posit himself in the immediate and soverign transparency a cogito" (322).
4. Is the "thought" of the cogito conscious language?
5. How is "transparency" used? Once again, a visual reference that may or may not be tied to sight.
reading, slowly and methodically, "The Order of Things," and I have a few questions that just might clarify the
whole experience much better for me. The questions refer particularly to the "Mand and his Doubles" chapter,
but some of them relate to the book as a whole. I've listed them by number so you can answer those you feel
comfortable and/or interested in answering. Thanks...Daniel
1. Foucault often uses the words "visual" or "visually" in relation to statements on empirical knowledge. Does his
use of "empirical" stress visual observation?
2. Further, is his emphasis on the "body" really a reference to the observed body?
3. And can his use of "transcendental" be defined as "that which cannot be visually observed?"
These questions may be obvious, but I am stuck trying to figure out how much emphasis he is placing on the
knowing subject who knows through his apparatus of vision. My last two question are in reference to a quote:
"If man is indeed, in the world, the locus of an empirico-transcendental doublet, if he is that paradoxical figure
in which the empirical contents of knowledge necessarily release, of themselves, the conditions that have made
them possible, then man cannot posit himself in the immediate and soverign transparency a cogito" (322).
4. Is the "thought" of the cogito conscious language?
5. How is "transparency" used? Once again, a visual reference that may or may not be tied to sight.