Re: [Foucault-L] practice

I'm wondering also, if there isn't a relation to Nietzsche here ("there
is no 'being'behind doing, acting, becoming; 'the doer' is merely a
fiction imposed on the doing - the doing itself is everything" (GM, 1
§13)), and thus also to Heidegger. Thus I am tempted to take the term
practice in Foucault
to simply refer to a doing or ways of doing - albeit historically
specific and limited forms of doing - which are constitutive of being.
What I am interested in, or rather the question I am asking, is does F
mean shared social practice (which on the one hand raises the question
of transmission - an inherited background to use Wittgenstein's phrase - and
on the other hand raises the question of identity/sameness) or is he
referring to historically specific and delimited ways of doing that are
loosely shared by a specific collective (i.e. disciplines such as medicine,
psychiatry, the penal system, etc).

In addition to the above, I'm also interested in whether F makes any sort of
distinction between practice and practices (vis., Kant).

Since
I have been unable to come to any firm conclusion in my own reading, I
am interested in what others have had to say on the subject.

Regards - Kevin.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: borderlands@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:40:27 +0930
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] practice
>
> Hi Kevin
>
> This is an interesting question - I'm not sure where Foucault theorised
> 'practice' in general. It might be useful to start from Althusser's
> concept of practice as elaborated in _For Marx_ (and on which there
> are, from memory, several commentaries by others published or
> unpublished) and look at how Foucault might have responded to, or
> perhaps incorporated, Althusser's concept of practice. As Warren
> Montag and others have said, often there seems to have been a
> theoretical dialogue - explicit or implicit - between Althusser and
> Foucault.
>
> I'm interested to read what others better read in Foucault - or perhaps
> just with better memories - than I have to say on this question of a
> general concept of practice in Foucault. Perhaps it exists only in
> what Althusser termed 'the practical state' within Foucault's writings
> on various practices?
>
> DM
>
>
> On 28/06/2005, at 2:51 AM, François Gagnon wrote:
>
> > Take a look at the index of Dits et Écrits... there's an impressive
> > list!
> > François
> >
> > Kevin Turner a écrit :
> >
> >> can anybody point me in the direction of some texts that discuss f's
> >> usage
> >> of the term practice: i.e. as in discourse-practice; but also in
> >> terms of
> >> medical practice, disciplinary practices, governmental practice.
> >>
> >> regards - k
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Foucault-L mailing list
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list

Folow-ups
  • Re: [Foucault-L] practice
    • From: David McInerney
  • Replies
    Re: [Foucault-L] practice, David McInerney
    Partial thread listing: