Dear Daniel:
Um, I'm not sure where the interview is. My Foucault books
are not with me, so, sorry for that.
As for transhistorical, I don't think it needs to refer to
forms at all. It's just that representations occur during any
historical period, Renaissance, Enlightenment, or Modern.
Interpretation is also something that occurs in every epoch,
it's just that the Ninteenth century episteme has a special
place for interpretation, just as the Age of Reason did for
representation. And something like the Renaissance fixation
on signs returns to displace interpretation, commentary,
history etc. with structuralism. Still, humans use signs no
matter what the episteme.
It's only in that sense that I mean Foucault's "Order of
Things" has a transcendental moment, one which bears a
problematic relation with his historicist approach to knowledge.
Yours,
Peter
Peter Winston Fettner
Department of Philosophy,
Intellectual Heritage Program
Temple University
Um, I'm not sure where the interview is. My Foucault books
are not with me, so, sorry for that.
As for transhistorical, I don't think it needs to refer to
forms at all. It's just that representations occur during any
historical period, Renaissance, Enlightenment, or Modern.
Interpretation is also something that occurs in every epoch,
it's just that the Ninteenth century episteme has a special
place for interpretation, just as the Age of Reason did for
representation. And something like the Renaissance fixation
on signs returns to displace interpretation, commentary,
history etc. with structuralism. Still, humans use signs no
matter what the episteme.
It's only in that sense that I mean Foucault's "Order of
Things" has a transcendental moment, one which bears a
problematic relation with his historicist approach to knowledge.
Yours,
Peter
Peter Winston Fettner
Department of Philosophy,
Intellectual Heritage Program
Temple University