I guess Foucault's view on the agent/structure debate would be that this
precise view of things - agent/structure - is part of a discourse that
should be described by analysis (archaeology or genealogy) in order to
understand fully the way it frames our minds and knowledge, exercice power,
and how to find alternatives to it. One is perfectly free to read Foucault
with a "sociological" mind or whatever else type of mind one has. But I
really think that the best way to read Foucault is with a completely empty
mind. Zero thoughts at all. A little bit like watching a Picasso, from the
period when trying to recover a lost childish innocence in his paintings: it
is completely useless, and seriously mistaking Picasso's artistic
ambition, to watch these paintings with a mind full of classical art history
references; and looking in these paintings for frameworks and theories of,
say, classical art paintings is disapointing and eventually pointless. The
whole entreprise of Foucault is to be able to apply a Pyrrhonean scepticism
(Kendall and Wickham, *Using Foucault's Methods*, 1999), i.e. refusing
second-order judgements. Looking for "agency/structure" is a second-order
judgement.
I tend to think that looking with a sociological mind for "agency/structure"
in Foucault's work is pointless because one will always find what one is
looking for in advance. Probably it will give out a very nuanced and complex
answer (if I think a little about that from what I've read of Foucault).
Probably the answer will vary greatly according to the work considered -
archaeology or genealogy - and the degree of discursivity of the material
studied - very discursive like *The Order of Things* or more non-discursive
like *The Birth of the Clinic*. Archaelogy will give some kind of "invisible
hand" type of answer, with the discourse seemingly having its own laws of
internal order, but also having exterior influences, albeit not "structures"
per se but frameworks, as well as some actors, but under the conditions of
death-of-the-author laws. Genealogy will give a less "invisible hand" kind
of impression with more relations between discourse-power-knowledge.
But I really think it is much more fun and worthwhile to interrogate the
discourse of "agency/structure" in a Foucaultian manner, instead of looking
for it as it is without ontological and epistemological
(pardon, archaeological) questionning in Foucault's works. Of course, it is
perhaps not sociology any more...
Best wishes,
Frank,
who is not a professor, not even a PhD candidate (yet! hopefully), but is
passionaltely reading everything Foucault at the moment for his MA
dissertation in political science.
precise view of things - agent/structure - is part of a discourse that
should be described by analysis (archaeology or genealogy) in order to
understand fully the way it frames our minds and knowledge, exercice power,
and how to find alternatives to it. One is perfectly free to read Foucault
with a "sociological" mind or whatever else type of mind one has. But I
really think that the best way to read Foucault is with a completely empty
mind. Zero thoughts at all. A little bit like watching a Picasso, from the
period when trying to recover a lost childish innocence in his paintings: it
is completely useless, and seriously mistaking Picasso's artistic
ambition, to watch these paintings with a mind full of classical art history
references; and looking in these paintings for frameworks and theories of,
say, classical art paintings is disapointing and eventually pointless. The
whole entreprise of Foucault is to be able to apply a Pyrrhonean scepticism
(Kendall and Wickham, *Using Foucault's Methods*, 1999), i.e. refusing
second-order judgements. Looking for "agency/structure" is a second-order
judgement.
I tend to think that looking with a sociological mind for "agency/structure"
in Foucault's work is pointless because one will always find what one is
looking for in advance. Probably it will give out a very nuanced and complex
answer (if I think a little about that from what I've read of Foucault).
Probably the answer will vary greatly according to the work considered -
archaeology or genealogy - and the degree of discursivity of the material
studied - very discursive like *The Order of Things* or more non-discursive
like *The Birth of the Clinic*. Archaelogy will give some kind of "invisible
hand" type of answer, with the discourse seemingly having its own laws of
internal order, but also having exterior influences, albeit not "structures"
per se but frameworks, as well as some actors, but under the conditions of
death-of-the-author laws. Genealogy will give a less "invisible hand" kind
of impression with more relations between discourse-power-knowledge.
But I really think it is much more fun and worthwhile to interrogate the
discourse of "agency/structure" in a Foucaultian manner, instead of looking
for it as it is without ontological and epistemological
(pardon, archaeological) questionning in Foucault's works. Of course, it is
perhaps not sociology any more...
Best wishes,
Frank,
who is not a professor, not even a PhD candidate (yet! hopefully), but is
passionaltely reading everything Foucault at the moment for his MA
dissertation in political science.