Hi Clare,
Unfortunately, I do not have my Foucault Reader with me and will not for 3-4 days (it’s holiday in Japan now), so speaking from memory, wasn’t Foucault’s defense and response to the nihilistic charge resolved earlier? Wasn’t the height of the Habermas-Foucault debate in the 70’s, during the so-called ‘structuralist’ phase of Foucault’s thinking? ‘What is Enlightenment?’ was written, well, I don’t known when it was written, but it was printed for the first time in 1984, so I had always seen it as Foucault’s last say in situating his own work within the academic field, particularly since, as I understand it, it was an article that Foucault specifically requested Paul Rabinow to include in the Reader (Again, I’m speaking from memory, but I believe that the selection process for which articles to include in the Reader began before Foucault’s death and he was consulted. Thus, it is
somewhat different from the other edited volumes of Foucault’s works.) Bu
t well, at this point, as I don’t have access to my office, I can only put it into question.
I should like to say that I would find your reading of ‘What is Enlightenment?’ valid in any case. To persist in reading his writings within the specific context, paying heed to who it may have been that he was addressing (because whether it was the height or not, Foucault would probably have had Habermas in mind when he wrote) is legitimate.
So I do acknowledge that reading Foucault or any other text as a reflection of the writer’s specific subject-position within a specific social context is valid. It’s just that this then leaves unaddressed the fact that ‘speaking’ and ‘writing’ is never just about parole, it’s also about langue, and it seems to me that it’s there, in the langue, that power resides.
Isn’t specificity the other side of the coin to universality? And isn’t overcoming this binarism in thought the real challenge that we’re facing? I’m now speculating, but if Foucault realized this and could see that his work was being put on the pedestal as the paragon of specificity, then surely he would have done something to indicate that his work was not actually specific, but was part of the code system of Enlightenment where power operates, and that his writings therefore had to be handled as such.
Kaori
Unfortunately, I do not have my Foucault Reader with me and will not for 3-4 days (it’s holiday in Japan now), so speaking from memory, wasn’t Foucault’s defense and response to the nihilistic charge resolved earlier? Wasn’t the height of the Habermas-Foucault debate in the 70’s, during the so-called ‘structuralist’ phase of Foucault’s thinking? ‘What is Enlightenment?’ was written, well, I don’t known when it was written, but it was printed for the first time in 1984, so I had always seen it as Foucault’s last say in situating his own work within the academic field, particularly since, as I understand it, it was an article that Foucault specifically requested Paul Rabinow to include in the Reader (Again, I’m speaking from memory, but I believe that the selection process for which articles to include in the Reader began before Foucault’s death and he was consulted. Thus, it is
somewhat different from the other edited volumes of Foucault’s works.) Bu
t well, at this point, as I don’t have access to my office, I can only put it into question.
I should like to say that I would find your reading of ‘What is Enlightenment?’ valid in any case. To persist in reading his writings within the specific context, paying heed to who it may have been that he was addressing (because whether it was the height or not, Foucault would probably have had Habermas in mind when he wrote) is legitimate.
So I do acknowledge that reading Foucault or any other text as a reflection of the writer’s specific subject-position within a specific social context is valid. It’s just that this then leaves unaddressed the fact that ‘speaking’ and ‘writing’ is never just about parole, it’s also about langue, and it seems to me that it’s there, in the langue, that power resides.
Isn’t specificity the other side of the coin to universality? And isn’t overcoming this binarism in thought the real challenge that we’re facing? I’m now speculating, but if Foucault realized this and could see that his work was being put on the pedestal as the paragon of specificity, then surely he would have done something to indicate that his work was not actually specific, but was part of the code system of Enlightenment where power operates, and that his writings therefore had to be handled as such.
Kaori