On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 10:52:17PM -0700, Thomas Lord wrote:
> Andrew Cady wrote:
> > But Jani's answer seemed to have more content than that.
>
> Indeed. That is my point.
>
> You asked what I meant by saying that Jani's answer "didn't quite
> parse". I meant just that: I had trouble with the language in it.
Actually, I asked where the difficulty was--what specifically did
not parse--what specific language caused the trouble. I was only
curious, because I looked for it and didn't see. (I know what you
meant, though.)
> My best guess is that Jani was saying that, in Foucault, agency
> exists, at *any* point in history, in each person's degrees of
> informed freedom to behave as a person. These degrees of freedom can
> be changed by a new idea, at a given point in history, but only if it
> is "intelligible" within "neighboring practices".
>
> Ok, that sounds vaguely familiar but still far off the mark:
>
> Saying that agency is to be found in a person's degrees of informed
> freedom is superfluous at best. The word "agent" doesn't add anything
> there: why aren't we just talking about degrees of freedom directly?
> Evidently there is some implication intended there so that Foucault
> is giving us theories *about agency* rather than about the things he
> directly writes about. Why do we need this a-historic, transcendent
> "agent"?
We certainly don't! It seemed to me Jani was indeed speaking directly,
and in that spirit I responded...
> Why not just talk about what people are/were free or not free to do in
> specific times and places? If we were to "find the agent" somewhere
> in Foucault, then are we next obligated to "find the structure?" And
> then, having fit the work into a framework of agent and structure,
> having reduced it to just a specific position in a particular debate
> in sociology, perhaps we are then done with Foucault?
Perhaps at least we are done with our homework!
> Next, yes, Foucault did write that it often isn't arbitrary when
> exactly in history a new idea enters a field and changes it. And
> he did write that the new discourse around the idea changes the
> world around it, and that it is simultaneously changed by the other
> discourses surround it. He suggested and demonstrated studying
> that timing, and that interaction, to see if we can analyze it and
> understand it, in a general way.
Where?
> He examined the history of several major institutions -- those with a
> very large impact on people's degrees of freedom -- looking at how the
> complex of discourses in and around those institutions played out.
>
> Yet, that analysis in Foucault does not point to any kind of general
> theory about the conditions under which a new idea becomes liberating.
A tall order!
> Once again, the jargon gets in the way: To say that an idea only
> makes a difference if it is "intelligible" seems like a fancy way to
> say that an idea has effect if and only if it has effect (true, but
> empty).
I don't think it is so empty. Intelligibility is, at least, some
sort of relation between an idea and a mind--specifically a cognitive
one. And it requires an assumption that the idea's mechanism of
influence is mimicry in some sense. Alternatives to intelligibility
could be suggested to account for a differential rate of mimicry of an
idea (or of alterations of the idea in the process of mimicry); for
example, that the idea be in accord with material self-interest, or
that it be pleasant to entertain. It might be asked whether cognitive
factors (intelligibility) might be concluded to be determining where
such alternatives actually account better for differences between
individuals. Of course, cognitive capacity remains requisite.
(Where is the meme in Foucault?)
> Foucault was heard to remark that he might someday want to write a
> "history of thought" that would talk in some general, a-historic way
> about when and how new thoughts might be formed, and spread -- but he
> didn't actually do that and didn't mean to do that.
Interesting.
> My proposed last word answer (to go in the Foucault FAQ? :-) is to
> make fun of the question "where is the agent in Foucault" by adding
> some quote marks
Well, I do not wish to defend 'the agent'!
> Andrew Cady wrote:
> > But Jani's answer seemed to have more content than that.
>
> Indeed. That is my point.
>
> You asked what I meant by saying that Jani's answer "didn't quite
> parse". I meant just that: I had trouble with the language in it.
Actually, I asked where the difficulty was--what specifically did
not parse--what specific language caused the trouble. I was only
curious, because I looked for it and didn't see. (I know what you
meant, though.)
> My best guess is that Jani was saying that, in Foucault, agency
> exists, at *any* point in history, in each person's degrees of
> informed freedom to behave as a person. These degrees of freedom can
> be changed by a new idea, at a given point in history, but only if it
> is "intelligible" within "neighboring practices".
>
> Ok, that sounds vaguely familiar but still far off the mark:
>
> Saying that agency is to be found in a person's degrees of informed
> freedom is superfluous at best. The word "agent" doesn't add anything
> there: why aren't we just talking about degrees of freedom directly?
> Evidently there is some implication intended there so that Foucault
> is giving us theories *about agency* rather than about the things he
> directly writes about. Why do we need this a-historic, transcendent
> "agent"?
We certainly don't! It seemed to me Jani was indeed speaking directly,
and in that spirit I responded...
> Why not just talk about what people are/were free or not free to do in
> specific times and places? If we were to "find the agent" somewhere
> in Foucault, then are we next obligated to "find the structure?" And
> then, having fit the work into a framework of agent and structure,
> having reduced it to just a specific position in a particular debate
> in sociology, perhaps we are then done with Foucault?
Perhaps at least we are done with our homework!
> Next, yes, Foucault did write that it often isn't arbitrary when
> exactly in history a new idea enters a field and changes it. And
> he did write that the new discourse around the idea changes the
> world around it, and that it is simultaneously changed by the other
> discourses surround it. He suggested and demonstrated studying
> that timing, and that interaction, to see if we can analyze it and
> understand it, in a general way.
Where?
> He examined the history of several major institutions -- those with a
> very large impact on people's degrees of freedom -- looking at how the
> complex of discourses in and around those institutions played out.
>
> Yet, that analysis in Foucault does not point to any kind of general
> theory about the conditions under which a new idea becomes liberating.
A tall order!
> Once again, the jargon gets in the way: To say that an idea only
> makes a difference if it is "intelligible" seems like a fancy way to
> say that an idea has effect if and only if it has effect (true, but
> empty).
I don't think it is so empty. Intelligibility is, at least, some
sort of relation between an idea and a mind--specifically a cognitive
one. And it requires an assumption that the idea's mechanism of
influence is mimicry in some sense. Alternatives to intelligibility
could be suggested to account for a differential rate of mimicry of an
idea (or of alterations of the idea in the process of mimicry); for
example, that the idea be in accord with material self-interest, or
that it be pleasant to entertain. It might be asked whether cognitive
factors (intelligibility) might be concluded to be determining where
such alternatives actually account better for differences between
individuals. Of course, cognitive capacity remains requisite.
(Where is the meme in Foucault?)
> Foucault was heard to remark that he might someday want to write a
> "history of thought" that would talk in some general, a-historic way
> about when and how new thoughts might be formed, and spread -- but he
> didn't actually do that and didn't mean to do that.
Interesting.
> My proposed last word answer (to go in the Foucault FAQ? :-) is to
> make fun of the question "where is the agent in Foucault" by adding
> some quote marks
Well, I do not wish to defend 'the agent'!