This is where I expose myself as so very terribly not a
professional academic -- but at least try to do my best.
Andrew asked for some cites which I shall now imperfectly
try to supply:
The flip answer is that I think pretty much all of the books
consist of such demonstration but, more seriously, I recall
that he says fairly directly what I'm paraphrasing there in
the debate with Chomsky that is archived on the foucault.info
web site. It was either the transcript of that debate or the
the transcript of a Q&A from his time at Berkeley.
You are filling in an awful lot there that, while interesting, I don't
think can be found explicitly or implicitly in Foucault. Part of the
beauty of his work is that, in contrast to many other philosophers,
we don't have to buy into any elaborate theory of the mind to
appreciate and use Foucault's writings. They are, to a non-trivial
extent, "theory of mind"-neutral.
I think I am taking that, again, from either the Chomsky transcript
or the Q&A from Berkeley.
In any event, I found both of those documents very helpful. They
confirmed a lot that I thought I understood about his writing. They
were pleasantly colloquial in that they showcased both his wicked
sense of nasty humor and his playful, cooperative, friendly-intellectual
aspects.
As I recall, the whole question is stupid in the first place :-)
-t
professional academic -- but at least try to do my best.
Andrew asked for some cites which I shall now imperfectly
try to supply:
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?
The flip answer is that I think pretty much all of the books
consist of such demonstration but, more seriously, I recall
that he says fairly directly what I'm paraphrasing there in
the debate with Chomsky that is archived on the foucault.info
web site. It was either the transcript of that debate or the
the transcript of a Q&A from his time at Berkeley.
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. [....]
You are filling in an awful lot there that, while interesting, I don't
think can be found explicitly or implicitly in Foucault. Part of the
beauty of his work is that, in contrast to many other philosophers,
we don't have to buy into any elaborate theory of the mind to
appreciate and use Foucault's writings. They are, to a non-trivial
extent, "theory of mind"-neutral.
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.
I think I am taking that, again, from either the Chomsky transcript
or the Q&A from Berkeley.
In any event, I found both of those documents very helpful. They
confirmed a lot that I thought I understood about his writing. They
were pleasantly colloquial in that they showcased both his wicked
sense of nasty humor and his playful, cooperative, friendly-intellectual
aspects.
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'!
As I recall, the whole question is stupid in the first place :-)
-t