not sure what you mean by this. seems to me foucault's point is that if one
tries to pinpoint what exactly constitutes human nature, then they do so by
calling upon conceptualizations that transcend any particular discourse. by
doing so, they would fail to recognize that these very conceptualizations
emerge as a result of certain discourses.
also i don't think foucault would differentiate between social environment
and the demands of human psychology, this seems to imply a form of
subject/object dichotomy. whilst foucault may have distanced himself from
husserl, i think he nonetheless accepted some form of intentionality as
primary for consciousness (though discourses are responsible for the
conscious interpretations).
justice therefore becomes an issue because of the inherent values within
certain discourses, and not because of some transcendent human psychology.
of course chomsky argues something quite different.
On 6/15/07, Andrew Cady <d@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
tries to pinpoint what exactly constitutes human nature, then they do so by
calling upon conceptualizations that transcend any particular discourse. by
doing so, they would fail to recognize that these very conceptualizations
emerge as a result of certain discourses.
also i don't think foucault would differentiate between social environment
and the demands of human psychology, this seems to imply a form of
subject/object dichotomy. whilst foucault may have distanced himself from
husserl, i think he nonetheless accepted some form of intentionality as
primary for consciousness (though discourses are responsible for the
conscious interpretations).
justice therefore becomes an issue because of the inherent values within
certain discourses, and not because of some transcendent human psychology.
of course chomsky argues something quite different.
On 6/15/07, Andrew Cady <d@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 03:10:03PM +1000, peter chamberlain wrote:
> perhaps you could start from here...
>
> http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm
>
> if you take this section...
>
> > On the other hand, when we discussed the problem of human nature and
> > political problems, then differences arose between us. And contrary
> > to what you think, you can't prevent me from believing that these
> > notions of human nature, of justice, of the realisation of the
> > essence of human beings, are all notions and concepts which have
> > been formed within our civilisation, within our type of knowledge
> > and our form of philosophy, and that as a result form part of
> > our class system; and one can't, however regrettable it may be,
> > put forward these notions to describe or justify a fight which
> > should-and shall in principle--overthrow the very fundaments of
> > our society. This is an extrapolation for which I can't find the
> > historical justification.
>
> ...and substitute the themes of human nature and justice with the
> notion of agency then the outcome is the same, perhaps? when one
> speaks of agency, human agency, they are possible referring to a
> universally and trans-historical idea. such a conceptualization would
> perhaps fail to acknowledge the knowledge systems that facilitated the
> very emergence of the concept to begin with.
I think this is to make a mistake with respect to the significance of
human nature in the debate. It is the question of what demands human
psychology makes of its social environment which defines justice. This
is quite apart from agency, even though what is attributed to human
nature cannot be attributed to social structure.
_______________________________________________
Foucault-L mailing list