Re: [Foucault-L] High Court of Australia judge Crennan on post modernism and the law

I meant to add to my last email, thanks Martin for sending this article on - I found it useful and interesting to see this. More evidence of an increasingly popular 'discursive practice' of anti pomo arguments - which are really just attacking straw men most of the time.


At 11:51 +0200 18/7/07, martin hardie wrote:

Hi Clare, Scott et al

I only snet this as it amused e a little that the HCA was talking about
Foucault ...... long way from Dawson J or Gibbs CJ, but I didn't hold out
any hope that the Melbourne Bar had really found pomoism....... I suppose it
was just a reaction on my part that as an ex pat winging aussie something
more interesting might come out of that country ... as all it seems to be is
sadness and reaction ..... poor fella my country .....

Martin a winging aussie n Bilbao



On 18/07/07, Scott Nicholas <snichola@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Clare,

thanks for the interview transcript. Crennan perspective is just a 'tad'
self -serving.

I tend to think that the need for objective truth and certainty reflects a
religious like impulse and a high degree
of personal fear. Could it have been otherwise given the influence of
theology on modernist philosophers like Descartes and the Enlightenment
thinkers? Certainly, sociologists like Durkheim and Weber thought so in
terms of the dominant influences of modern life.Arguably, much of the
modernist project is underpinned by theological values, attitudes and
beliefs.

Scott Nicholas

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clare O'Farrell" <c.ofarrell@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Mailing-list" <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] High Court of Australia judge Crennan on post
modernism and the law


>I have to say I get a bit tired of reading this kind of simplistic
> rendition - which has become a widespread orthodoxy in some quarters
> - of Foucault's ideas on truth.
>
> Here is an interesting interview with Foucault which has just gone up
> online with some points of view which might shake this orthodoxy a
> little. This interview has previously been difficult to access
> http://www.vanderbilt.edu/historydept/michaelbess/Foucault%20Interview
>
>> Foucault recounts this anecdote to draw attention to what he regards
as
>> the
>>arbitrariness of definitions framed to describe human behaviour, and the
>>contingent nature of meaning or truth. This point is repeated in many
>>places
>>and under many guises throughout his oeuvre. He rejects our culture's
long
>>tradition of belief in objective truths, and the law's use of reason to
>>establish truth, since 'truths' for him are fashioned by whatever is the
>>dominant group paradigm or discourse.
>
> --
> regards
> Clare
> ************************************************
> Clare O'Farrell
> email: c.ofarrell@xxxxxxxxxx
> website: http://www.michel-foucault.com
> ************************************************
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>

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Clare
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