Dear Colleagues:
Perhaps there's an autobiographical and historical reason that
Foucault made the switch from archeology to genealogy: May
'68. In other words, he was dissatisfied with archeology as a
tool for analyzing actual power relations. The failed
revolutionary movement somehow indicated to him that
archeology was, quite simply, insufficiently concrete and too
abstract.
Not to say that he simply abandoned archeology; for example,
the concept of "effects of truth" illustrates how what is said
and thought actually plays a role in power relations. It's
just that the episteme by itself cannot address what happens
in the world without being supplemented by genealogy.
In addition, one problem with "The Order of Things" is that
there's no clear cause for the epistemic shifts. However,
once we see that the episteme is involved and active in power
games, we have a possible explanation of such shifts. With
the development of a Nietzschean genealogy, the question of
what causes epistemic change is addresses, just as the final
desire to address the subject addresses the question of where
resistance comes from.
By the way, my favorite of Foucault's works remains "The Birth
of the Clinic" precisely because of the mixture of
archaeological and genealogy, knowledge and practice, that
runs through its pages...
Yours,
Peter
Peter Winston Fettner
Department of Philosophy
728 Anderson Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19122
(215) 204-1770
http://www.temple.edu/philosophy/index.html
Perhaps there's an autobiographical and historical reason that
Foucault made the switch from archeology to genealogy: May
'68. In other words, he was dissatisfied with archeology as a
tool for analyzing actual power relations. The failed
revolutionary movement somehow indicated to him that
archeology was, quite simply, insufficiently concrete and too
abstract.
Not to say that he simply abandoned archeology; for example,
the concept of "effects of truth" illustrates how what is said
and thought actually plays a role in power relations. It's
just that the episteme by itself cannot address what happens
in the world without being supplemented by genealogy.
In addition, one problem with "The Order of Things" is that
there's no clear cause for the epistemic shifts. However,
once we see that the episteme is involved and active in power
games, we have a possible explanation of such shifts. With
the development of a Nietzschean genealogy, the question of
what causes epistemic change is addresses, just as the final
desire to address the subject addresses the question of where
resistance comes from.
By the way, my favorite of Foucault's works remains "The Birth
of the Clinic" precisely because of the mixture of
archaeological and genealogy, knowledge and practice, that
runs through its pages...
Yours,
Peter
Peter Winston Fettner
Department of Philosophy
728 Anderson Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19122
(215) 204-1770
http://www.temple.edu/philosophy/index.html