> You can't be serious!
I do not make such statements in jest...
You seem to be understanding Foucault's's use of "experience" in rather conventional, if not phenomenological, terms.
I do not think that this is what Foucault meant when he used the term.
I do not have the time to go into too much detail, but see the following:
'Preface to the 1961 Edition' History of Madness: xxvii-xxxvi
'The Preface to the History of Sexuality, Vol. Two,' in EW1: 199-206
'Interview with Michel Foucault' in EW3: 239.
see also
Colin Gordon, ‘History, Madness and Other Errors: a Response,’ History of the Human Sciences 3(3), 1990b: 381-396.
Gary Gutting, 'Foucault’s Philosophy of Experience,' boundary 2, vol.29, no.2, 2002, pp. 69‐85.
Timothy OʹLeary, 'Foucault, Experience, Literature,' Foucault Studies, No 5, pp. 5‐25, forthcoming.
Timothy Rayner, 'Between fiction and reflection: Foucault and the experience book,' Continental Philosophy Review, no.36, 2003, pp.27‐43
Thomas Flynn, Foucault, and Historical Reason, Vol. Two: A Poststructuralist Mapping of History, Chicago, 2005 CH. 9: pp. 208-229.
Beatrice Hanssen, Critique of Violence: Between Poststructuralism and Critical Theory, London, 2000: CH 5: pp. 152-173.
Regards,
Kevin.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: d@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 18:56:43 -0500
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] RE : experience-experiment.
>
> You can't be serious!
>
> On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 02:12:49PM -0800, Kevin Turner wrote:
>> that all depends on how you understand foucault's use of the term
>> experience...
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: d@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Sent: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 12:55:46 -0500
>>> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] RE : experience-experiment.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 11:22:53AM -0800, Kevin Turner wrote:
>>>> Hi Fran??ois
>>>>
>>>> Having re-read all the paragraphs in which the word
>>>> ???experiment??? appears, I have selected the following sentences
>>>> in which the term ???experiment??? should possibly have been
>>>> translated as ???experience.???
>>>>
>>>> From the ???Preface:???
>>>>
>>>> ???The breadth of the experiment [experience] seems to be
>>>> identified with the domain of the careful gaze?????? (BC: xiii).
>>>
>>> This one--unlike the others, in my eyes--can be read either way.
>>>
>>>> From ???The Lessons of the Hospital:???
>>>>
>>>> ???Once one defined a practical experiment [experience] carried
>>>> out on the patient himself, one insisted on the need to relate
>>>> particular knowledge to an encyclopaedic whole??? (BC: 71).
>>>
>>> How does one carry out an experience on someone else? What is a
>>> "practical" experience, and how can defining one create a need to
>>> relate particulars to general medical knowledge?
>>>
>>>> ???The doctrine of the hospital was an ambiguous one: theoretically
>>>> free, and, because of the non-contractual character of the relation
>>>> between doctor and patient, open to the indifference of experiment
>>>> [experience]???(BC: 83-4).
>>>
>>> How can experience be called indifferent? Does this sentence not
>>> say the following?
>>>
>>> "Because the doctor did not need the patient's agreement, he could
>>> experiment on the patient (with indifference to his experience!)
>>> rather than constrain himself to treatment. This fell within the
>>> mission of the hospital because it advanced medical knowledge."
>>>
>>>> From ???Seeing and Knowing:???
>>>>
>>>> ???The opposition between clinic and experiment [experience]
>>>> overlays exactly the difference between the language we hear, and
>>>> consequently recognise, and the question we pose, or, rather,
>>>> impose: ???The observer???reads nature, he who experiments
>>>> [experiences] questions?????? (BC: 108).
>>>
>>> Experimenting is questioning, for sure. But experiencing?
>>>
>>> Can we say this?
>>>
>>> "The difference between experiment and observation is that in the
>>> former, one controls conditions, one attempts to isolate phenomena
>>> by interfering, one acts in specific ways on one's object and
>>> observes the consequences of action; in the latter one is passive.
>>> To ask a question is to affect what is said; merely to listen
>>> is not. It is observation which is experience, and experiment
>>> which is action; observation/experience listens/knows(connaitre);
>>> experiment/action questions/knows(savoir)."
>>>
>>> (Often the notion of experiment affecting its object is expressed
>>> with a not-quite-accurate reference to Heisenberg.)
>>>
>>> The strange word in that sentence seems to me not 'experiment' but
>>> 'clinic.' Looking it up:
>>>
>>> 3. (Med.) a medical facility, often connected with a school or
>>> hospital, which treats primarily outpatients.
>>>
>>> 4. (Med.) A school, or a session of a school or class, in which
>>> medicine or surgery is taught by the examination and treatment of
>>> patients in the presence of the pupils.
>>>
>>> Oh... Within the clinic(4), the medical students just watch
>>> passively.
>>>
>>>> And from ???Open Up a Few Corpses:???
>>>>
>>>> ??????progress in observation, a wish to develop and extend
>>>> experiment [experience]?????? (BC: 136).
>>>
>>> Novel experiments (and the publication of their results) are the
>>> means by which scientific observation progresses. But experience?
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
I do not make such statements in jest...
You seem to be understanding Foucault's's use of "experience" in rather conventional, if not phenomenological, terms.
I do not think that this is what Foucault meant when he used the term.
I do not have the time to go into too much detail, but see the following:
'Preface to the 1961 Edition' History of Madness: xxvii-xxxvi
'The Preface to the History of Sexuality, Vol. Two,' in EW1: 199-206
'Interview with Michel Foucault' in EW3: 239.
see also
Colin Gordon, ‘History, Madness and Other Errors: a Response,’ History of the Human Sciences 3(3), 1990b: 381-396.
Gary Gutting, 'Foucault’s Philosophy of Experience,' boundary 2, vol.29, no.2, 2002, pp. 69‐85.
Timothy OʹLeary, 'Foucault, Experience, Literature,' Foucault Studies, No 5, pp. 5‐25, forthcoming.
Timothy Rayner, 'Between fiction and reflection: Foucault and the experience book,' Continental Philosophy Review, no.36, 2003, pp.27‐43
Thomas Flynn, Foucault, and Historical Reason, Vol. Two: A Poststructuralist Mapping of History, Chicago, 2005 CH. 9: pp. 208-229.
Beatrice Hanssen, Critique of Violence: Between Poststructuralism and Critical Theory, London, 2000: CH 5: pp. 152-173.
Regards,
Kevin.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: d@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 18:56:43 -0500
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] RE : experience-experiment.
>
> You can't be serious!
>
> On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 02:12:49PM -0800, Kevin Turner wrote:
>> that all depends on how you understand foucault's use of the term
>> experience...
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: d@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Sent: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 12:55:46 -0500
>>> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] RE : experience-experiment.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 11:22:53AM -0800, Kevin Turner wrote:
>>>> Hi Fran??ois
>>>>
>>>> Having re-read all the paragraphs in which the word
>>>> ???experiment??? appears, I have selected the following sentences
>>>> in which the term ???experiment??? should possibly have been
>>>> translated as ???experience.???
>>>>
>>>> From the ???Preface:???
>>>>
>>>> ???The breadth of the experiment [experience] seems to be
>>>> identified with the domain of the careful gaze?????? (BC: xiii).
>>>
>>> This one--unlike the others, in my eyes--can be read either way.
>>>
>>>> From ???The Lessons of the Hospital:???
>>>>
>>>> ???Once one defined a practical experiment [experience] carried
>>>> out on the patient himself, one insisted on the need to relate
>>>> particular knowledge to an encyclopaedic whole??? (BC: 71).
>>>
>>> How does one carry out an experience on someone else? What is a
>>> "practical" experience, and how can defining one create a need to
>>> relate particulars to general medical knowledge?
>>>
>>>> ???The doctrine of the hospital was an ambiguous one: theoretically
>>>> free, and, because of the non-contractual character of the relation
>>>> between doctor and patient, open to the indifference of experiment
>>>> [experience]???(BC: 83-4).
>>>
>>> How can experience be called indifferent? Does this sentence not
>>> say the following?
>>>
>>> "Because the doctor did not need the patient's agreement, he could
>>> experiment on the patient (with indifference to his experience!)
>>> rather than constrain himself to treatment. This fell within the
>>> mission of the hospital because it advanced medical knowledge."
>>>
>>>> From ???Seeing and Knowing:???
>>>>
>>>> ???The opposition between clinic and experiment [experience]
>>>> overlays exactly the difference between the language we hear, and
>>>> consequently recognise, and the question we pose, or, rather,
>>>> impose: ???The observer???reads nature, he who experiments
>>>> [experiences] questions?????? (BC: 108).
>>>
>>> Experimenting is questioning, for sure. But experiencing?
>>>
>>> Can we say this?
>>>
>>> "The difference between experiment and observation is that in the
>>> former, one controls conditions, one attempts to isolate phenomena
>>> by interfering, one acts in specific ways on one's object and
>>> observes the consequences of action; in the latter one is passive.
>>> To ask a question is to affect what is said; merely to listen
>>> is not. It is observation which is experience, and experiment
>>> which is action; observation/experience listens/knows(connaitre);
>>> experiment/action questions/knows(savoir)."
>>>
>>> (Often the notion of experiment affecting its object is expressed
>>> with a not-quite-accurate reference to Heisenberg.)
>>>
>>> The strange word in that sentence seems to me not 'experiment' but
>>> 'clinic.' Looking it up:
>>>
>>> 3. (Med.) a medical facility, often connected with a school or
>>> hospital, which treats primarily outpatients.
>>>
>>> 4. (Med.) A school, or a session of a school or class, in which
>>> medicine or surgery is taught by the examination and treatment of
>>> patients in the presence of the pupils.
>>>
>>> Oh... Within the clinic(4), the medical students just watch
>>> passively.
>>>
>>>> And from ???Open Up a Few Corpses:???
>>>>
>>>> ??????progress in observation, a wish to develop and extend
>>>> experiment [experience]?????? (BC: 136).
>>>
>>> Novel experiments (and the publication of their results) are the
>>> means by which scientific observation progresses. But experience?
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list