it was sabotaged by academics peut etre...
Edward Comstock wrote:
Edward Comstock wrote:
I agree with this (and I'd love to know more about how you think Rabinow misinterprets Foucault on the "death of Man"). I really don't understand how OT has fallen out of favor--if indeed this is what has happened--and it makes me suspect that people simply find it too difficult to read? Although I do understand that Foucault, and others, moved on from the project of describing discourse because this poses obvious restrictions on "the project," I still think the archaeology has obvious ramifications to those who work within the scholarly discourses. And while it's probably true that OT reflects insights that are not uniquely "Foucault," especially perhaps Canguilhem, I also can't imagine understanding what the rest of his works are doing without it.
In any event, I read Foucault on the death of Man as presaging many of those events and techniques that we now label "post-modern" in culture and politics, and as a kind of inevitability rather than a completed process. _____________________
Ed Comstock
College Writing Program
Department of Literature
American University
------------------------------------
The easy possibility of letter writing must--seen theoretically--have brought into the world a terrible dislocation of souls. It is, in fact, an intercourse with ghosts, and not only with the ghost of the recipient, but also with one's own ghost... How on earth did anybody get the idea that people can communicate with each other by letter!--Franz Kafka
"Vemuri, Chathan V" <chathan-vemuri@xxxxxxxxx> Sent by: foucault-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
10/01/2008 04:29 AM
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[Foucault-L] The Order of Things - relevance for today
Hey guys,
Some people are of the opinion that The Order of Things is an outdated work with a misleading premise of the death of man via language that they discard in favor of his other writings on prisons and sexuality, etc. I think The Order of Things still has much relevance for modern understanding of the social sciences and that the ending is far too misunderstood, especially by Ian Hacking (who pushes a Kantian interpretation of Foucault). To me, it seems his proclamation of the "death of Man" is not so much a proclamation that man has already died but a future warning or hypothesis that our current notion of Man as a Cartesian subject which originated in the 17th century or so is a recent invention that will have its end eventually like all other meta concepts. Yet many view this as Foucault already proclaiming that man has already disappeared via the configuration of language, and that this prediction is miscast (notably Foucault interpreters such as Rabinow and even Hacking) t!
hus the reason why I think this book has been downplayed in favor of Discipline and Punish, History of Sexuality and other works (though those are my favorites). I was wondering what you guys thought about the relevance of The Order of Things and your interpretation of his prediction at the end. I feel the work is very much essential to understanding the general logic behind Foucault's work, as well as The Archaeology of Knowledge, thus why I recommended it to someone who was beginning to read Foucault for the first time.
I would love to hear from you guys as soon as possible.
Chathan Vemuri
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