Re: [Foucault-L] The Order of Things - relevance for today

People love to talk about how Foucault "matured" and reclaimed the subject but I heavily disagree with that analysis. Foucault never proclaimed "the death of the subject" to begin with. His idea at the end of The Order of Things was simply to show that man as an independent cartesian subject of the Enlightenment was a recent invention and he didn't say it had already ended but that like all other previous concepts it too would meet its end. And I strongly think that with current post-structuralist accounts of the subject and his problematic relationship to what he or she sees as "truth", this prediction is rather true. Foucault's later work does not abandon this but instead decides to go onto formulate a new conceptualization of the subject different from that which had "died" in The Order of Things.
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From: foucault-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [foucault-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathaniel Roberts [npr4@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 4:01 PM
To: Mailing-list
Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] The Order of Things - relevance for today

Just a quick note: The sections of Dreyfus and Rabinow's book on the
Order of Things and the Archeology were written by Dreyfus and the
later chapters, on discipline, etc., were written by Rabinow. At
least this is what I remember him saying once. And I also know that
he and Dreyfus came gradually to disagree more and more about
Foucault. I don't mean to make this about specific persons
(authorities or whatever) --that's irrelevant-- but it's just a
reminder that we needn't take the Dreyfus & Rabinow volume as a whole;
we can accept parts and reject others.

For a counterpoint to Dreyfus on Foucault's OT, etc., Gutting's book
is a pretty good place to start.

And I agree with the person who wrote earlier that OT is still
relevant. I just wouldn't assign it to undergraduates (at least not
in toto) because there is a limit to how hard most undergrads are
willing to push themselves. But the OT certainly repays careful
study. There's no doubt about that.

Oh, one more thing, are people aware that Foucault revisits and
revises (or rather, re-situates) his Order of Things argument about
"man" in one of the lectures in his 1977-8 course, published under the
title Security, Territory, Population? Check it out.

Nate

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Edward Comstock <ecomst@xxxxxxxxxxxx> 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
> Please respond to
> Mailing-list <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
> To
> "foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> cc
>
> Subject
> [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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--
Nathaniel Roberts
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
Columbia University
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Replies
[Foucault-L] The Order of Things - relevance for today, Vemuri, Chathan V
Re: [Foucault-L] The Order of Things - relevance for today, Edward Comstock
Re: [Foucault-L] The Order of Things - relevance for today, Nathaniel Roberts
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