Re: [Foucault-L] Yes to the Order of Things!

Since you speak of "fiction", do you think you could help explain what
Foucault meant when he said his works like "fictions"?

On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 8:36 AM, <R.Thomas-Pellicer@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Chatan,
>
> 1/ Glad you gain more and more confidence in your views. As I keep
> restating, Foucault, Gutting, or whoever else, should always be used
> 'instrumentally'--which is not synonymous with disrespectfully-- for the
> agenda of your own time, to help you think by yourself. In transposition.
> Orthodoxy is born out of mummifying the statements of the tradition. The
> tradition should serve the purposes of the present, not those of the past.
>
> 2/ There are many ways to answer the daunting questions you set. I shall
> answer them via my own process of minute Enlightenment during my doctoral
> times, which I am about to complete. I will highlight two reciprocal
> processes:
>
> A/ This frist point is a rephrasing of 1/. Glad there are "founders of
> discursivity" (cf 'What is an author?'). It is really them who help you
> think. Not because you shall be in agreement with them, but because they
> incite you to be in agreement with them with a twist-and this twist is your
> precious contribution to knowledge.
>
>
>
>
> B/ Without The Order of Things -and other works, I would have been unable
> to think -or rather, unthink, elaborate a critique of- 'sustainability'. So
> yes, the 'fiction' that Foucault sets out in OT paves the ground for a
> transition away from the modern mode of being -in my case- not so much
> towards a postmodern as to an ecocidal mode of being.
>
>
>
>
> Maybe on grounds of the eccentricity of this work, The OT has served the
> purposes of my own scholarship enormously. Way better than a great deal that
> goes by the name of "environmentalism", "sustainable development", etc. And
> regardless as well of the position of the critique on this work. Repeating
> myself ad nauseam, I harness all my sources instrumentally.
>
>
>
>
> Ruth Thomas-Pellicer
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
> "After Nietzsche's devastating criticism of those 'last men' who 'invented
> happiness,' I may leave aside altogether the naïve optimism in which science
> -that is, the technique of mastering life which rests upon science- has been
> celebrated as the way to happiness. Who believes in this? -aside from a few
> big children in university chairs or editorial offices." -Max Weber
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
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>



--
Chetan Vemuri
West Des Moines, IA
aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx
(515)-418-2771
"You say you want a Revolution! Well you know, we all want to change the
world"

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[Foucault-L] Yes to the Order of Things!, R.Thomas-Pellicer
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