On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Ali Rizvi <ali_m_rizvi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ""Spirituality
> postulates that the truth is never given to the subject by right. Spirituality
> postulates that the subject as such does not have right to access to the truth
> and is not capable of access to the truth. It postulates that the truth is not
> given to the subject by a simple act of knowledge (connaissance), which would
> be founded and justified simply by the fact that he is the subject and because
> he possesses this or that structure of subjectivity. It postulates that for the
> subject to have right of access to the truth he must be changed, transformed,
> shifted, and become to some extent and up to certain point, other than himself.
> The truth is only given to the subject at a price that brings the subject's
> being into play. For as he is, the subject is not capable of truth. I think
> that this is the simplest but most fundamental formula by which spirituality
> can be defined."
>
> What's clear to me at this point is that
> the notion of spirituality is closely tied to both Focualt's critique of the
> subject and the possibility of a totally new subjectivity. What I am wondering
> at the moment is how this relates to his views on revolution in a way which is
> more than just pointing towards the general structural similarities which one
> can see between "subjective" transformation and revolutionary
> transformation.Ali
The tradition of historical materialism, with which Foucault was
ambivalently engaged, postulates that the subjective transformation of
the sort that Foucault put under the rubric of "spirituality" in The
Hermeneutics of the Subject comes only through a collective
revolutionary practice and vice versa, a revolutionary process in
which people, through practical activity, transform both themselves
and their circumstances, and that it is in this process we should seek
"truth." As Marx put it, "The philosophers have only interpreted the
world, in various ways; the point is to change it." The eleventh
thesis on Feuerbach is often misunderstood as a call to action,
rejecting philosophy, but it is best to interpret it as a criticism of
the common epistemological premise of the philosophers whom Marx
criticizes, the premise being that there exists a subject, disengaged
from the world as well as other subjects, who can know. Foucault,
like Marx, criticizes that premise.
Yoshie
> ""Spirituality
> postulates that the truth is never given to the subject by right. Spirituality
> postulates that the subject as such does not have right to access to the truth
> and is not capable of access to the truth. It postulates that the truth is not
> given to the subject by a simple act of knowledge (connaissance), which would
> be founded and justified simply by the fact that he is the subject and because
> he possesses this or that structure of subjectivity. It postulates that for the
> subject to have right of access to the truth he must be changed, transformed,
> shifted, and become to some extent and up to certain point, other than himself.
> The truth is only given to the subject at a price that brings the subject's
> being into play. For as he is, the subject is not capable of truth. I think
> that this is the simplest but most fundamental formula by which spirituality
> can be defined."
>
> What's clear to me at this point is that
> the notion of spirituality is closely tied to both Focualt's critique of the
> subject and the possibility of a totally new subjectivity. What I am wondering
> at the moment is how this relates to his views on revolution in a way which is
> more than just pointing towards the general structural similarities which one
> can see between "subjective" transformation and revolutionary
> transformation.Ali
The tradition of historical materialism, with which Foucault was
ambivalently engaged, postulates that the subjective transformation of
the sort that Foucault put under the rubric of "spirituality" in The
Hermeneutics of the Subject comes only through a collective
revolutionary practice and vice versa, a revolutionary process in
which people, through practical activity, transform both themselves
and their circumstances, and that it is in this process we should seek
"truth." As Marx put it, "The philosophers have only interpreted the
world, in various ways; the point is to change it." The eleventh
thesis on Feuerbach is often misunderstood as a call to action,
rejecting philosophy, but it is best to interpret it as a criticism of
the common epistemological premise of the philosophers whom Marx
criticizes, the premise being that there exists a subject, disengaged
from the world as well as other subjects, who can know. Foucault,
like Marx, criticizes that premise.
Yoshie