On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Kevin Turner <kevin.turner@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Foucault refers to the classical experience of madness, but Foucault
>> explicitly denies that "sexuality" as such was intelligible to ancient
>> Greeks and even ancient Romans: "One would have a difficult time
>> finding among the Greeks (or the Romans either for that matter)
>> anything resembling the notion of 'sexuality' or 'flesh'" (The Use of
>> Pleasure, p. 35).
>
> not intelligible to Greeks or Romans, intelligible to Foucault.
Therefore, Foucault refused to impose "sexuality" onto Greeks and
Romans, not speaking of the "Greco-Roman experience of sexuality" or
things like that.
>> If you put it that way, you just end up transferring the idea of
>> transhistorical existence from "subject" and "experience" to "madness"
>> and "sexuality."
>
> no, because madness does not exist, nor does sexuality for
> that matter (cf. SPT: 118, 131n10).
"Sexuality," "madness," etc., or "economy," etc., may one day cease to
exist, and we may consider under what historical conditions they will
cease to be intelligible. But till then these historically
constituted domains of practice will rule our social relations in ways
that are not subject to conscious individual choice. As a matter of
fact, even as we speak now, "sexuality," for instance, is likely to be
becoming an intelligible experience for larger proportions of people
in the world than before.
Yoshie
>> Foucault refers to the classical experience of madness, but Foucault
>> explicitly denies that "sexuality" as such was intelligible to ancient
>> Greeks and even ancient Romans: "One would have a difficult time
>> finding among the Greeks (or the Romans either for that matter)
>> anything resembling the notion of 'sexuality' or 'flesh'" (The Use of
>> Pleasure, p. 35).
>
> not intelligible to Greeks or Romans, intelligible to Foucault.
Therefore, Foucault refused to impose "sexuality" onto Greeks and
Romans, not speaking of the "Greco-Roman experience of sexuality" or
things like that.
>> If you put it that way, you just end up transferring the idea of
>> transhistorical existence from "subject" and "experience" to "madness"
>> and "sexuality."
>
> no, because madness does not exist, nor does sexuality for
> that matter (cf. SPT: 118, 131n10).
"Sexuality," "madness," etc., or "economy," etc., may one day cease to
exist, and we may consider under what historical conditions they will
cease to be intelligible. But till then these historically
constituted domains of practice will rule our social relations in ways
that are not subject to conscious individual choice. As a matter of
fact, even as we speak now, "sexuality," for instance, is likely to be
becoming an intelligible experience for larger proportions of people
in the world than before.
Yoshie