On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 00:17 -0600, Chetan Vemuri wrote:
> He also views Foucault as essentially a social constructionist which is an
> understandable yet rather mistaken (to me at least) characterization of his
> work and project.
Well, yes (making reasonable assumptions about
what you mean by "social constructionist" etc.).
So, how to address a person with that
misunderstanding?
One way is to challenge him on his claims of all
of these "subtexts". There's what Foucault says
and then there's a whole other range of theory
that is what your teacher finds to be the "subtext".
As if Foucault needed some explanation other than
the explanation which is exactly what Foucault
wrote.
Well, ok, then the challenge to that critic is to
get specific: He says he has a theory of what
Foucault "really meant" so then let him not sell the
theory, right away, but instead apply the theory and
find some specific examples in Foucault to which he
can apply his theory and convince us of the error of
those specific examples. If he succeeds a couple of
times then maybe we can begin to take his claim of
a general theory of this subtext seriously ... but if
he can't even produce a single one....
-t
> He also views Foucault as essentially a social constructionist which is an
> understandable yet rather mistaken (to me at least) characterization of his
> work and project.
Well, yes (making reasonable assumptions about
what you mean by "social constructionist" etc.).
So, how to address a person with that
misunderstanding?
One way is to challenge him on his claims of all
of these "subtexts". There's what Foucault says
and then there's a whole other range of theory
that is what your teacher finds to be the "subtext".
As if Foucault needed some explanation other than
the explanation which is exactly what Foucault
wrote.
Well, ok, then the challenge to that critic is to
get specific: He says he has a theory of what
Foucault "really meant" so then let him not sell the
theory, right away, but instead apply the theory and
find some specific examples in Foucault to which he
can apply his theory and convince us of the error of
those specific examples. If he succeeds a couple of
times then maybe we can begin to take his claim of
a general theory of this subtext seriously ... but if
he can't even produce a single one....
-t