On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 19:27 -0600, Chetan Vemuri wrote:
> Basically the only real point he tried to disprove with "powerful
> researches" was his interpretation of Foucault's thesis in The History of
> Sexuality volume 1 that sexuality is a construction of history and society,
> which he feels his wrong due to evolutionary psychology and the like proving
> that there is a sexual nature, as well as the fact of basic biology and
> genetics.
So, to that, you can say "what do you mean by
'sexuality'?"
Surely there are scientific accounts that use
words like "sexuality" as terms-of-art: as formal
terms in a formalizible science paper.
Just as surely there are "rhetorical" - to avoid
any Foucault terms-of-art - uses of "sexuality" and
related terms. There is the imperfect logic of
sexuality as it appears in court, or in legislation,
or in this or that theology, etc.
There are "sexualities," so to speak, with not
a single topic of discussion.
Less fancily: he's doing an "apples v. oranges"
thing.
We can leave the "self" out of it for a minute
because when we contrast uses of that term we'll
see the same problems again but harder to think
about because they feel closer to home, so to speak.
> I think he misses the point in that Foucault, to my mind, says that the
> ideas based around sexuality in the West traditionally are historically
> varied and complicated and that he's not trying to deny the biological
> existence of men and women but the notion that traditional sexuality is
> inevitable or irreversibly natural. Or I may be wrongly phrasing it my self.
No, that's just fine. One of the academics can
probably find an interview or some such where
he said as much himself. Not regarding sexuality
but on other matters that apply by good analogy
similar topics come up in the dialog with Chomsky.
It's not that hard a concept but the confusion you
attribute to your friend here seems really common
and surprisingly persistent. I'm interested to find
simple plain-language ways to clear it up.
> In fact, in my response to the teacher, I wrote that Foucault is not trying
> to so much disprove anything as to merely show a genealogy of the
> perceptions of sexuality in the West.
Not just perceptions but how it relates to
exercises of power against individual people
and how those exercises of power incline people
towards either reinforcing the pattern or breaking
from it in very narrowly constrained ways.
> If anything, that he was underming
> naive notions about sexuality held by the everyday person or academic.
>
He was "just" being clear-headed and not trying
to overgeneralize while nevertheless being
unafraid of some obvious analytic abstractions.
He eeked that out of the academic publication
system by also being a beautiful writer who could
treat academic forms as purely abstract forms.
He turned the academic gaze upon itself, rather
completely and truly, and to this day that flummoxes
the academic voice.
-t
> On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Thomas Lord <lord@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > 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
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> >
>
>
>
> Basically the only real point he tried to disprove with "powerful
> researches" was his interpretation of Foucault's thesis in The History of
> Sexuality volume 1 that sexuality is a construction of history and society,
> which he feels his wrong due to evolutionary psychology and the like proving
> that there is a sexual nature, as well as the fact of basic biology and
> genetics.
So, to that, you can say "what do you mean by
'sexuality'?"
Surely there are scientific accounts that use
words like "sexuality" as terms-of-art: as formal
terms in a formalizible science paper.
Just as surely there are "rhetorical" - to avoid
any Foucault terms-of-art - uses of "sexuality" and
related terms. There is the imperfect logic of
sexuality as it appears in court, or in legislation,
or in this or that theology, etc.
There are "sexualities," so to speak, with not
a single topic of discussion.
Less fancily: he's doing an "apples v. oranges"
thing.
We can leave the "self" out of it for a minute
because when we contrast uses of that term we'll
see the same problems again but harder to think
about because they feel closer to home, so to speak.
> I think he misses the point in that Foucault, to my mind, says that the
> ideas based around sexuality in the West traditionally are historically
> varied and complicated and that he's not trying to deny the biological
> existence of men and women but the notion that traditional sexuality is
> inevitable or irreversibly natural. Or I may be wrongly phrasing it my self.
No, that's just fine. One of the academics can
probably find an interview or some such where
he said as much himself. Not regarding sexuality
but on other matters that apply by good analogy
similar topics come up in the dialog with Chomsky.
It's not that hard a concept but the confusion you
attribute to your friend here seems really common
and surprisingly persistent. I'm interested to find
simple plain-language ways to clear it up.
> In fact, in my response to the teacher, I wrote that Foucault is not trying
> to so much disprove anything as to merely show a genealogy of the
> perceptions of sexuality in the West.
Not just perceptions but how it relates to
exercises of power against individual people
and how those exercises of power incline people
towards either reinforcing the pattern or breaking
from it in very narrowly constrained ways.
> If anything, that he was underming
> naive notions about sexuality held by the everyday person or academic.
>
He was "just" being clear-headed and not trying
to overgeneralize while nevertheless being
unafraid of some obvious analytic abstractions.
He eeked that out of the academic publication
system by also being a beautiful writer who could
treat academic forms as purely abstract forms.
He turned the academic gaze upon itself, rather
completely and truly, and to this day that flummoxes
the academic voice.
-t
> On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Thomas Lord <lord@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > 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
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> >
>
>
>