Posting here a reply to one of the list's subscribers. This will also be the response more or less I give to my professor.
I have indeed been needlessly harsh with my wording, I plan to rewrite
most of the original draft. Alternate reading sounds better than
critique especially when I don't even have a thesis yet.
I
like your explanation of the archaeological vs the anthropological.
This would provide a framework for further elaboration on the issue of
the "theory of signification". The reasoning Foucault gives for its
absence comes exclusively from the inherent form of representation. The
change in both the location of knowledge and man's role in obtaining
knowledge were either conditions or implications of the overall shift
of the episteme from the Renaissance to the Age of Reason. However in
taking this approach to reading Foucault, one may need to touch upon
the reason Foucault gives for the rise of representation, which I
believe is something like a need for order, the Nietzschean will I
assume. This then becomes confusing. It's possible, and preferred, to
give this reading without incorporating a reason behind the change.
However the fact that it's there weakens Foucault's own archaeological
account. Unless this will (I can't find the exact passage but I'm
pretty sure I read it somewhere in Chapter 3, "Representing" of The
Order of Things) is not anthropological.
Returning to D &
R's passage, if I take this approach, then I can argue that D & R
should not have started the paragraph with a description of man's role
in relation to knowledge. I have trouble explaining clearly my thought
process. This is what I have so far;
The absence of a theory of
signification was a consequence of representation replacing
resemblance, there were many theories regarding resemblance during the
Renaissance. The shifting of the sign to within discursive knowledge
was a condition for assigning probability to relations, thus it was a
condition for representation.
D & R's passage becomes more
confusing each time I read it. What's certain is, their descriptions of
the Classical age, in that man was "the locus of clarification," and
the "role of man was to clarify the order of the world," must be
exclusive to the classical age if they are to describe a shift in
episteme. I failed to understand how the role of man was different in
the Classical age, thus I viewed it as a misreading. My professor
understood D & R better, and explained their reasoning as when the
sign could only appear within discursive knowledge, it implied that man
had taken on a more direct role in constructing his knowledge, thus man
became a "locus of clarification." However Foucault was not concerned
with man the subject, and studying discourse from the perspective of
man, for that would be an anthropological study, not an archaelogical
one. The "man" Foucault describes is an object within his study of
discourse. It does not create or affect discursive changes. The same
"man" D & R describes becomes a subject/object of his/our own
knowledge. He is responsible for the epistemological change. Man's more
direct role in constructing his knowledge as Foucault explained, was
merely a condition, not a cause, for the appearance of representation.
During the Renaissance, man also interpreted the world, though perhaps
he was not a locus of clarification. Man understood the world through
the 16th century episteme, which was resemblance, but it was thought to
have been given by God. Resemblance was understood to have been
installed by God to make signs appear before us for our aid, whereas
representation was obviously a relation built in our own minds, whether
given to us by God as Malebranche and Berkeley states or not.
It
now becomes clearer how D & R read Foucault. Their explanation
implied that representation was the effect of man's desire to organize
the world through his own means. However I am certain Foucault did not
describe, and wanted to avoid describing a causal relationship in
discursive change. I actually found a quote here:
"Discontinuity
- the fact that within the space of a few years a culture sometimes
ceases to think as it had been thinking up till then and begins to
think other things in a new way - probably begins with an erosion from
outside, from that space which is, for thought, on the other side, but
in which it has never ceased to think from the very beginning.
Ultimately, the problem that presents itself is that of the relations
between thought and culture: how is it that thought has a place in the
space of the world, that it has its origin there, and that it never
ceases, in this place or that, to begin anew? But perhaps it is not yet
time to pose this problem; perhaps we should wait until the archaeology
of thought has been established more firmly, until it is better able to
gauge what it is capable of describing directly and positively, until
it has defined the particular systems and internal connections it has
to deal with, before attemting to encompass thought and to investigate
how it contrives to escape itself." (OT 50)
Therefore it would
be incorrect to explain the rise of representation through, or as the
effect of a change in man's thought. Rather, Foucault describes a
"simultaneous" change. To assign, quoting Nietzsche, a "Doer behind the
deed" would be erroneous. I'm not sure how the will to order fits in
here, but I have a feeling I misunderstood it.
All of this
should hopefully, provide the basic groundwork for a perspective I can
argue from. Thank you for your time and your recommendations, I will
check those books out.
> From: foucault-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Foucault-L Digest, Vol 9, Issue 5
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:29:32 -0600
>
> Send Foucault-L mailing list submissions to
> foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://foucault.info/mailman/listinfo/foucault-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> foucault-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> foucault-l-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Foucault-L digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Foucault's 1984 lectures at Coll?ge de France is now
> available in French (Chetan Vemuri)
> 2. newsletter (Bo Yang)
> 3. Communism is back and we should call it singularity - Friday
> 27th February @ The Octagon, Queen Mary, University of London (ari)
> 4. Video on Nations Have the Right to Kill (Orion Anderson)
> 5. cfp (Ian Goodwin-Smith)
> 6. Re: cfp (martin hardie)
> 7. Critique of a short passage by Dreyfus & Rabinow regarding
> the Order of Things (Bo Yang)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 13:48:25 -0600
> From: Chetan Vemuri <aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault's 1984 lectures at Coll?ge de
> France is now available in French
> To: Mailing-list <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID:
> <34cd98ba0902091148i4c4381cej51f1b470146aa0f1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> Does anyone know when the English translation of the 1983 course will be
> out?
> I hope sometime this year but I don't know.
>
>
>
> 2009/2/9 Tetz <saddhaa@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> > hi,
> >
> > It seems that nobody hasn't mentioned the recent publication of *Le courage
> > de la v?rit?: La gouvernement de soi et des autres II - Cours du Coll?ge de
> > France (1984) *.
> > Here's the book reviews of *Le Monde* and *Lib?ration*.
> >
> > Tetz Hakoda
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2009/01/22/le-courage-de-la-verite-l-ultime-lecon-de-michel-foucault_1144999_3260.html
> >
> > "Le courage de la v?rit?", l'ultime le?on de Michel Foucault
> > LE MONDE DES LIVRES | 22.01.09 | 11h40 - Mis ? jour le 22.01.09 | 11h40
> >
> > En parlant, il court contre la mort. Cette ann?e 1984, ses cours du Coll?ge
> > de France n'ont pas commenc? en janvier, comme d'habitude. "J'ai ?t?
> > malade,
> > tr?s malade", indique Michel Foucault le 1er f?vrier en ouvrant son cours.
> > Quand il cl?t le cycle, fin mars, il a cette phrase : "Il est trop tard."
> >
> > En apparence, il signale juste que l'heure a tourn?, qu'il faut renoncer
> > aux
> > d?veloppements pr?par?s. Aujourd'hui, nous pouvons entendre la formule
> > autrement. Ce sont les derniers mots adress?s par le philosophe ? son
> > auditoire. Quelques semaines plus tard, il meurt du sida. Il avait 57 ans.
> >
> > A-t-il d?lib?r?ment organis? ces ultimes conf?rences comme un testament ?
> > On
> > peut le supposer. En tout cas, toute ?motion mise ? part, le texte est
> > exceptionnel. Un quart de si?cle apr?s, cette parole impressionne encore.
> > Par sa clart? incisive, par l'ampleur de son information. Par sa capacit?,
> > si rare, ? faire surgir des paysages nouveaux au sein de textes connus.
> >
> > Cette fois, la "vie philosophique", r?v?e et pratiqu?e par les Anciens,
> > appara?t comme une matrice - lointaine, mais toujours active - de la vie
> > militante et du d?sir de r?volution qui anime les Modernes. Comment ? Cela
> > demande explications.
> >
> > Pour ?clairer le long parcours qui conduit de la vie du philosophe antique,
> > mise en ordre selon la v?rit?, ? celle du r?volutionnaire moderne, tendue
> > vers la transformation de l'Histoire, Michel Foucault repart d'une notion
> > grecque, d?j? explor?e par lui l'ann?e pr?c?dente : la parr?sia.
> >
> > Le terme d?signe notamment le franc-parler de l'ami, le dire-vrai du
> > confident, par opposition ? la flatterie de l'hypocrite ou du courtisan. La
> > parr?sia implique le courage de tout dire, au risque de d?plaire, voire de
> > f?cher. Cette franchise hardie, qui s'applique ? la conduite de l'existence
> > la plus intime, poss?de aussi une importante dimension politique : dire
> > vrai
> > sur soi-m?me, accepter aussi d'entendre ce qui n'est pas agr?able, cela
> > concerne aussi bien, pour les Grecs, le gouvernement de la communaut? que
> > celui de l'individu. Le sujet et la Cit? se constituent donc en articulant
> > de mani?re semblable exigence de v?rit?, pouvoir sur soi et pouvoir sur les
> > autres.
> >
> > Jusque-l?, rien de vraiment neuf. En revanche, le cours devient inou?, et
> > les analyses virtuoses, quand Foucault braque le projecteur sur les
> > philosophes cyniques. L'adjectif, dans l'Antiquit?, n'a rien ? voir avec
> > son
> > sens courant actuel. D?riv? de kunos ("chien", en grec ancien), il signifie
> > "canin". Les cyniques sont ceux qui - volontairement, exemplairement -
> > vivent comme des chiens. Dormant ? la dure, se d?pouillant de tout
> > artifice,
> > mendiant leur pitance, ne respectant aucun usage de civilit?, s'accouplant
> > en public, invectivant les passants, ces philosophes ont fait scandale,
> > plusieurs si?cles durant.
> >
> > Foucault s'int?resse ? ce scandale, souvent n?glig? ou minimis?. Son
> > int?r?t
> > ne tient pas simplement ? sa fascination pour les "inf?mes", provocateurs
> > ou
> > rebelles. Il discerne, dans la r?probation que suscitent les cyniques, les
> > termes d'une ?nigme ? r?soudre. Pourquoi donc les voit-on d'un si mauvais
> > oeil, alors qu'ils prennent appui, somme toute, sur le tronc commun des
> > ambitions philosophiques du monde antique ? Il faut insister, en effet, sur
> > la banalit? de ce que veulent les cyniques, dont le fonds doctrinal ne
> > brille aucunement par son originalit?. Au contraire, leurs objectifs sont
> > des plus consensuels. Transformer son existence par la philosophie,
> > s'occuper de soi pour y parvenir, d?laisser en cons?quence tout ce qui se
> > r?v?le inutile, s'exercer ? rendre sa vie conforme ? ses pens?es - tout le
> > monde, en Gr?ce ou ? Rome, s'accorde sur ces points. Que font donc les
> > cyniques de si ?trange, de si inacceptable, pour ?tre rejet?s dans
> > l'opprobre tout en poursuivant des buts que tous les philosophes, en leur
> > temps, partagent peu ou prou ?
> >
> > Ils op?rent un passage ? la limite. En poursuivant radicalement, jusqu'?
> > son
> > terme, le mouvement de la vie philosophique, ils en inversent le sens. Les
> > cyniques montrent que la "vraie vie", la vie selon la v?rit?, n'existe
> > qu'au
> > prix du saccage de moeurs qui nous ?garent. Voil? l'exploit qui cr?e le
> > scandale : faire entrer en conflit, aux yeux de tous, des principes
> > unanimement partag?s et leur mise en pratique. Avec les principes, nous
> > sommes tous d'accord. Mais nous faisons l'inverse. Les cyniques ex?cutent,
> > ?
> > la lettre, ce que nous approuvons, et c'est inacceptable. Sans rien changer
> > aux buts habituels de la philosophie, ils font appara?tre combien, pour les
> > atteindre, il faut briser les r?gles et d?mon?tiser les conventions
> > sociales.
> >
> > Dans l'histoire de l'Occident, c'est une mutation capitale. Du coup, en
> > effet, la "vie philosophique", la "vraie vie" (droite, parfaite,
> > souveraine,
> > vertueuse) se trouve transform?e en "vie autre" (pauvre, sale, laide,
> > d?shonor?e, humili?e, animale). Foucault met en lumi?re les multiples
> > aspects de cette torsion promise ? une post?rit? immense. M?me la fonction
> > souveraine du philosophe se trouve radicalement m?tamorphos?e, au point de
> > devenir grima?ante. Le cynique est bien le seul vrai roi, qui n'a besoin de
> > rien ni de personne pour manifester son pouvoir. Mais ce roi est d?risoire
> > -
> > nu, sale et laid.
> >
> > Sa fonction supr?me ? Exercer le franc-parler envers le genre humain tout
> > entier. Ce chien aboie, attaque et mord. En guerre contre l'humanit? dans
> > son ensemble au nom du dire-vrai (la parr?sia), il se bat contre soi aussi
> > bien que contre tous les autres. Ce clochard cosmique invente ceci :
> > rejoindre la vraie vie implique le chambardement du monde, la rupture
> > radicale avec ce qui existe. Missionnaire de la v?rit?, le h?ros cynique
> > oeuvre ? l'av?nement, ? terme, d'un monde nouveau.
> >
> > A partir de l?, le programme ? suivre se r?sumerait ainsi : ?tudier le
> > passage de cet asc?tisme cynique ? l'asc?tisme chr?tien, suivre les
> > continuit?s et les transformations de la "vraie vie" en "vie autre", du
> > "vrai monde" en "autre monde" depuis le Moyen Age chr?tien jusqu'aux
> > r?volutionnaires et militants du XIXe si?cle.
> >
> > Dans le cas de Foucault, il ?tait effectivement trop tard pour mettre en
> > oeuvre un si vaste chantier. Mais il en donne, dans ce cours, mieux que la
> > simple ?pure. C'est un vrai livre, foisonnant d'exemples, d'analyses,
> > d'hypoth?ses, si d?bordant de vivacit? et de vitalit? que quelques lignes
> > n'en donnent qu'une vue partielle. En fin de compte, ce qu'il y a de bien,
> > avec l'intelligence, c'est qu'elle ne meurt pas si facilement. La preuve :
> > elle court encore.
> >
> > Le courage de la v?rit?
> > La gouvernement de soi et des autres II
> > Cours du Coll?ge de France (1984) de Michel Foucault
> > Edition ?tablie sous la direction de Fran?ois Ewald et Alessandro Fontana
> > par Fr?d?ric Gros,
> > Seuil/Gallimard "Hautes ?tudes", 334 p., 27 ?.
> >
> > Roger-Pol Droit
> > Article paru dans l'?dition du 23.01.09.
> >
> > -----------
> > http://www.liberation.fr/livres/0101313885-heurt-de-verite
> >
> > Livres 22 janv. 11h17
> > Heurt de v?rit?
> > Critique
> >
> > Philosophie. En 1984, dans son ultime cours au Coll?ge de France, Michel
> > Foucault explorait les risques du ?dire-vrai?, des Grecs ? nos jours.
> >
> > R?agir
> >
> > ?RIC AESCHIMANN
> >
> > ?a consiste en quoi, une vie de philosophe ? Peut-?tre en ceci : devant le
> > public du Coll?ge de France, suivre une intuition, une force qui vous tire,
> > une question qui vous appelle : ?Qu'est-ce que dire la v?rit? ?? Se saisir
> > d'une notion grecque, la parr?sia, qui signifie justement ?le dire vrai?,
> > ?le franc-parler?, et, chaque mercredi matin, pendant trois mois, malgr? la
> > maladie, en ?tudier la signification dans la philosophie antique. Alors que
> > la maladie menace, passer d'un texte ? l'autre, se laisser porter par le
> > mouvement m?me de la recherche, quitte ? ce que les cours soient ?un petit
> > peu d?cousus?, comme annonc? d'entr?e de jeu. Et, de proche en proche, dans
> > cette enqu?te philosophique serr?e, en arriver justement au th?me de la
> > ?vie
> > philosophique?. Une question ?minemment intime, subjective, ? rebours de la
> > caricature r?duisant Foucault ? la ?mort du sujet?.
> >
> > Longtemps, Michel Foucault s'est d?fini comme historien des id?es, comme
> > arch?ologue des savoirs. De l'Histoire de la folie ? celle de la sexualit?,
> > sa d?marche est une critique m?thodique des savoirs qui se pr?tendent
> > ?discours de v?rit?? pour masquer qu'ils sont d'abord des discours de
> > pouvoir : le savoir scientifique, le savoir m?dical, le droit? A tel point
> > que, dans un essai paru l'ann?e derni?re, Paul Veyne, qui fut son grand ami
> > intellectuel, le pr?sente en penseur ?sceptique? (1). Le moins que l'on
> > puisse dire, c'est que son travail sur la parr?sia, engag? au Coll?ge de
> > France en 1982-83 (2) et dont la suite para?t aujourd'hui, ne va pas dans
> > ce
> > sens. Foucault y appara?t habit?, d?vor?, hant? par la question de la
> > v?rit?, non comme discours, mais comme acte : dire la v?rit?.
> >
> > Noyau vivant. Foucault le rappelle d'embl?e : la parr?sia ?est d'abord une
> > notion politique?. C'est le citoyen grec qui, sur l'agora, n'a pas peur de
> > dire ce qu'il pense ; c'est l'ami qui vous dit ce que vous n'aimez pas
> > entendre ; ou encore le conseiller qui se refuse ? flatter le roi, au p?ril
> > parfois de sa vie. Certes, il existe d'autres mani?res de ?dire le vrai?,
> > comme la sagesse, la proph?tie ou l'enseignement. Mais ce qui fait le
> > propre
> > de la parr?sia, c'est le danger qu'elle fait courir. C'est ?le courage de
> > la
> > v?rit??, qu'on retrouvera dans diverses figures (le fou du roi, par
> > exemple), mais qui, en tant que tel, en tant que parr?sia, a disparu.
> > Foucault s'emploie ? l'exhumer, ? en ?couter palpiter le noyau vivant.
> >
> > Noyau vivant car l'id?e de ?vie? est le fil rouge de tout le cours. Parce
> > qu'elle est un acte, la parr?sia va provoquer des effets ? la fois sur ceux
> > ? qui elle s'adresse et sur celui qui la pratique. Elle f?che, oui, mais
> > elle est acc?s de chacun ? sa propre v?rit?, donc ? soi-m?me. Elle est
> > ?souci de soi?. Ce que Foucault montre ici, notamment par sa lecture de
> > l'Apologie de Socrate, c'est que le souci de soi et le souci des autres
> > sont
> > l'avers et le revers d'une m?me exigence, qui est de conduire chacun ? sa
> > propre v?rit?, ? lui-m?me. Pourquoi Socrate a-t-il dit le vrai aux
> > Ath?niens, au point de risquer la mort ? ?Pour les inciter ? s'occuper, non
> > de leur fortune, non de leur r?putation, non de leurs honneurs et de leurs
> > charges, mais d'eux-m?mes, c'est-?-dire : de leur raison, de la v?rit? et
> > de
> > leur ?me. Ils doivent s'occuper d'eux-m?mes. Cette d?finition est
> > capitale.?
> >
> > Malgr? l'?rudition (S?n?que, Epict?te, Dion Chrysostome, les Cyniques?),
> > l'exercice n'a rien de gratuit. C'est de son monde que Foucault parle. A
> > travers les murs du Coll?ge de France, on entend les ?chos d'une actualit?
> > intense o? la v?rit? est une ligne de clivage : Foucault s'est rapproch? du
> > r?formisme ?deuxi?me gauche? de la CFDT et entretient des rapports ?chien
> > et
> > chat? avec un pouvoir mitterrandiste en train de s'enfermer dans ses
> > ambigu?t?s ; il a refus? de se laisser prendre ? la pol?mique sur le
> > ?silence des intellectuels? lanc?e par Max Gallo ; il s'est engag? pour la
> > Pologne prise sous la chape de plomb du g?n?ral Jaruzelski ; il parle
> > d?sormais publiquement, et avec v?h?mence, de son homosexualit?? Tout cela
> > travaille en lui, et la restitution du cours ? partir des enregistrements
> > permet de percevoir la tension extr?me de sa r?flexion. Foucault cherche
> > quelque chose, reformule son objet, en ?num?re inlassablement les traits
> > constitutifs, en trois ou quatre points d?finis avec m?ticulosit?. Les
> > ?nonc?s sont r?p?t?s, amend?s, pr?cis?s. D'autres voies sont esquiss?es :
> > ?Ce serait un autre objet d'?tude de??, ?La longue histoire qui serait sans
> > doute ? faire de??
> >
> > Finalement s'impose le th?me de la vie philosophique. Alors, tous les
> > ?l?ments se mettent en place. Car ce que Foucault d?couvre, ? travers la
> > figure du philosophe ?cynique? (et notamment Diog?ne, vivant dans son
> > tonneau, sale, vitup?rant ses contemporains, snobant Alexandre venu le
> > rencontrer?), c'est que la question du ?dire-vrai? conduit ? celle de la
> > ?vraie vie?, c'est-?-dire d'une ?vie philosophique?. Dans un passage
> > spectaculaire, il montre que la philosophie occidentale s'est s?par?e en
> > deux branches. D'un c?t?, la philosophie comme simple ?connaissance de
> > l'?me? et de ?l'autre monde?, objets de la m?taphysique, qui aboutira au
> > XIXe ? la figure du professeur de philosophie pay? par l'Etat. Et, de
> > l'autre, la philosophie comme ??preuve de la vie?, qu'on va retrouver chez
> > l'asc?te, le moine-mendiant, le militant r?volutionnaire du XIXe et jusqu'?
> > ?ce qu'on peut appeler le gauchisme?.
> >
> > ?Samoura??. A cette aune, Spinoza, qui refusa d'enseigner et pr?f?ra
> > tailler
> > des verres de vue, aura ?t? le dernier philosophe se mettant ? l'?preuve de
> > la vie ; et Leibniz, son contemporain et son rival, diplomate,
> > administrateur, homme politique, ?le premier des philosophes modernes?.
> > Voil? pourquoi, peut-?tre, Foucault, qui ?tait bel et bien professeur de
> > philosophie, fut si longtemps r?ticent ? ?tre pr?sent? comme philosophe.
> > Mais il trouve chez les cyniques cette id?e d'une vie philosophique qui lui
> > permet de lever l'objection. D?s lors, le philosophe devient ?missionnaire
> > universel du genre humain?, ?m?decin de tous?, mais aussi homme du
> > ?scandale
> > de la v?rit??, ?agressif?, celui qui va ?secouer les gens, les convertir?,
> > qui veut ?changer le monde? plut?t que de rendre les gens heureux. Et l?,
> > comment ne pas y lire l'autoportrait de celui que Paul Veyne d?crit comme
> > un
> > ?samoura?? ?
> >
> > ?La valeur de la mort de Socrate est au c?ur m?me de la rationalit?
> > occidentale?, note Foucault. C'est m?me ?en cela que la philosophie se
> > distingue de la science?. Le cours s'ach?ve le 28 mars 1984. Il va mourir
> > trois mois plus tard. Dans sa postface, Fr?d?ric Gros parle d'un ?testament
> > philosophique?. On peut aussi parler d'une ultime m?ditation, qui
> > proclamerait que philosophe, oui, il l'est, non pas dans le sens d'un
> > savoir
> > qu'il d?tiendrait, mais d'une pratique qu'il s'efforcerait de mettre en
> > ?uvre : un style de vie.
> >
> > (1) Paul Veyne, Foucault. Sa pens?e, sa personne. Albin Michel. Lire
> > Lib?ration du 3 avril 2008.
> >
> > (2)Le gouvernement de soi et des autres, Cours du Coll?ge de France
> > 1982-1983. Seuil-Gallimard. Lire Lib?ration du 31 janvier 2008.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> >
>
>
>
> --
> 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"
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 19:58:17 -0600
> From: Bo Yang <botrell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Foucault-L] newsletter
> To: <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <BLU145-W111C6F7CE98528AD83DBB3A1BD0@xxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
>
>
> Hi all:
>
> I wrote a critical reading today of a critical reading by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow in "Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics" of Michel Foucault's "The Order of Things" and I was wondering if anyone can provide some criticisms and feedback to it. I originally intended to post in short the misreadings I discovered but it ended up getting way too long. I want to send this paper to Dr.Dreyfus for correspondance but it's the first time I've written anything on Michel Foucault so I thought I'd post it here first. Thank you for your time.
>
> Here's the link to the paper:
>
> https://www.yousendit.com/download/U0d6TkF1YStlcEpMWEE9PQ
>
> Bo Lun Yang
> _________________________________________________________________
> Windows Live?: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect.
> http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_allup_howitworks_022009
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:43:40 +0100
> From: ari <ari@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Foucault-L] Communism is back and we should call it
> singularity - Friday 27th February @ The Octagon, Queen Mary,
> University of London
> To: Mailing-list <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <ef16e638af1a7a03495ee97739017bd6@xxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> I am pleased to invite you to "Communism is back and we should call it
> singularity": a book launch and discussion with Franco Berardi aka Bifo.
>
> "Gilles Deleuze was welcomed into the reception room of university
> respectability, while F?lix Guattari was left out. He was not an academic
> and he mixed with the wrong crowd. Guattari without Deleuze built a
> philosophical style out of his psychiatric practice, his work as a
> political militant, and his training in biology and pharmacology. To the
> rhizomatic machine Guattari brought the concrete micro-material of his
> inquiry, the molecular method of 'cut-up', montage, decomposition and
> recomposition, and combinatory creation. The crystalline acuity of the
> Deleuzian philosophical razor combined with the Guattarian material swarm
> of bio-informational principles form the rhizomatic machine." From F?lix
> Guattari. Thought, Friendship, and Visionary Cartography.
>
> Franco Berardi will be discussing communism as singularity and presenting
> his books on Friday, February 27th in the Octagon Room, the People's
> Palace, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, E1 4NS, at 5pm.
> The event marks the first and long awaited publication of his work in
> English: F?lix Guattari. Thought, Friendship, and Visionary Cartography
> (London: Palgrave, 2008) and Precarious Rhapsody. Semio-capitalism and the
> Pathologies of the Post-Alpha Generation (London: Autonomedia,
> forthcoming). The launch will be followed by a social evening at the
> Freedom Bookshop, Angel Alley, 84b Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX. All
> welcome.
>
> "One hundred years ago Marinetti published the Manifesto of Futurism. It
> inaugurated a century that believed in the future - initiating a process
> where the collective organism became machine-like. This becoming-machine
> has reached its finale with the concatenations of the global web and is now
> being overturned by the collapse of a financial system founded on the
> futurisation of the economy, debt and economic promise. That promise is
> over. The era of post-future has begun." From Precarious Rhapsody.
>
> Franco is a writer, critic, and pioneer media theorist. Like others
> involved in the Italian political movement of Autonomia, during the 1970s
> he fled to Paris, where he worked with F?lix Guattari in the field of
> schizoanalysis. He is the co-founder of the e-zine rekombinant.org and the
> free pirate television network Telestreet. He is also Professor of Social
> History of Communication at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Milan. For more
> information and writings by the author, including his recent Post-Futurist
> Manifesto, visit http://www.generation-online.org/p/pbifo.htm.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:47:21 -0500
> From: "Orion Anderson" <libraryofsocialscience@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Foucault-L] Video on Nations Have the Right to Kill
> To: <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <1C59DA26BAE94FF1837310C744C3375B@cousy>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Dear Colleague,
>
> Excitement for the groundbreaking Nations Have the Right to Kill
> continues to grow (the official publication date is June 15, 2009). The book
> has been adopted as a text and supplementary reading for courses on the
> Holocaust, genocide, Nazism, the First World War, and the Second World War,
> as well as for courses that more broadly address the causes of warfare and
> other forms of collective violence.
>
> Recent advance reviews appear below.
>
> LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE is producing a series of videos by Dr.
> Koenigsberg in which he explains, explicates and expands upon the theories
> presented in Nations Have the Right to Kill. The first is now available at:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua0RQZENufY
>
> This and future videos may be used by you and your students as an
> auxiliary to the book.
>
> For further information on Nations Have the Right to Kill, click
> <http://www.nationshavetherighttokill.com/> here.
>
> For information on ordering Nations Have the Right to Kill, click
> <https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/books/order.html> here.
>
> With regards,
> Orion Anderson
> Editor-in-Chief
> LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
> oanderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 718-393-1104
>
> P. S. Please write or call for information on pricing for classroom copies
> of Nations Have the Right to Kill and how to order.
>
>
>
> ?Two terrors from long ago haunt us still. First, the Holocaust: that
> cold-blooded massacre of millions by homicidal technocrats. Second, the
> ability of leaders during the First World War to convince ordinary people
> that slaughtering their neighbors was patriotic. A half century later, we
> continue to ask: how was this possible? Richard A. Koenigsberg offers a
> provocative answer. Driving these terrors, Koenigsberg argues, was a
> distinct ?logic? rooted in a dense and ancient homicidal fantasy.
> Koenigsberg?s analysis ranges from gender identity, to the First World War,
> to Aztec warfare. No single answer will exorcize our terrors. But
> Koenigsberg?s bold and original approach?clearly and precisely
> presented?will help us, if not to expel them, at least, finally, to
> comprehend them.?
> ?Professor Robert Weldon Whalen, Chairman of the History Department,
> Queens University of Charlotte, Author of Sacred Spring: God and the Birth
> of Modernism in Fin De Si?cle Vienna
>
> ?Nations Have the Right to Kill is an inquiry of great depth. Koenigsberg
> finds in Hitler's genocide an example that can be used to expose a disorder
> that many nations share. A deep humanity and ethical urgency informs this
> book, which is full of original and provocative insights.?
> ?Walter A. Davis, Professor Emeritus, Ohio State University, author of
> Death's Dream Kingdom: The American Psyche since 9-11
>
> ?Nations have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War is a
> passionate monograph on the sacrificial ideology that mobilizes people for
> war. The vocabulary conveyed by state agencies on the Western front?the
> ideology of duty and dedication affirmed by soldiers on the battlefield
> during the First World War?is not far removed from the language paraded by
> Islamic suicide bombers and LTTE martyrs in Sri Lanka. Idioms and images
> expressed in starkly different settings are markedly similar. Do these
> disparate cases articulate a common dynamic? This is the question posed by
> Koenigsberg?s inspiring study.?
> ?Michael Roberts, Professor of Anthropology, University of Adelaide,
> author of ?Empowering the Body & Noble Death?
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:06:44 +1030
> From: Ian Goodwin-Smith <Ian.GoodwinSmith@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Foucault-L] cfp
> To: "foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID:
> <175241C47FF8E141A7AC2637D952A66D03C4EF261F@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Cfp - please see attached.
>
> Dr Ian Goodwin-Smith
> Lecturer
> University of South Australia
> St Bernards Road
> MAGILL SA 5072
> AUSTRALIA
> Phone +61 8 83024515
> This email message is intended only for the addressee(s) and contains information which may be confidential and/or copyright. If you are not the intended recipient please do not read, save, forward, disclose, or copy the contents of this email. If this email has been sent to you in error, please notify the sender by reply email and delete this email and any copies or links to this email completely and immediately from your system. No representation is made that this email is free of viruses.
> P Please consider the environment before printing this email.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:43:52 +1100
> From: martin hardie <martin.hardie@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] cfp
> To: Mailing-list <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> Ian.GoodwinSmith@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID:
> <7ff9538b0902251543m1d184941m8a54c8c93f90b89@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>
> Ian
>
> no attachment
>
> maybe it got scrubbed by the mail server!
>
> In any event could you send it to me?
>
> martin
>
> 2009/2/26 Ian Goodwin-Smith <Ian.GoodwinSmith@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> > Cfp - please see attached.
> >
> > Dr Ian Goodwin-Smith
> > Lecturer
> > University of South Australia
> > St Bernards Road
> > MAGILL SA 5072
> > AUSTRALIA
> > Phone +61 8 83024515
> > This email message is intended only for the addressee(s) and contains
> > information which may be confidential and/or copyright. If you are not the
> > intended recipient please do not read, save, forward, disclose, or copy the
> > contents of this email. If this email has been sent to you in error, please
> > notify the sender by reply email and delete this email and any copies or
> > links to this email completely and immediately from your system. No
> > representation is made that this email is free of viruses.
> > P Please consider the environment before printing this email.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Martin Hardie,
> Law Lecturer,
> School of Law,
> Deakin University (Geelong Campus)
> Pigdons Road,
> Waurn Ponds,
> Victoria, 3216,
> Australia.
>
> http://newcyclingpathways.blogspot.com/
>
> http://auskadi.mjzhosting.org/
>
> mhardie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> martin.hardie@xxxxxxxxx
>
> skype/irc: auskadi
>
> ?Bicycling?is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The
> airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives
> him no wings of his own. There are movements on a bicycle corresponding to
> almost all the variations in the flight of the larger birds. Plunging free
> downhill is like a hawk stooping. On the level stretches you may pedal with
> a steady rhythm like a heron flapping; or you may, like an accipitrine hawk,
> alternate rapid pedaling with gliding. If you want to test the force and
> direction of the wind, there is no better way than to circle, banked inward,
> like a turkey vulture. When you have the wind against you, headway is best
> made by yawing or wavering, like a crow flying upwind. I have climbed a
> steep hill by circling or spiraling, rising each time on the upturn with the
> momentum of the downturn, like any soaring bird. I have shot in and out of
> stalled traffic like a goshawk through the woods.?
> Birdwatching author Louis J Halle ?Spring in Washington?, 1947/1957
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:28:43 -0600
> From: Bo Yang <botrell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Foucault-L] Critique of a short passage by Dreyfus & Rabinow
> regarding the Order of Things
> To: <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <BLU145-W43D2142696164167371C77A1AD0@xxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi all this is to follow up the last post. I added a short intro. My philosophy professor gave me a response which I include at the end. Any comments/suggestions are appreciated. Thank you.
>
>
>
>
>
> This is a critique of a very brief but important
> passage in ?Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics.? I feel
> obligated to point out what I perceive to be a shallow and misguided reading of
> a very important chapter in Michel Foucault?s The Order of Things which
> embodies some of the central themes of early Foucaultian thought, in particular
> in its detailed descriptions of the conditions of representation. Although it
> has been almost 40 years since the original text?s publication, there have been
> few English secondary sources on the work of Michel Foucault. Out of those,
> only Dreyfus and Rabinow?s ?Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics? was written
> with the aid and first-hand knowledge of Mr. Foucault. Therefore one must read this
> special and indefinitely valuable commentary with the most critical eye, hence
> the conception of this essay.
>
>
>
>
>
> While reading Hubert L.
> Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow's Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism &
> Hermeneutics along with Les Mots et les choses/The Order of Things,
> I noticed what appears to be a misreading of Part 1, Chapter 3. III of The
> Order of Things, "The Representation of the Sign." In short, Dreyfus
> and Rabinow use an irrelevant premise to advance their thus irrelevant and
> mistaken interpretation of the chapter?s central thesis concerning the rise of
> representation.
>
>
>
> Excerpts from the original
> passage in Beyond S & H (page 20):
>
>
>
> "In the Classical Age man was not the maker, the artificer-God-but
> as the locus of clarification, he was an artificer. There was a world
> created by God, existing by itself. The role of man was to clarify the order of
> the world. He did this, as we have seen, by way of clear and certain
> ideas."
>
>
>
> ?Man clarified but
> did not create; he was not a transcendental source of signification.?
>
>
>
> Dreyfus and
> Rabinow?s interpretation of the origin of the knowledge of the sign is not only
> restricted to the Classical Age. Foucault?s explanation of the Divinatio illustrates:
>
>
>
> "It is here that knowledge breaks off its old kinship with divinatio. The
> latter always presupposed signs anterior to it: so that knowledge always
> resided entirely in the opening up of a discovered, affirmed, or secretly
> transmitted, sign. Its task was to uncover a language which God had previously
> distributed across the face of the earth: it is in this sense that it was the
> divination of an essential implication, and that the object of its divination
> was divine." (OT 59)
>
>
>
> The knowledge obtained through divinatio
> or divination during the sixteen century was likewise distributed by God. The
> roles of the artificers and the origin of pure knowledge remain the same from
> the 16th century to the 17th century. It is rather the location and function of
> the signifying element that experienced a dramatic reversal.
>
>
>
> In the 16th
> century, the signifying element of the sign existed outside of man?s discursive
> knowledge.
>
>
>
> ?Signs were
> thought to have been placed upon things so that men might be able to uncover
> their secrets, their nature or their virtues??they did not need to be known in
> order to exist: even if no one were to perceive them, they were just as much there. It was not knowledge that gave
> them their signifying function, but the very language of things.? (OT 59)
>
>
>
> ?[The divinatio?s
> task] was to uncover a language which God had previously distributed across the
> face of the earth.? (59)
>
>
>
> The location of
> the signifying element had always remained outside of discursive knowledge. The
> knowledge contained in the sign descended from God, but once discovered and
> interpreted, through the most primal kinds of ?hermeneutics [and] semiology,?
> (29) it was constituted within discursive knowledge.
>
>
>
> In the 17th
> century, the location of the signifying element shifted from outside of
> discursive knowledge to within.
>
>
>
> "There can be
> no sign until there exists a known
> possibility of substitution between two known
> elements. The sign does not wait in silence for the coming of a man capable of
> recognizing it: it can be constituted only by an act of knowing.? (59)
>
>
>
> ?It is within
> knowledge itself that the sign is to perform its signifying function; It is
> from knowledge that it will borrow its certainty or its probability.? (59)
>
>
>
> The signifying
> element of the sign, like the signified element, has shifted inside discourse.
> Malebranche and Berkeley, by both describing this process of internalization
> and contradicting it, serve as Foucault?s primary examples:
>
>
>
> ?And though God
> still employs signs to speak to us through nature, he is making use of our
> knowledge, and of the relations that are set up between our impressions, in
> order to establish in our minds a relation of signification. Such is the role
> of feeling in Malebranche or of sensation in Berkeley; in natural judgement, in
> feeling, in visual impressions, and in the perception of the third dimension,
> what we are dealing with are hasty and confused, but pressing, inevitable, and
> obligatory kinds of knowledge serving as signs for discursive kinds of
> knowledge which we humans, because we are not pure intelligences, no longer
> have the time or the permission to attain to ourselves and by the unaided
> strength of our own minds. In Malebranche and Berkeley, the sign arranged by
> God is the cunning and thoughtful superimposition of two kinds of knowledge.?
> (OT 59-60)
>
>
>
> Malebranche and
> Berkeley, in Foucault?s interpretation, explain this change in location of the
> signifying element, and what appears to be a separation of man from God, as
> ironically, an increase in God?s influence in shaping man?s knowledge. God
> grants us the self evidence of our senses. He is aiding us through our own
> perception of the mind, a mind that God created, in understanding his
> knowledge. God is both more active and passive in our understanding of the
> world. Malebranche and Berkeley, as described by Foucault, cover up the internalization
> of the sign by aligning the tool with which man reconstitutes the knowledge of
> the sign through its signifying element; sensory perception, with the subject
> of non-discursive knowledge, God. Foucault then writes:
>
>
>
> ?There is no
> longer any divinatio involved ? no
> insertion of knowledge in the enigmatic, open and sacred area of signs ? but a
> brief and concentrated kind of knowledge: the contraction of a long sequence of
> judgements into the rapidly assimilated form of the sign. And it will also be
> seen how, by a reversal of direction, knowledge, having enclosed the signs
> within its own space, is now able to accommodate probability: between one
> impression and another the relation will be that of sign to signified, in other
> words, a relation which, like that of succession, will progress from the
> weakest probability to the greatest certainty.?
>
>
>
>
> The ?enigmatic,
> open and sacred area of signs,? (OT 62) and the old methods used to understand
> them, has been replaced by representation, arising out of empiricism. This
> shifting in location of the signifying element to within discursive knowledge
> is what enables man to assign the attributes of certain or probable to the
> sign. To use Foucault?s examples, the connections between breathing and life;
> pallor (paleness) and pregnancy can be viewed as certain and probable
> respectively only because all four concepts are already situated within
> scientific knowledge. Their order thus can be compared. Whereas divination, for
> example an omen concerning a natural disaster obtained through astrology,
> cannot be measured since its signifying element, astrology, is not a science
> built upon empiricism, therefore order.
>
>
>
> This reversal of
> the role of the signifying element; transforming from being situated outside of
> discursive knowledge, and signifying by resemblance to becoming constituted
> within discursive knowledge, and signifying by representation, along with the
> conditions, implications, and consequences of the act of signifying by
> representation, is the thesis, the center of focus in ?The Representation of
> the Sign,? one which Dreyfus and Rabinow overlook and thus misinterpret.
>
>
>
> Returning to
> Dreyfus and Rabinow?s reading:
>
>
>
> ?The role of the
> thinker was to give an artificial description of the order which was already
> there. He did not create the world, nor ultimately, the representations. He
> constructed an artificial language, a conventional ordering of the signs. But
> it was not man who filled them with meaning. This is what Foucault means when
> he says that there was no theory of signification in the Classical Age. Man
> clarified but did not create; he was not a transcendental source of
> signification.? (Beyond S & H 20)
>
>
>
> The Classical Man,
> in aligning himself with God, has become exactly the transcendental source of
> signification. Man, through discovering and interpreting the sign, has filled
> them with meaning whether by the hermeneutics of resemblance in the 16th
> century, or the self-evidence of representation in the 17th century. Dreyfus
> preceded the passage above with this brief but clear description of Foucault?s
> explanation of representation.
>
>
>
> ?The role of man
> was to clarify the order of the world. He did this, as we have seen, by way of
> clear and certain ideas. The key was that the medium of representation was
> reliable and transparent.? (20)
>
>
>
> Resemblance was
> the connection between the signifying and signified elements in the 16th
> century. In the 17th century, it was replaced by the self evidence
> of representation. A ternary relationship has been replaced by a binary one.
> Foucault writes:
>
>
>
> ?What connects
> them is a bond established, inside knowledge, between the idea of one thing and the idea
> of another.?
>
>
>
> Quoting the Logique de Port-Royal:
>
>
>
> ??The sign
> encloses two ideas, one of the thing representing, the other of the thing
> represented; and its nature consists in exciting the first by means of the
> second? [17]? (OT 64)
>
>
>
> ??When one looks
> at a certain object only in so far as it represents another, the idea one has
> of it is the idea of a sign, and that first object is called a sign?[18].? (64)
>
>
>
> Foucault then
> gives his own interpretation:
>
>
>
> ?But there is one
> condition that must be fulfilled if the sign is indeed to be this pure duality.
> In its simple state as an idea, or an image, or a perception, associated with
> or substituted for another, the signifying element is not a sign. It can become
> a sign only on condition that it manifests, in addition the relation that links
> it to what it signifies.? (64)
>
>
>
> Foucault
> elaborates further on the conditions of representation. In the previous section
> he demonstrates the first condition for the rise of representation, that the
> signifying element must be situated within discursive knowledge. It follows
> that, because the signifying element and the signified are now both within
> human thought, a purely mental connection must link them. Subtly, the Logique de Port-Royal substitutes the
> previously ?enigmatic, open and sacred area of signs,? (OT 62) with an ?[Idea]
> of the thing representing.?(OT 63) A sign cannot become a sign unless one
> already has an idea of it, and because it is an idea of man, it manifests.
> Moreover, in a very confusing manner, The
> Logique de Port-Royal defines the signifying element as contained within
> itself the idea of representing. Foucault explains:
>
>
>
> ?The signifying
> element has no content, no function, and no determination other than what it
> represents: it is entirely ordered upon and transparent to it.? (OT 64)
>
>
>
> He refers to the Logique de Port-Royal once again:
>
>
>
> ?It is
> characteristic that the first example of a sign given by the The Logique de Port-Royal is not the word,
> nor the cry, nor the symbol, but the spatial and graphic representation ? the
> drawing as map or picture. This is because the picture has no other content in
> fact than that which it represents, and yet that content is made visible only
> because it is represented by a representation??An idea can be the sign of
> another, not only because a bond of representation can be established between
> them, but also because this representation can always be represented within the
> idea that is representation.? (65)
>
>
>
> This convoluted
> interpretation of the signifying, representing element embodying the notion and
> purpose of representation is one Foucault repeats throughout the section, but
> seems to give no further explanation to the cause of this attribution.
>
>
>
> One possible reading
> of Foucault?s interpretation is as follow. The relationship between the
> signifying element and the signified is self-evident, because man has already
> established the connection that is representation in his mind when he recognized
> the sign. The drawing in The Logique de
> Port-Royal was intended, upon its creation, its conception, to represent.
> Man before the Classical Age needed a third element, Resemblance, to connect
> the sign to the knowledge it contains because the signifying element was not a
> part of man?s knowledge of the world. Therefore a connection had to be
> established, to confirm a relationship man had already been suspicious of but could
> not put into words. In the Classical age, this third element was implicitly established
> upon the constitution of the sign, of its signifying element. For
> ?Representation? in the philosophical realm is another word for the implicit
> method which man uses to link two ideas, it is a concept even more basic than
> causation. However it then also follows that the signified element, the thing
> represented was also created upon the constitution of the sign. The Classical sign
> therefore, lost its ability to introduce new knowledge.
>
>
>
> Foucault then lists
> and explains the consequences of the appearance of representation. The first of
> which describes the manifestation of signs, or symbols across Classical
> thought. Signs are now ?co-extensive with representation, that is, with thought
> as a whole; they reside within but they run through its entire extent. Whenever
> one representation is linked to another and represents that link within itself,
> there is a sign.? (OT 65) This is only possible of course, because the entirety
> of the sign is now within discursive knowledge. As a result the identity of the
> sign is now found everywhere in human thought, in anything that has a link
> between two already established ideas.
>
>
>
> The second
> consequence, one which Dreyfus and Rabinow gives an interpretation of, is that,
>
>
>
> ?This universal
> extension of the sign within the field of representation precludes even the
> possibility of a theory of signification. For to ask ourselves questions about
> what signification is presupposes that it is a determinate form in our
> consciousness. But if phenomena are posited only in a representation that, in
> itself and because of its own representability, is wholly a sign, then
> signification cannot constitute a problem.? (OT 65)
>
>
>
> Dreyfus and
> Rabinow explain this interpretation:
>
>
>
> ?[Man] did not
> create the world, nor ultimately the representations. He constructed an
> artificial language, a conventional ordering of signs. But it was not man who
> filled them with meaning. This is what Foucault means when he says that there
> was no theory of signification. Hence if we were to ask what was the special
> activity of the subject ? the ?I think? ? we would get the relatively trivial
> answer that it was the tendency to attain clarity about concepts.? (Beyond S
> & H 20)
>
>
>
> Dreyfus and
> Rabinow explain the reason for the lacking of a theory of signification to be
> that the Classical man did not believe it was him who filled the ordering of
> signs with meaning. It would follow that God did, which, as illustrated
> earlier, was the perspective held by the Classical empiricists. However
> Foucault proposes a deeper reason for the absence of a theory of signification.
> The containment of the idea of representation within the representing element
> is an unspeakable, implicit, and most importantly self evident situation as
> explained by The Logique de Port-Royal. Therefore to speak about it, to form a
> theory of signification is irrelevant in the Classical era of the sign. Man did
> inject every sign he knew with meaning, upon its conception. But this meaning,
> and subsequent ordering of the world, like the method used to obtain it, is
> self-evident. For what Foucault has made appear to be the will to order, man
> during the Classical Age and perhaps even now, effectively confined himself
> within an ouroboros of representation.
>
>
>
>
>
> Here concludes
> Dreyfus & Rabinow?s reading of "The Representation of the Sign"
> chapter of The Order of Things,
> along with this critical reading.
>
>
> My professor's response:
> I am not well versed in Post-Structuralist studies but I will comment briefly and as best I can in regard to your paper. Yet in doing so I confess that I am not sure exactly what philosophical point your complaint about Dreyfus Rabinow's reading of Foucault's interpretation of the representation of the sign is focused upon, or why it is "shallow and misguided".
>
> The quote you give from Dreyfus and Rabinow, the one you call "an irrelevant premise to advance their thus irrelevant and mistake interpretation of the chapter's central thesis ..." begins on page 19, by the way, and not on page 20. I would not use such a tone in attacking these two contemporary thinkers; it is better, if you really have an argument to counter what they are saying, to let them be hoisted on their own petard.
>
> In any case, let us begin by seeing if we can agree on the overall shift Foucault describes as happening when we moved from one historical period to another. During the Renaissance knowledge was taken to be a resemblance between signs. This was fantastic: plants would resemble stars and vice-versa. Following this came the Classical Age when resemblance dropped out and representation became the key to our epistemological advances. Thus the map model was put forward. We no longer compared an idea with an object set apart from its representation. As I understand this shift, it was a scientific leap forward in that it brought empiricism into play and allowed mankind to advance "within knowledge itself". Yet, fromt he Rationalist side, it left us in great danger of falling into Idealism. Our intuitions, no matter how clear they were, did not give us proof of independent objects. Or, as Descartes argued, every time I perceive an object I merely prove/exist.
>
> Dreyfus and Rabinow, as far as I can tell, want to show that in the Classical Age mankind has not replaced God as the sole artificer in the overall schema of existence just because he is now operating within the limits of knowledge alone; man has become the locus of ideas but he has not originated them. Thus Foucault can trace the new theory of representation all the way up to Kant.
>
> I think we have a choice to make when looking back on the Classical Age and I don't think Foucault would disagree. We can follow Malebranche and Berkeley in claiming that God, while granting to man epistemological independence, is nevertheless working even closer with him than before when it comes to the unfolding of his divine plane; or we can follow Hume and rely not on God's Providence but on probabilities. Still, I do not think we began to operate both without God and without certainty until the 19th Century, and I don't think we can fully appreciate Foucault until we explore his indebtedness both to Nietzsche, who was writing in that century, and to Heidegger, who was writing in the 20th century.
>
> But to get back to your paper: you say on page one:
>
> "Dreyfus and Rabinow's interpretation of the origin of the knowledge of the sign is not only restricted to the Classical Age."
>
> I do not follow the grammar of this statement. I do understand of course that the signifying element of the sign shifted from "outside of man's discursive knowledge" in the 16th Century to within his knowledge come the 17th Century, but why have Dreyfus and Rabinow gotten this shift wrong?
>
> On page six you finally get down to what I take to be your legitimate complaint against Dreyfus and Rabinow. To wit: the Port-Royal map grants us a self-evident "ordering of the world". Thus we do not need an additional theory of signification. While this does make sense to me, I would think that what I said above, that we have a choice when looking into the age in question, renders moot all our judgements about what you call "deeper reason" (including your assigning such deeper reason to Foucault's proposing his own analysis for the absence of a theory of signification). Foucault does appeal to literature as being the direction where all this is heading, but that must be saved for another discussion.
>
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Access your email online and on the go with Windows Live Hotmail.
> http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_AE_Access_022009
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
> Foucault-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> http://foucault.info/mailman/listinfo/foucault-l
>
> End of Foucault-L Digest, Vol 9, Issue 5
> ****************************************
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™: Discover 10 secrets about the new Windows Live.
http://windowslive.com/connect/post/jamiethomson.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!550F681DAD532637!7540.entry?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_ugc_post_022009