Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"

Actualy I think Foucault does distinguish between truth and justification
explicitly, except that these clarifications are often in the interviews and
intersections with other professors in Dits et Ecrits and perhaps in a few
lectures.
Its an interesting pattern. Foucault assumes the reader's ability to make a
distinction in his written work whereas in an informal interview, he's much
more refreshingly clear about his intentions, framework, etc.
Thus why I think anyone who wants a good understanding of Foucault needs to
read Dits et Ecrits (the translated excessively abridged version being
"Essential Works of Foucault, 3 vols).
Only by reading that will one have a clear view of Foucault's project.


On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 6:11 AM, Kay Fisher <fisherk@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I think (philosopher and psychologist) Todd May's book "Between Genealogy
> and Epistemology: Psychology, politics and knowledge in the Thought of
> Michel Foucault' (1993) could be helpful here.
>
> He believes that its important to make a distinction between justification
> and truth (something he reckons so-called 'poststructuralist' French thought
> tended not to do). He says that Foucault could be ambiguous on these
> questions but makes the case that his position is not a relativist one re:
> truth. He claims that Foucault takes an antifoundational relation to truth
> but one that allows truth claims to be justified on the basis of
> 'inferential networks' of already existing knowledges (this includes
> justificatory practices). [May further argues that scientific knowledges of
> Western culture tend to have relatively 'tight' inferential networks]. This,
> of course, does not guarantee any absolute truth. Rather it is assumed that
> while everything is open to question, not everything can be questioned at
> the one time (so there always has to be some taken-for-granteds). I think
> this is pretty much consistent with Edward's reading.
>
> May also argues (like others) that since the relativist position affords no
> grounds for truth claims it is self-defeating argument in logic terms.
>
>
>
>
> Message: 11
> Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 22:08:48 -0500
> From: Edward Comstock<ecomst@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"
> To: Mailing-list<foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID:
> <
> OF2850DBEE.82182B73-ON852576DE.00108388-852576DE.00114D19@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> Right. Similarly, our current physics works as a system of knowledge that
> gives us repeatable results and laws. But this does not mean that we could
> not have a competitive "non-quarky" physics that gives repeatable results
> and laws of a different order. Perhaps, with different cultural
> circumstances, a given non-quarky physics might even be more useful in the
> knowledge it produces. In other words, just because our physics works as
> a system of knowledge does not make it "true" in the absolute sense. But
> at the same time, who cares anymore about finding knowledge that is true
> in the absolute sense?
>
> Of course we also have to distinguish between sciences that have crossed
> the epistemological threshold (like physics and pathological anatomy) and
> those that have not...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"
>
> David McInerney
> to:
> Mailing-list
> 03/05/2010 04:26 PM
>
>
> Sent by:
> foucault-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Please respond to Mailing-list
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 06/03/2010, at 7:41 AM, Edward Comstock wrote:
>
>
> > > It also seems to me that even what we call human nature or look for is
> > > going to change based on different knowledge practices, such that the
> > > question can only be answered within given systems of knowledge.
> > > Foucault,
> > > after all, for instance, believed that modern medicine presented valid
> > > abstractions against which we could gain usefull knowedges. But I
> > > dont'
> > > take this to mean that he believes modern medicine to be "true" in the
> > > absolute sense.
> > >
> >
> This seems similar to Althusser's attempts to distinguish between
> discourses in terms of the 'adequacy' of their 'grasp' of the
> material world, a rather tricky notion in that idealist discourses
> such as empiricism always attempt to exploit it. I'm not sure how
> one avoids it though, unless one accepts the extreme relativism that
> would assert that the phlogiston theory is equally valid way of
> looking at the generation of heat as thermodynamics. It is clear
> that one gives us a more adequate grasp of material reality, but if
> one attempts to 'go around' discourse to find a way to see whether it
> corresponds to something outside of itself then, whoops, there we are
> back with the 'subject of knowledge' etc etc.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
> Foucault-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> http://foucault.info/mailman/listinfo/foucault-l
>
> End of Foucault-L Digest, Vol 10, Issue 6
> *****************************************
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>



--
Chetan Vemuri
West Des Moines, IA
aryavartacnsrn@xxxxxxxxx
(319)-512-9318
"You say you want a Revolution! Well you know, we all want to change the
world"

Folow-ups
  • Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"
    • From: Chetan Vemuri
  • Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature"
    • From: Kevin Turner
  • Replies
    Re: [Foucault-L] Foucault and "human nature", Kay Fisher
    Partial thread listing: