The biggest promoter of the idea that Foucault was heavily indebted to
Heidegger (esp. late Heidegger) is Hubert Dreyfus. The parts of his
co-authored book that argue that came from him. His co-author, Paul
Rabinow, does not agree. Apart from that book, Dreyfus has a couple of
papers on his web site that extend his argument.
See here: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/html/papers.html
I'm not endorsing these arguments, by the way. But for those interested in
pursuing this line of thought (critically or otherwise), that would be one
place to start.
Nate
On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 6:19 AM, Karskens, M.L.J. (Machiel) <
mkarskens@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In Foucault's published works, I cannot find indications that Foucault
> really was a 'close'reader of Heidegger. In comparaison wih e.g. Hegel, Kant
> or Nietzsche there are not many references (18)to Heidegger in Dits et
> Ecrits. Nearly all references to Heidegger are by the way or in a list of
> names.
>
> Of course, in the interview 'Le retour de la morale' after a question on
> Heidegger, Foucault himself said that he was a close reader of Heidegger in
> the 1950s, and that Heidegger was the essential philosopher to him. So what!
> Self-testimonies are not very reliable. And taking his words as a truth,
> even then they do not say that he always has been a close reader, he speaks
> only of 1952 and 1953. (see Dits et Ecrits, IV p. 703)
>
> Moreover, I could not find any place in his works where he directely
> discusses or analyses a text of Heidegger or one of Heidegger's
> philosophical notions or ideas. Foucault himself also says so in the same
> interview.
>
> I could neither detect in his works or in his methods a typical
> Heidegerrian approach or way of thinking. Some people claim that the
> Analytic of Finitude in The Order of Things is Heideggerian. I my opinion it
> is much more Kantian, and derived from his thesis on Kant's Antropology,
> then Heideggerian.
>
> yours
> machiel karskens
>
>
>
> ----- "michael bibby" <shmickeyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > From: "michael bibby" <shmickeyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: "Mailing-list" <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2010 6:17:18 AM
> > Subject: [Foucault-L] Duration, Dasein, Geneology, Archaeology.
> >
> > Certainly, Foucault was a close reader of Heidegger, who in turn was a
> > close reader of Bergson. This is also true of Minkowski, and a host of
> > others who seem to have rallied around Bergsons book which emerged as
> > a balwark against the 'scientific barbarism', 'mechanistic
> > rationality', 'technocrasy' of the age. Perhaps we could say that
> > Foucault was reponding, in part at least, to the same crises which
> > Bergson, Minkowski, Heidegger, Spengler, and many others were
> > responding to, what we could provisionally call 'the crises of
> > history', 'the crises of modernity'- the temporal crises which Elliot
> > found at the crossroads of Little Gidding, the spiritual crises which
> > Toynbee saw the west involving the rest of the world in as it spread
> > its civilization throughout it.
> >
> > Jungs description of the wandering jew who is unable to draw fresh
> > life from the earth through his feet because they have been uprooted
> > from their ancestral land could just as easily be applied to 'modern
> > man', ahistorical and independent of geographical place, rendered
> > mobile and shut up in hismself. Indeed, we see that it was, and least
> > of all in Mein Kampf. We could say that this picture of the Jew is
> > really a kind of charicture of modern man, more precisely of his
> > 'priestly nature', to borrow Marx's expression.
> >
> > The archaic revival in Germany, we read in The Function of the Orgasm,
> > can be seen as a responce, although confused as to its object, to the
> > 'mystical longing' opened up in the depths of mans alienation from the
> > archaeology of the land, from the geneology of his people: just as the
> > Jew had an ancient tradition which he carried around with him like an
> > arab his tent through the desert, so too the German had the
> > Indo-European- a retrospective hypothesis- geneology to restore him to
> > the profundity from which he had become estranged through
> > abstraction.
> >
> > Tarkovsky takes up these themes in his allegory of Solviet Russia in
> > the form of the oceanic space-station Solaris: this is the precise
> > meaning of the pot-plant, which is the last thing we see before we
> > leave the space station- the strange melieu in which it alone made the
> > only sense- and return to earth.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
--
Nathaniel Roberts
Visiting Scholar
Department of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
820 Williams Hall, 255 S. 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
USA
Heidegger (esp. late Heidegger) is Hubert Dreyfus. The parts of his
co-authored book that argue that came from him. His co-author, Paul
Rabinow, does not agree. Apart from that book, Dreyfus has a couple of
papers on his web site that extend his argument.
See here: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/html/papers.html
I'm not endorsing these arguments, by the way. But for those interested in
pursuing this line of thought (critically or otherwise), that would be one
place to start.
Nate
On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 6:19 AM, Karskens, M.L.J. (Machiel) <
mkarskens@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In Foucault's published works, I cannot find indications that Foucault
> really was a 'close'reader of Heidegger. In comparaison wih e.g. Hegel, Kant
> or Nietzsche there are not many references (18)to Heidegger in Dits et
> Ecrits. Nearly all references to Heidegger are by the way or in a list of
> names.
>
> Of course, in the interview 'Le retour de la morale' after a question on
> Heidegger, Foucault himself said that he was a close reader of Heidegger in
> the 1950s, and that Heidegger was the essential philosopher to him. So what!
> Self-testimonies are not very reliable. And taking his words as a truth,
> even then they do not say that he always has been a close reader, he speaks
> only of 1952 and 1953. (see Dits et Ecrits, IV p. 703)
>
> Moreover, I could not find any place in his works where he directely
> discusses or analyses a text of Heidegger or one of Heidegger's
> philosophical notions or ideas. Foucault himself also says so in the same
> interview.
>
> I could neither detect in his works or in his methods a typical
> Heidegerrian approach or way of thinking. Some people claim that the
> Analytic of Finitude in The Order of Things is Heideggerian. I my opinion it
> is much more Kantian, and derived from his thesis on Kant's Antropology,
> then Heideggerian.
>
> yours
> machiel karskens
>
>
>
> ----- "michael bibby" <shmickeyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > From: "michael bibby" <shmickeyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: "Mailing-list" <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2010 6:17:18 AM
> > Subject: [Foucault-L] Duration, Dasein, Geneology, Archaeology.
> >
> > Certainly, Foucault was a close reader of Heidegger, who in turn was a
> > close reader of Bergson. This is also true of Minkowski, and a host of
> > others who seem to have rallied around Bergsons book which emerged as
> > a balwark against the 'scientific barbarism', 'mechanistic
> > rationality', 'technocrasy' of the age. Perhaps we could say that
> > Foucault was reponding, in part at least, to the same crises which
> > Bergson, Minkowski, Heidegger, Spengler, and many others were
> > responding to, what we could provisionally call 'the crises of
> > history', 'the crises of modernity'- the temporal crises which Elliot
> > found at the crossroads of Little Gidding, the spiritual crises which
> > Toynbee saw the west involving the rest of the world in as it spread
> > its civilization throughout it.
> >
> > Jungs description of the wandering jew who is unable to draw fresh
> > life from the earth through his feet because they have been uprooted
> > from their ancestral land could just as easily be applied to 'modern
> > man', ahistorical and independent of geographical place, rendered
> > mobile and shut up in hismself. Indeed, we see that it was, and least
> > of all in Mein Kampf. We could say that this picture of the Jew is
> > really a kind of charicture of modern man, more precisely of his
> > 'priestly nature', to borrow Marx's expression.
> >
> > The archaic revival in Germany, we read in The Function of the Orgasm,
> > can be seen as a responce, although confused as to its object, to the
> > 'mystical longing' opened up in the depths of mans alienation from the
> > archaeology of the land, from the geneology of his people: just as the
> > Jew had an ancient tradition which he carried around with him like an
> > arab his tent through the desert, so too the German had the
> > Indo-European- a retrospective hypothesis- geneology to restore him to
> > the profundity from which he had become estranged through
> > abstraction.
> >
> > Tarkovsky takes up these themes in his allegory of Solviet Russia in
> > the form of the oceanic space-station Solaris: this is the precise
> > meaning of the pot-plant, which is the last thing we see before we
> > leave the space station- the strange melieu in which it alone made the
> > only sense- and return to earth.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
--
Nathaniel Roberts
Visiting Scholar
Department of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
820 Williams Hall, 255 S. 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
USA