Hi André, Hi everyone,
As time goes by, I'm beginning to doubt about the very existence of this quote .... Maybe I just dreamed it ?Let's just forget it.
Concerning my "critique" of Foucault's genealogical analysis, I need to be more specific : my critique is only methodological, and above all is pertinent only regarding the object I'm working on (sexuality).I'm currently working on "sexuality" as a historical experience of pleasures and sexual practices, and especially on its "perverted" historical moment, i.e. the emergence of a discourse on "sexual perversions" in the late 19th century. I'm pursuing a sort of comparative analysis between two historical ways to conceptualise "sexual practices" : 18th century french "libertinage" or debauchery, and 19th century "sexual perversions".
In front of this, I ask a simple question : why are they epistologically different, except one is rooted into a moral concern for body and will, while the later is rooted in a medico-psychological concern for body and mind ? Instead of "except", I could have used the words "no matter" or "beyond the fact that" : it's not so much that I disagree with the moral/medical distinction as a right candidate for an epistemological gap like the one I'm interested in, but I believe it just represents one part of the answer to the question.
To sump up, one can reduce the epistemological difference between debauchery and sexual perversion to a distinction between moral and medical concerns, and assume that "perversion" is the pathological name for "debauchery", and thus that the emergence of the concept of "sexual perversion" is due to the medicalization and psychiatrization of a moral matter. I'm thinking here of the fact that many scholars and researchers in the field of the history of sexuality are deeply embedded in a genealogical critique of the modern experience of "sexuality", first by emphasizing the strategical techniques that have been and are still used by psychiatry and psychology to designate the perverted, unhealthy, abnormal sexuality, and then by emphasizing the non "sexually-rooted" experience of pleasures in ancient Greece, and thus the possibility for us to experience sexuality without its modern concerns (desire, truth-telling, potential abnormality, etc.). My purpose is to show that there is a much deeper difference between debauchery and sexual perversion, and that the shift away from debauchery to perversion is rooted in a broader and deeper epistemological/archeological transformation in knowledge than a change in concerns. It has something to do with a range of conceptual schemes, that do not directly depends on the strategy they are combined to (psychiatrisation, moral condemnation, political claim, rehabilitation, etc.)
I don't have the pretention to put all of Foucault's work on and with genealogical analysis into question ; my point is : the genealogical analysis suits to certain objects, and, above all, it has a definite purpose. To go back to my "critique" of genealogy, if we pay attention to the four dimensions of regularity in discourse in The archeology of knowledge, which specificity and specific interactions make the coherence of a "discourse" ("formation discursive"), there are : the way the "object" of knowledge is formed (the rules it follows), the way its "concepts" are formed, the way "enonciative modality" (modalités énonciatives) is formed, and finally the specific strategical pretention of each discourse (Archeology of knowledge, second chapter). My point is : the genealogical analysis in terms of power/knowledge is a development of the strategical dimension of discourse analysis, to the detriment of its conceptual/theoretical dimensions. To state it more precisely, I think that the genealogical development of Foucault's methodology has put the role of the conceptual dimensions of discourse "upside down" : in a genealogical analysis, the role of the epistemological analysis isn't clear, and we never know how to use it. It's easy to understand, as the genealogical method make heterogeneous elements work together (discursive and non discursive material, techniques, discourses, political decisions and campains, sciences), in no predetermined ways. But the role of concepts and theories (analysed in a "purely" epistemological way) in the development of sexology, sexual perversion clinics and sex psychology in general, is extraordinarily minored. I am not trying to distinguish between a "pure" conceptual level and a strategical/political one, but I think that in my field of study (history of sexuality), the historical analysis properly focuses on the strategical dimensions ("psychiatrists pathologise desire"), in the detriment of the conceptual one ("sexual perversion" must emerge as a possible object in the field of discourse on sexuality). Foucault himself warned his contemporaries : if you don't pay attention to the concepts you are using in your political revendications and struggles, and demand the "liberation" of desire, you may extend what you should be fighting against, that is to say : the very concept of desire.
Well, I don't know if it is a summary, I did the best I could !
Best regards,
Tiffany P.
> From: andrenbatista@xxxxxxxxx
> Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2011 13:38:48 -0200
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] Re : Need help on a reference
>
> Hi Tiffany,
>
> First of all, sorry but I can't help you on that quote. I don't recall
> ever coming across such excerpt.
>
> Nonetheless, I wonder if you could summarize your critique to
> Foucault's genealogical analysis as well as your main thesis on sexual
> behavior.
>
> Best regards and good luck with that quote!
>
> André Nunes Batista
> Blog: http://tagesuhu.wordpress.com/
> PGP Public Key: 0x7b0590cb6722cf80
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Tiffany P. <princeptiffany@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Hi "klossi",
> > Thanks for the answer, and the reference.
> > Nevertheless, the excerpt I am looking for takes part in the foucaltian critique of the analysis of utterances from a hierarchical point of view (as they are, according to Foucault, put into question in the traditional analysis of langage and discourse). As a consequence, I'm pretty sure that the excerpt I am looking for is quite contradictory with the excerpt you pointed out ! :)I'm thinking here of range of assertions (made in a period contemporaneous with the Archeology of knowledge) in which Foucault precisely refuses to distinguish between utterances that have an "direct effect " on social organization (for example rules and regulations that are applied) and utterances that are, as one might say, just said or written in vain ? We can think about the following question in the same terms : is the fact that the "death by fire" sentence for sodomy was only exceptionnally pronouced relevant ? From an archeological point of view, it is not (from a genealogical point of view, that is from the 70's to the 80's in Foucault's methodology, I think it is). Archeology does not accept the possibility of vain utterances : if it is said or written, then it deserves attention, because it depends on the same "régularités discursives" (discursive rules ?) than anything else. The second excerpt I proposed puts the same thing into question (from text n°277, "La poussière et le nuage") : is the fact that prison programs, decisions and regulations did not reach their goals an objection to the methodology chosen in Surveiller et Punir ?The excerpt about structuralism is, I think, about the distinction between "rules" from a structuralist point of view and "rules" from a genealogical point of view : the rule of incest, for structuralist anthropology, is said to organise society from a symbolic point of view, whereas the "rules" which Foucault is interested in have nothing to do with "symbolism", but with the body and the subjectivity in a materialist sense (Foucault talks about "consciences", "bodies" and "people").
> > Foucault's reflection on prison (in "La poussière et le nuage") takes part in a wider reflection on what is "reality" : "Il faut démystifier l'instance globale du réel comme totalité à restituer, Il n'y a pas «le» réel qu'on rejoindrait à condition de parler de tout ou de certaines choses plus «réelles» que les autres, et qu'on manquerait, au profit d'abstractions inconsistantes, si on se borne à faire apparaître d'autres éléments et d'autres relations, Il faudrait peut-être aussi interroger le principe, souvent implicitement admis, que la seule réalité à laquelle devrait prétendre l 'histoire, c'est la société elle-même, Un type de rationalité, une manière de penser, un programme, une technique, un ensemble d'efforts rationnels et coordonnés, des objectifs définis et poursuivis, des instruments pour l'atteindre, etc., tout cela c'est du réel, même si ça ne prétend pas être «la réalité» elle-même ni «la» société tout entière, Et la genèse de cette réalité, dès lors qu'on y fait intervenir les éléments pertinents, est parfaitement légitime."(excerpted from the same text).
> > That's the idea that I am looking for : "Un type de rationalité, une manière de penser, un programme, une technique, un ensemble d'efforts rationnels et coordonnés, des objectifs définis et poursuivis, des instruments pour l'atteindre, etc., tout cela c'est du réel." A regulation that is not applied is still real, and not vain ; we can analyse it from an archeological point of view, as a part of a certain type of "rationality". Does anyone can think about other assertions in this sense ?
> > Well, I'm not sure about my analysis, if anyone is inspired ...
> > Tiffany P.
> >> Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 09:27:03 +0000
> >> From: klossi_fr@xxxxxxxx
> >> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Subject: [Foucault-L] Re : Need help on a reference
> >>
> >> Closest thing I can think of :
> >>
> >> "Vous avez raison de citer le structuralisme. On pourrait reprendre cet exemple majeur, princeps de la méthode structurale, qui consiste dans les règles de prohibition de l'inceste et celles du mariage dans les sociétés primitives, puisque c'est par là, finalement, et grâce au génie de Lévi-Strauss, que l'on a pu appliquer dans le domaine des sciences sociales un certain nombre de modèles formels, empruntés à la linguistique ou éventuellement aux mathématiques. Ce qui m'intéresse, ce n'est pourtant pas cela, et j'ai toujours eu envie de demander aux anthropologues: quel est le fonctionnement réel de la règle de l'inceste ? J'entends la règle, non pas en tant que système formel, mais en tant qu'instrument précis, réel, quotidien, individualisé par conséquent - de coercition. C'est la contrainte qui m'intéresse: comment elle pèse sur les consciences et s'inscrit dans les corps; comment elle révolte les gens et comment ils la
> >> déjouent. C'est précisément à ce point de contact, de frottement, éventuellement de conflit, entre le système des règles et le jeu des irrégularités que je place toujours mon interrogation.
> >>
> >> Au moment où le grand système de la rationalité scientifique et philosophique produit le vocabulaire général dans lequel, à partir du XVII° siècle, on va communiquer, que peut-il bien arriver à ceux que leur comportement exclut de ce langage ? C'est cela qui m’intrigue."
> >>
> >> « Sur la sellette » (entretien avec J.-L. Ezine), Les Nouvelles littéraires; n° 2477. 17-23 mars 1975, p. 3. (DE, art. 152)
> >>
> >>
> >> will search further though
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >> De : Tiffany P. <princeptiffany@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >> À : Michel Foucault <foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> Envoyé le : Mercredi 2 Novembre 2011 19h56
> >> Objet : [Foucault-L] Need help on a reference
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi everyone
> >> !
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> (please
> >> excuse my english in advance : I'm french ...but working on it)
> >>
> >> I'm
> >> pursuing a Phd in philosophy/history of sexuality at the University of Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne,
> >> mainly based upon (and criticizing) Foucault's work. I’m working on a “new”
> >> history of sexual perversions (if anyone is interested in discussing my
> >> opinions, and even chatting about perverts in a foucaltian or non-foucaltian
> >> way, I’d be glad to answer !).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Right now,
> >> I'm desperately searching for an excerpt which I once read (and of course forgot
> >> to note down), and it seems impossible for me alone to find it again.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> The text
> >> was about Foucault saying that "rules and regulations deserve all my
> >> interest, even if they are not applied - and, may I add, deserve it even
> >> more".
> >>
> >> (Je m'intéresse aussi à un règlement même s'il n'est pas
> >> appliqué ... Je dirais même : d'autant plus s'il ne l'est pas)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I found
> >> another text in which Foucault nearly makes the same statement. The text is a
> >> response to Jacques Leonard, who criticized Foucault's Surveiller et Punir in an article published in 1977. The
> >> text can be found in Dits et Ecrits (4 vol.), t. 4, p. 15 (n°277, "La
> >> poussière et le nuage"). Here is the excerpt :
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> "C'est pourquoi, quand on parle de programmes, de
> >> décisions, de règlements, et qu'on les analyse à partir des objectifs qu'on
> >> leur donnait et des moyens qu'ils mettaient en oeuvre, il [Jacques Léonard]
> >> croit faire une objection en disant: mais ces programmes n'ont jamais
> >> fonctionné réellement, jamais ils n'ont atteint leurs buts, Comme si jamais
> >> autre chose avait jamais été dit; comme s'il n'était pas souligné chaque fois
> >> qu'il s'agit de tentatives, d'instruments, de dispositifs, de techniques
> >> pour... Comme si l'histoire de la prison, centrale dans cette étude, n'était
> >> pas justement l'histoire de quelque chose qui n'a jamais « marché », du moins
> >> si on considère ses fins affirmées."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> If anyone can
> >> help me, I'd be grateful to him/her forever !
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Best
> >> regards,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Tiffany
> >> P.
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