Hi Kevin,
I hope I'm not belaboring the point. I won't
carry on much further after this, I think, but:
I still think there is a problem here,
where you write:
"That is to say, what counts is that which
systematises statements (the rules of formation
of discourse). And it is statements, and not men,
that are thereafter endlessly accessible to new
discourses and open to the task of transformation."
There, you are talking about discourses being
accessible to and transformed by new discourses.
There is some dynamic order wholly interior to
discourse and its logic is "what counts". Discourses
"access" and "transform" earlier discourses,
in this view.
I think that is too close the view that Foucault was
actually trying to reject.
A first implausibility, just in passing, is
the question of "accessibility" and why it
might be important. What would it mean to
say that a historic discourse is "accessible"
to a new discourse, in this context? What would
an example be of a historic discourse that
is "not accessible" to a new discourse? I can't
imagine, in this context. This is a bit too
vague a reading for my taste.
In contrast, to say that "men were accessible to
this historic discourse" has, in context, a clear
meaning: the discourse orders the treatment of
bodies in space.
Foucault begins the preface (another parallel
with its conclusion on which you are working)
this way (emphasis added):
"This book is about space, *about language*,
*and about death*; it is *about the **act of**
seeing, the gaze*."
Note that death and the "act of seeing" are not
discourse, but are conditions visited upon
bodies. "Language" is just one leg of the stool.
The book is about the whole stool.
Two paragraphs back from the one you're talking
about (emphasis added):
"The research that I am undertaking here therefore
involves a project that is deliberately both historical
and critical, in that is concerned -- outside all
prescriptive intent -- with determining **the conditions
of the possibility of medical ***experience*** in
modern times**."
Discourse is interesting here in so far as it
reveals a re-ordering of the experience. It is
the whole interplay of the things and the words
that is of interest.
So I still think it is "men" who are "accessible"
to this historic discourse in the sense that
bodies are subject to a regime the discourse
reveals and helps to create.
But Foucault is not a nihilist. This isn't an
account of purely how men are passively subjected
to discourse but are also, in historically
specific ways, "open to transforming" the discourse
which shapes their experience.
And so that idiom -- d'entrée de jeu -- seems
rich to me. From a Wittgenstein-ian perspective
the discursive changes at the start of the 19th
century present a new language game whose structure
enables and orders an arrangement of bodies and
applications of power. The game comprises both
the words and the actions. What's interesting
is how the structure of the game effects people
and what they can do about it. It's the interplay
of what is said and what is done of interest.
It's not a model where discourse simply dominates
according to its own internal logic.
Finally, from a purely technical point of view:
Let's agree that the original paragraph is ambiguous
with respect to the referents of certain pronouns.
If you were to render it retaining that ambiguity
the reading that it is "men" who are "accessible"
and "open to transforming" discourse would still
be very plausible. I think the same formal ambiguity
is there in the French, if I'm following it
correctly. I think that "men" as referent is a
pretty natural reading, in context.
That you had to disambiguate by adding words,
when you wrote "that systematizes that which is
said", suggests you might be fighting against
the intended function of the paragraph in its
context. Does that make sense?
Regards,
-t
On Wed, 2012-08-08 at 08:57 +0200, Kevin Turner wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> Surely the target of archaeological research is "statements" not "men:" i.e. the things said by men, not the men making the statements.
>
> In other words, what counts in the things said by men (statements) is what was said (statements) and not what they may have thought below or beyond what was said (looking for what was not said in what was said, which would be the task of hermeneutics), and what counts is that which systematises what was said ( statements) from the outset. That is to say, what counts is that which systematises statements (the rules of formation of discourse). And it is statements, and not men, that are thereafter endlessly accessible to new discourses and open to the task of transformation.
>
> Regards,
> Kevin.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Lord [mailto:lord@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 06 August 2012 22:31
> To: Mailing-list
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] translation question
>
>
> I think you are making a mistake. I don't know French beyond recognizing some words and being able to puzzle out sentences so if my alternative reading is refuted by something like gender agreement of pronouns, please let me know:
>
> You translated this way:
>
> > "What counts in the things said by men, it is not so much what they
> > have thought below or beyond the things said, but that which
> > systematizes the things said from the outset..."
>
> I think the thing referred to as being systematized is neither the things said or the thoughts, but *men*.
>
> It is the people who are systematized from the start
> in various games. What matters in the words of the
> people is those games, not any purported thoughts within or behind the words.
>
> In terms of just the basic rhetoric, my reading shows a more parallel structure:
>
> "it is not so much what *they* have thought [...]
>
> meaning "men"
>
> "but that which systematizes *them* [...]
>
> meaning "men".
>
> The passage in the published translation continues:
>
> "thus making *them*[1] thereafter endlessly accessible
> to future discourses and open to the task of
> transforming *them*[2]"
>
> where my understanding is
>
> [1] = "men"
> [2] = "future discourses"
>
> Another parallel, in other words: men being both accessible to and open to the task of transforming future discourses.
>
> I wonder... well, the french uses an idiom:
>
> d'entrée de jeu
>
> which you translate as "from the outset"
> but I wonder if it wouldn't be better to translate it more literally:
>
> "from the start of the game"
>
> because I think Foucault, in this passage, might even be alluding to Wittgenstein's "language games".
>
> -t
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 2012-07-28 at 04:39 -0800, Kevin Turner wrote:
> > I have yet another translation question. This time in comes from the 'Preface' to "Birth of the Clinic."
> >
> > The original French reads:
> >
> > 'Ce qui compte dans les choses dites par les hommes, ce n'est pas
> > tellement ce qu'ils auraient pensé en deçà ou au-delà d'elles, mais ce
> > qui d'entrée de jeu les systématise...' (NC: xv)
> >
> > The published English translation reads:
> >
> > 'What counts in the things said by men is not so much what they may
> > have thought or the extent to which these things represent their
> > thoughts, as that which systematizes them from the outset...' (BC:
> > xix)
> >
> > To me, this makes it sound like what is systematised from the outset is thought and not the things said by men.
> >
> > Would this passage be better translated as
> >
> > "What counts in the things said by men, it is not so much what they
> > have thought below or beyond the things said, but that which systematizes the things said from the outset..."
> >
> > Thus making what is systematised from the outset not thought but what is said.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Kevin
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________
> > FREE 3D EARTH SCREENSAVER - Watch the Earth right on your desktop!
> > Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/earth
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> FREE 3D EARTH SCREENSAVER - Watch the Earth right on your desktop!
> Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/earth
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
I hope I'm not belaboring the point. I won't
carry on much further after this, I think, but:
I still think there is a problem here,
where you write:
"That is to say, what counts is that which
systematises statements (the rules of formation
of discourse). And it is statements, and not men,
that are thereafter endlessly accessible to new
discourses and open to the task of transformation."
There, you are talking about discourses being
accessible to and transformed by new discourses.
There is some dynamic order wholly interior to
discourse and its logic is "what counts". Discourses
"access" and "transform" earlier discourses,
in this view.
I think that is too close the view that Foucault was
actually trying to reject.
A first implausibility, just in passing, is
the question of "accessibility" and why it
might be important. What would it mean to
say that a historic discourse is "accessible"
to a new discourse, in this context? What would
an example be of a historic discourse that
is "not accessible" to a new discourse? I can't
imagine, in this context. This is a bit too
vague a reading for my taste.
In contrast, to say that "men were accessible to
this historic discourse" has, in context, a clear
meaning: the discourse orders the treatment of
bodies in space.
Foucault begins the preface (another parallel
with its conclusion on which you are working)
this way (emphasis added):
"This book is about space, *about language*,
*and about death*; it is *about the **act of**
seeing, the gaze*."
Note that death and the "act of seeing" are not
discourse, but are conditions visited upon
bodies. "Language" is just one leg of the stool.
The book is about the whole stool.
Two paragraphs back from the one you're talking
about (emphasis added):
"The research that I am undertaking here therefore
involves a project that is deliberately both historical
and critical, in that is concerned -- outside all
prescriptive intent -- with determining **the conditions
of the possibility of medical ***experience*** in
modern times**."
Discourse is interesting here in so far as it
reveals a re-ordering of the experience. It is
the whole interplay of the things and the words
that is of interest.
So I still think it is "men" who are "accessible"
to this historic discourse in the sense that
bodies are subject to a regime the discourse
reveals and helps to create.
But Foucault is not a nihilist. This isn't an
account of purely how men are passively subjected
to discourse but are also, in historically
specific ways, "open to transforming" the discourse
which shapes their experience.
And so that idiom -- d'entrée de jeu -- seems
rich to me. From a Wittgenstein-ian perspective
the discursive changes at the start of the 19th
century present a new language game whose structure
enables and orders an arrangement of bodies and
applications of power. The game comprises both
the words and the actions. What's interesting
is how the structure of the game effects people
and what they can do about it. It's the interplay
of what is said and what is done of interest.
It's not a model where discourse simply dominates
according to its own internal logic.
Finally, from a purely technical point of view:
Let's agree that the original paragraph is ambiguous
with respect to the referents of certain pronouns.
If you were to render it retaining that ambiguity
the reading that it is "men" who are "accessible"
and "open to transforming" discourse would still
be very plausible. I think the same formal ambiguity
is there in the French, if I'm following it
correctly. I think that "men" as referent is a
pretty natural reading, in context.
That you had to disambiguate by adding words,
when you wrote "that systematizes that which is
said", suggests you might be fighting against
the intended function of the paragraph in its
context. Does that make sense?
Regards,
-t
On Wed, 2012-08-08 at 08:57 +0200, Kevin Turner wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> Surely the target of archaeological research is "statements" not "men:" i.e. the things said by men, not the men making the statements.
>
> In other words, what counts in the things said by men (statements) is what was said (statements) and not what they may have thought below or beyond what was said (looking for what was not said in what was said, which would be the task of hermeneutics), and what counts is that which systematises what was said ( statements) from the outset. That is to say, what counts is that which systematises statements (the rules of formation of discourse). And it is statements, and not men, that are thereafter endlessly accessible to new discourses and open to the task of transformation.
>
> Regards,
> Kevin.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thomas Lord [mailto:lord@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 06 August 2012 22:31
> To: Mailing-list
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] translation question
>
>
> I think you are making a mistake. I don't know French beyond recognizing some words and being able to puzzle out sentences so if my alternative reading is refuted by something like gender agreement of pronouns, please let me know:
>
> You translated this way:
>
> > "What counts in the things said by men, it is not so much what they
> > have thought below or beyond the things said, but that which
> > systematizes the things said from the outset..."
>
> I think the thing referred to as being systematized is neither the things said or the thoughts, but *men*.
>
> It is the people who are systematized from the start
> in various games. What matters in the words of the
> people is those games, not any purported thoughts within or behind the words.
>
> In terms of just the basic rhetoric, my reading shows a more parallel structure:
>
> "it is not so much what *they* have thought [...]
>
> meaning "men"
>
> "but that which systematizes *them* [...]
>
> meaning "men".
>
> The passage in the published translation continues:
>
> "thus making *them*[1] thereafter endlessly accessible
> to future discourses and open to the task of
> transforming *them*[2]"
>
> where my understanding is
>
> [1] = "men"
> [2] = "future discourses"
>
> Another parallel, in other words: men being both accessible to and open to the task of transforming future discourses.
>
> I wonder... well, the french uses an idiom:
>
> d'entrée de jeu
>
> which you translate as "from the outset"
> but I wonder if it wouldn't be better to translate it more literally:
>
> "from the start of the game"
>
> because I think Foucault, in this passage, might even be alluding to Wittgenstein's "language games".
>
> -t
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 2012-07-28 at 04:39 -0800, Kevin Turner wrote:
> > I have yet another translation question. This time in comes from the 'Preface' to "Birth of the Clinic."
> >
> > The original French reads:
> >
> > 'Ce qui compte dans les choses dites par les hommes, ce n'est pas
> > tellement ce qu'ils auraient pensé en deçà ou au-delà d'elles, mais ce
> > qui d'entrée de jeu les systématise...' (NC: xv)
> >
> > The published English translation reads:
> >
> > 'What counts in the things said by men is not so much what they may
> > have thought or the extent to which these things represent their
> > thoughts, as that which systematizes them from the outset...' (BC:
> > xix)
> >
> > To me, this makes it sound like what is systematised from the outset is thought and not the things said by men.
> >
> > Would this passage be better translated as
> >
> > "What counts in the things said by men, it is not so much what they
> > have thought below or beyond the things said, but that which systematizes the things said from the outset..."
> >
> > Thus making what is systematised from the outset not thought but what is said.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Kevin
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________
> > FREE 3D EARTH SCREENSAVER - Watch the Earth right on your desktop!
> > Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/earth
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Foucault-L mailing list
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> FREE 3D EARTH SCREENSAVER - Watch the Earth right on your desktop!
> Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/earth
>
>
>
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