Hi Thomas
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lord@xxxxxxx
> Sent: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:47:09 -0700
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] translation question
>
> 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.
Not discouses, but statements: it is statements that are endlessly assensible to discouses; and it is statements that are open to the task of tranforming discourses.
>
> 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.
Perhaps, but it seems to me that what the book is describing is the relationship between the seeable and the sayable; and that death emerges as part of modern medical experience as the effect of a mutation in and the emegence of a new relationship between what is seen and what is said (i.e., statements). Thus, the act of seeing, and its relation to what is said is a condition of possibility of statements, and thus of discourse; death, is an effect of a particular modern relationship between what is seen (the interior volume of the body, and not just signs upon the surface of bodies) and what is said.
>
> 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**."
I know the passage well; but as I have said before on this list, experience for Foucault is not subjective; rather, it is constitutive of subjects.
>
> 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.
I see the point you are driving at, but still have to disagree: it's not "men" but "objects of knowledge" that are formed in discourse; and "men" or "man" would surely only be an object of knowledge for modern medical experience.
>
> 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.
Firstly, I don't think it is a question of men being subjected to discourse but of the formation of new objects of medical discourse; secondly, I don't think there is a question of subjection here but of the modification of subjects capable of knowing the new objects of medical discourse.
>
> 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.
This is maybe why our readings differ; whereas you read Wittgenstein into Foucault, I see it from a much more Heideggerain point of view: "les regard médical" being the ontical expression of an historically specific understanding of being (ontology).
>
> 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?
That is one way of looking at it. But the fact that the sentance in questions starts with "What counts in ""the things said by men""..., thus the rest of the sentance refers back to this "what counts in the things said by men" and not men themselves. Otherwise it would have surely read "what counts in men" or "regarding men" or some other such phrase, and not "the things said by men"
Regards,
Kevin.
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
____________________________________________________________
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: lord@xxxxxxx
> Sent: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:47:09 -0700
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] translation question
>
> 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.
Not discouses, but statements: it is statements that are endlessly assensible to discouses; and it is statements that are open to the task of tranforming discourses.
>
> 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.
Perhaps, but it seems to me that what the book is describing is the relationship between the seeable and the sayable; and that death emerges as part of modern medical experience as the effect of a mutation in and the emegence of a new relationship between what is seen and what is said (i.e., statements). Thus, the act of seeing, and its relation to what is said is a condition of possibility of statements, and thus of discourse; death, is an effect of a particular modern relationship between what is seen (the interior volume of the body, and not just signs upon the surface of bodies) and what is said.
>
> 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**."
I know the passage well; but as I have said before on this list, experience for Foucault is not subjective; rather, it is constitutive of subjects.
>
> 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.
I see the point you are driving at, but still have to disagree: it's not "men" but "objects of knowledge" that are formed in discourse; and "men" or "man" would surely only be an object of knowledge for modern medical experience.
>
> 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.
Firstly, I don't think it is a question of men being subjected to discourse but of the formation of new objects of medical discourse; secondly, I don't think there is a question of subjection here but of the modification of subjects capable of knowing the new objects of medical discourse.
>
> 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.
This is maybe why our readings differ; whereas you read Wittgenstein into Foucault, I see it from a much more Heideggerain point of view: "les regard médical" being the ontical expression of an historically specific understanding of being (ontology).
>
> 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?
That is one way of looking at it. But the fact that the sentance in questions starts with "What counts in ""the things said by men""..., thus the rest of the sentance refers back to this "what counts in the things said by men" and not men themselves. Otherwise it would have surely read "what counts in men" or "regarding men" or some other such phrase, and not "the things said by men"
Regards,
Kevin.
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
____________________________________________________________
FREE 3D EARTH SCREENSAVER - Watch the Earth right on your desktop!
Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/earth
____________________________________________________________
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