I got through Les Mots et les Choses (in English translation, I hasten to add) hundreds of years ago, and found it curious. It struck me, possibly or probably quite wrongly, to be a tearing-down of Hegel’s theory of history as some sort of rational progression towards higher things, and putting in its place what purported to be a more or less irrational movement in which one ‘episteme’ (which controlled what sort of ‘knowledge’ was possible) replaced another for reasons (for Foucault seemed to be unable to get away from his very French rationalism despite the fact that he appeared to be attacking Hegelian rationalism) that appeared to be entirely arbitrary; and so the movement from one purported ‘episteme’ to another seemed entirely arbitrary as did the epistemes themselves, which did not seem to me to be of any great explanatory value.
I do think that the nexus of knowledge and power needs to be examined, but I am not sure that Foucault was the person to do it, since ‘power’ becomes in his thought, it seems to me, a sort of occult quality that runs through everything and can neither in the end be examined or understood. He seemed to like the idea of power as being occult. The only book of his that I have genuinely admired is not his book at all: ‘I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother…: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century’; Foucault is the editor, and there are essays by him & various students or colleagues of his, but the main text consists of police records, court records, etc, and, above all,of the extraordinary account by Riviere himself, of why & how he came to slaughter his family. The subsequent essays by Foucault & his acolytes do not seem to me to be very different in quality or insight to the shocked accounts by Riviere’s contemporaries, minor functionaries to whom Foucault & his acolytes give the impression of feeling comfortably intellectually superior.
I’m always a bit surprised at how popular Foucault seems to be among American intellectuals, because if my experience is anything to go by he is virtually unknown in his native country. He never gets mentioned by anyone I know, and his ideas are not discussed on television, even in a philosophy programme we sometimes watch. Probably my horizons are too limited and I should cultivate the philosophers I know (of whom I can only think of two at this moment). Everyone has heard of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus, but Foucault? Is that the guy who measured the speed of light and had a pendulum?
This morning there was an interview on television with Sandra Laugier, a philosopher, about the disproportionate effect Covid-19 has had on women. She was, of course, talking about real women, not pretend women. Simone de Beauvoir was mentioned, but Foucault wasn’t. She clearly needs to be educated about all the hardships pretend women have to put up with.
… which did not seem to me to be of any great explanatory value.
That seems to be Foucault’s entire project, really. If we accept that all knowledge is merely the exercise of political power rather than propositional/truth-functional content whose “fittingness” to the world is some state—regardless of whether that state can be determined—then the same is also true of every explanation. Explanation itself is rendered as arbitrary and changeable as the political winds. This antiepistemological point justifies Foucault’s rejection of age-of-consent legislation, as it reduces the notion of adults’ diddling kids to mere political opinion of no more or less value than any other. He can say that pederasty is only harmful because we narratively construct it as such.
Of course, his position is as self-negating as that of a pretentious high-school brat pontificating that there’s no such thing as objective truth. (“Is that objectively true?”)
… ‘power’ becomes in his thought, it seems to me, a sort of occult quality that runs through everything and can neither in the end be examined or understood. He seemed to like the idea of power as being occult.
Yep. Gotta quote from that Nussbaum takedown of Judith Butler:
When [ideas] remain mysterious (indeed, when they are not quite asserted), one remains dependent on the originating authority. The thinker is heeded only for his or her turgid charisma.
It’s always a red flag when someone tells me that they love Foucault.
I got through Les Mots et les Choses (in English translation, I hasten to add) hundreds of years ago, and found it curious. It struck me, possibly or probably quite wrongly, to be a tearing-down of Hegel’s theory of history as some sort of rational progression towards higher things, and putting in its place what purported to be a more or less irrational movement in which one ‘episteme’ (which controlled what sort of ‘knowledge’ was possible) replaced another for reasons (for Foucault seemed to be unable to get away from his very French rationalism despite the fact that he appeared to be attacking Hegelian rationalism) that appeared to be entirely arbitrary; and so the movement from one purported ‘episteme’ to another seemed entirely arbitrary as did the epistemes themselves, which did not seem to me to be of any great explanatory value.
I do think that the nexus of knowledge and power needs to be examined, but I am not sure that Foucault was the person to do it, since ‘power’ becomes in his thought, it seems to me, a sort of occult quality that runs through everything and can neither in the end be examined or understood. He seemed to like the idea of power as being occult. The only book of his that I have genuinely admired is not his book at all: ‘I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother…: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century’; Foucault is the editor, and there are essays by him & various students or colleagues of his, but the main text consists of police records, court records, etc, and, above all,of the extraordinary account by Riviere himself, of why & how he came to slaughter his family. The subsequent essays by Foucault & his acolytes do not seem to me to be very different in quality or insight to the shocked accounts by Riviere’s contemporaries, minor functionaries to whom Foucault & his acolytes give the impression of feeling comfortably intellectually superior.
I’m always a bit surprised at how popular Foucault seems to be among American intellectuals, because if my experience is anything to go by he is virtually unknown in his native country. He never gets mentioned by anyone I know, and his ideas are not discussed on television, even in a philosophy programme we sometimes watch. Probably my horizons are too limited and I should cultivate the philosophers I know (of whom I can only think of two at this moment). Everyone has heard of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus, but Foucault? Is that the guy who measured the speed of light and had a pendulum?
This morning there was an interview on television with Sandra Laugier, a philosopher, about the disproportionate effect Covid-19 has had on women. She was, of course, talking about real women, not pretend women. Simone de Beauvoir was mentioned, but Foucault wasn’t. She clearly needs to be educated about all the hardships pretend women have to put up with.
That seems to be Foucault’s entire project, really. If we accept that all knowledge is merely the exercise of political power rather than propositional/truth-functional content whose “fittingness” to the world is some state—regardless of whether that state can be determined—then the same is also true of every explanation. Explanation itself is rendered as arbitrary and changeable as the political winds. This antiepistemological point justifies Foucault’s rejection of age-of-consent legislation, as it reduces the notion of adults’ diddling kids to mere political opinion of no more or less value than any other. He can say that pederasty is only harmful because we narratively construct it as such.
Of course, his position is as self-negating as that of a pretentious high-school brat pontificating that there’s no such thing as objective truth. (“Is that objectively true?”)
Yep. Gotta quote from that Nussbaum takedown of Judith Butler: