File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1995/f_Apr.95, message 31


Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 23:30:43 -0500 (CDT)
From: Erik D Lindberg <edl-AT-csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: Re: Foucault and Normativity


On Tue, 11 Apr 1995, Kristin Switala wrote:

> 
> 
> towards normative practices and institutions.  He is trying to be as 
> anti-Hegelian as possible -- meaning that he is trying not to offer a 
> program for future behavior.  Only the suggestion, as you point out, that 
> 
> 
I think this that this thread is becoming increasingly thoughtful, and 
therefore more interesting, but I would disagree about the relationship 
of Foucault and Hegel.  Foucualt is an heir to the Hegelian legacy 
precisely in his unwillingness to offer a program for future behavior.  
I like to locate 
what I call an "archaeological turn" beginning with Hegel, for with Hegel 
philosophy became increasingly intersted not in the question of "should," 
but in the question of what is possible given what "is."  As Hegel put it 
in the Preface to his PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT, "To comprehend WHAT IS is the 
task of philosophy, for WHAT IS is resson.  As far as the individual is 
concerned, each individual is in any case a CHILD OF HIS TIME, thus 
philosophy, too, is ITS OWN TIME COMPREHENDED IN THOUGHT.  It is just as 
foolish to imagine that any philosophy can transcende its contemporary 
world as that an individual can overleap his own time or leap over 
Rhodes."

I would argue that the most relevant difference between Hegel in Foucault 
involves the issue of progress.  While Hegel thought that intellectual 
"strife" would lead to absolute consciousness (the "cunning of reason"), 
Foucault thought that reason would not lead to "global" progress, but 
would reveal the contingencies of the "natural" or "determined," and thus 
open the possibility of various forms of "otherness," or "practices of 
freedom."  Niether had much 
interest in positing any form of should, but were interested in the "is."

Any other thoughts about the difference between Foucault and Hegel?  Is 
the difference fairly constant throughout F's work?

regards,

Erik Lindberg


Erik D. Lindberg
Dept. of English and Comparative Lit.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI  53211
email: edl-AT-csd.uwm.edu


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