Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 16:46:02 -0400 (EDT) From: John Ransom <ransom-AT-dickinson.edu> Subject: Re: Genealogy Reg Lilly asks: My question is what is the nature of this continuity that you see? What do you make of the obvious differences in his various vocabularies and conceptual apparatuses? [end quotation] Earlier in the same post, Reg comments: Rather than an analytic of power I think one might well characterize the 'final Foucault' as a philosopher of care. Foucault's analysis of parrhesia (1983) is, I think, irreducible to an analytics of power, though without doubt power relations are nevertheless ubiquitous. [end quotation from Reg Lilly] Reg is asking what continuities I see between works like _Discipline and Punish_ (1977) and _The Will to Knowledge_ (1978) on the one hand and _Uses of Pleasure_ (1982, I think) and _Care of the Self_ (1984) on the other. Foucault discusses the links between his earlier work on power and his new concern with practices of the self in the Introduction to _Uses of Pleasure_. Before we can characterize Foucault in the way Reg suggests, charity requires that we look at what he actually said. Alright: So what does F say in the Introduction to _The Uses of Pleasure_ (hereafter _UP_)? Foucault's "Introduction" to _UP_ is substantial; it is divided into three sections, each with its own title. The first part is called "Modifications." With this heading, F explicitly signals his desire to adjust the direction of the sexuality series relative to the first volume. But F is very far from abandoning or rejecting his earlier work. Nor does he simply say "I am not abandoning the earlier stuff" and then proceed, in fact, to abandon it (the way Jesus does in Matthew 5:17-48). Instead, F presents a *unified* vision of his work. There is no question of simply "going along" with whatever F "wanted." Just because F himself suggests an interpretive angle concerning "Foucault," it doesn't mean we have to agree with him, on the unexamined assumption that somehow he is his own best interpreter. Foucault simply saying: "This is how I should be read by anyone who wants to do it right" is not going to carry much persuasive weight here. The question, then, is whether or not F's actual argument about the unified nature of his efforts stands up to any of the usual tests we apply to arguments and interpretations. I think it does. What F claims on p. 5 of the English translation of _UP_ is that his previous work had provided him with the necessary tools for the work he was now about to undertake. Works like _The Order of Things_ (1966) addressed the "games of truth," while _DP_ addressed the interaction of truth with power relations. Now, however, F wants to talk about the game of truth in relationship to the self, the forming of oneself as a subject. How, F asks on p. 6, does man think his own nature when ill, mad, working, and so on? How then do we "think our own nature"? How do these earlier works that F mentions fit into this "game of truth in relationship to the self"? [how inculcation of norms is an example of how people come to think a certain truth about themselves; example of classroom] How are we to understand the phrase "game of truth"? How in particular are we supposed to take the word "game"? If truth of some kind is produced by a game, is it somehow less true? Games are things we play. We play them to amuse ourselves. If we participate in a game of truth, are we merely playing? Are we not being serious? Are we only doing it to amuse ourselves? It doesn't seem, though, that F wants to use the word "game" in this playful or dismissive way. Games are not just activities for children. We all know how important it is to play the game. (See Goffman, _The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life_ for a classic sociological argument along these lines.) Knowing how to play the game is very serious--without that you can't win or play a role! If the game itself is serious, if the rules that make it up are essential to playing it well, then the kind of truth that issues from the game is by no means trivial. And we might think of the kind of truth produced by a game in two senses: if there's a rule in major league baseball that says you're not allowed to use metal bats, and if someone tries to use a metal bat, then it is really true that that individual is using an illegal bat. This truth can have serious consequences: namely, the individual using the illegal bat is called out and/or ejected from the game. But we can also think of a broader sense of truth than the relationship between certain discrete actions and the barriers and channels rules provide. The rules that exist are combined with the actions of human agents. These agents apply, interpret, obey, stretch, and bend these rules. In the process, the agents as a group produce a second and deeper kind of truth; the kind of truth (in the case of baseball) that comes from a sense of the self (conceived both individually and collectively) that is produced by the mixture of rules, agents, chance, etc. To put it bluntly and probably inaccurately, participants in the game begin to think of themselves in the context of the game; they see themselves through the constraints and possibilities introduced by the game; through the prism of the game, they see a figure and say to themselves: "That's who I am, that's what I am, there is my essence, that is the *truth* about me." This self-identification is part of the game of truth. What's imprecise about the above, however, is that we often do not consciously reflect on how our nature, how the truth about us has been influenced by the rules of the particular game we're playing. We have a hard time seeing the way in which specific rules and the goals of particular games impact on the kind of "human nature" that is expressed. Different games means different human natures that produce different truths. These discrete truths are "fictional" but concrete; as real as real can be. In _DP_, the shaping, truth-creating (thus "productive) nature of power is discussed. "Disciplines" are projects designed to produce hard workers who don't think too much. In an army, you want people who will follow orders and go over the top in the face of withering machine gun fire. How to accomplish this? The answer: insert individuals into an environment that contains very strong expectations that encourage and discourage forms of behavior. But more important, in the context of this encouraging and discouraging, work to promote a certain ethos similar to the kind found on a baseball team: get individuals to think of themselves as part of such-and-such a collectivity with this particular identity that sees itself as capable of this (going over the top) but not that (turning the guns around on their imperialist masters). Clearly, then, Foucault is quite concerned in _DP_ with the production and maintenance of individual and collective psychic states and how "power" achieves its goals through such procedures. It seems to me that _UP_ and _Care of the Self_ are concerned with the same historical and philosophical theme, but that in these last two books the same thing is done from the perspective of the individual, and the issue is raised as to whether or not individuals can engage in this shaping, truth-producing activity themselves. ------------------
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