Date: Sun, 24 Sep 1995 22:18:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Spoon Collective <spoons-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: Cang Intro (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 23:52:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: John Ransom <ransom-AT-dickinson.edu>
To: michel foucault <foucault-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Cc: John Ransom <ransom-AT-dickinson.edu>
Subject: Cang Intro

Foucault, I've been trying to argue, is not a vitalist; he does not
sub**ribe to "vitalism." On p. 18 of the Introduction to Canguilhem's
_Normal and Pathological_, F directly addresses the issue of vitalism.
And though I've mentioned this before I'll say it again: It is strange
Deleuze, when claiming that Foucault is a "vitalist" of some kind (see
_Foucault_, pp. 92-93 of the English translation; pp. 98-99 of the
French) makes no reference to this essay. (Foucault's Introduction
appeared in the early 70s, if I'm not mistaken. _Normal and Pathological_
first appeared in 1966. I believe F's Intro was added in 1978. Deleuze's
book was published in 1986; English trans. 1988.)

No matter how precise the life sciences became through the use of
mathematical models and an ever-more precise understanding of cell
chemistry, etc., it still found itself unable to account in a definitive
way for the phenomenon of life (18). But, F cautions,

=09"This does not mean that 'vitalism,' which has circulated
=09so many images and perpetuated so many myths, is true.
=09It does not mean that this idea, which has been so often
=09rooted in less rigorous philosophies, must constitute
=09the invincible philosophy of biologists. It simply means
=09that it has had and undoubtedly still has an essential role
=09as an 'indicator' in the history of biology. And this in two
=09respects: as a theoretical indicator of problems to be
=09solved . . . [and] as a critical indicator of reductions to be
=09avoided . . . (18)

Instead of contrasting  those particular forms of life currently
available to an overflowing richness of suppressed or unrealized
possibilities, Foucault suggests we keep the focus on the origins,
characteristics, assumptions and weak points of existing life-forms. This
is precisely what F likes about Canguilhem: "What Canguilhem studies in a
privileged way in the history of biology is the 'formation of concepts'"
(19). In other words, Canguilhem does not want to set a vitalistic notion
of "life" against the world as it is; rather, he wants to understand how
this or that particular concept, with its particular fecundity and
real-world consequences, came into being and what its functional
relations with other concepts are.

Foucault's sharpest rejection of vitalism appears on p. 21, as follows:

=09That man lives in a conceptually architectured environment
=09does not prove that he has been diverted from life by some
=09oversight or that a historical drama has separated him from
=09it . . .

" . . . diverted from life by some oversight . . . " What kind of
oversight could F have in mind? I have a clearer idea--which does not
mean it is accurate--of the second half: " . . . or that a historical
drama has separated him from [life] . . . " Here I think F is distancing
himself from the kind of critical tradition associated with the Frankfurt
School, which argues that the so-called "progress" of humanity has
actually led to its barbarization, the fault for which can be laid at the
doorstep of reason.

In any event: the mere fact that we confront a conceptually architectured
environment does not mean we have been diverted from the more primal,
purer, richer, and vital stuff of "life."

=09That man lives in a conceptually architectured environment
=09does not prove that he has been diverted from life by some
=09oversight or that a historical drama has separated him from
=09it; but only that he lives in a certain way, that he has a
=09relationship with his environment such that he does not have
=09a fixed view of it, that he can move on an undefined territory,
=09that he must move about to receive information, that he
=09must move things in relation to one another in order to make
=09them useful.

Compare this almost passionate defense of concepts to the kind of
quasi-vitalistic arguments made by George Simmel in his "Sociability"
essay (1911, I think):

=09On the basis of practical conditions and necessities, our
=09intelligence, will, creativity, and feeling work on the
=09materials that we wish to wrest from life. In accord with our
=09purposes we give these materials certain forms and only
=09in these forms operate and use them as elements of our
=09lives. But it happens that these materials, these forces
=09and interests, in a peculiar manner remove themselves
=09from the service of life that originally produced and
=09employed them. They become autonomous in the sense
=09that they are no longer inseparable from the objects
=09which they formed and thereby made available to our
=09purposes. They come to play freely in themselves
=09and for their own sake; they produce or make use of
=09materials that exclusively serve their own operation
=09or realization. (_The Sociology of Georg Simmel_,
=09trans. Kurt H. Wolff, New York: Free Press, 1950),
=09p. 41)

Change a few rhetorical cues and vocabulary choices, and you get the same
argument from the Frankfurt School or Max Weber. Of course, no one could
do it like Simmel! Until Foucault, anyway.

The kind of vitalism mixed with that nostalgic *fin de si=E8cle*
ennui characteristic of Simmel and other "life" philosophers is what F
wants to avoid. To bring this series of posts to the list to a close, let
me finish by quoting the rest of the paragraph on p. 21 of the
Introduction, which can be thought of as a direct if unintentional
rejection of the kind of argument Simmel makes above:

=09Forming concepts is one way of living, not of killing life;
=09it is one way of living in complete mobility and not
=09immobilizing life; it is showing, among these millions
=09of living beings who inform their environment and are
=09informed from it outwards, an innovation which will
=09be judged trifling or substantial as you will: a very
=09particular type of information. (21)