Date: Thu, 20 Jun 96 15:16:36 EST
From: "Joe Cronin" <croninj-AT-thomasmore.edu>
Subject: Re[2]: what is bio-power?


          I have a question for Michael Donnelly: I've read a few of
          your articles on Foucault, and recently re-read your article
          on Bio-power.  You claim, in a nutshell (and please telll me
          if I'm off the mark) - that Foucault should've stuck to his
          nominalistic researches, and not gotten involved in general
          concerns.  If that's a workable summary, my question is
          this: where did Foucault EVER conduct a "local" analysis?
          Whatr is a local analysis? Is it an analysis of a scientific
          practice? If so, we're already at a general level - the
          level at whcih a "practice" is carried out.  He never
          concerned himself with the work, or thought, of one single
          author, or one single problem.  Question two is this: in
          Remarks on Marx, Foucault responds to the question of
          nominalism by saying something to teh effect that "what
          could be more generla than a society's conception of
          madness, or the hegemony of reason..."(bad paraphrase) - the
          point is that he concerns himself with questions which are
          inherently social, and therefore inherently general.  If
          one claims to be an empiricist, as Foucault does over and
          over again, than how can one ignore general phenomena, on
          the one hand, and the fact that many sciences have
          developed in the past two hundred years by developiong an
          understanding of societal generalities (such as the
          cocneption o f"population" as a general, theortical set of
          objects, in HS v.I)?

          --Joe Cronin