Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:16:41 -0600
From: jlnich1-AT-service1.uky.edu (jln)
Subject: Re: True Self ?


 Foucault is clear that he is not giving us a set of
>instructions or commands on how to live our lives or how to act (react)
>in the world.  So if you don't want to (to care,  to change),  that's
>fine.  As one proud Texan once instructed me,  "Hey,  man,  it's a free
>country" -
>
Okay, but then why does he write.  He obviously wants us to change.   If
not, then I have to say he is missing the famous dictum: Philosophy has
always described the world, the point is to change it.


>My problem with this argument is that just how specific are you willing
>to be when it comes to talking about these real interests ?  Okay,  I
>grant you,  one of my real interests is to live and I'm sure that's yours
>as well.  What if it turns out another one of my real interests is to
>live in a country free of immigrants,  or of gays and lesbians ?

I agree with you that we will have problems in defining what our real
interests are.  I think we may have to depend on a lot of cross-cultural
analysis for this.  Probably one of our real interest is freedom of
lifestyles,m which would override the rela interest of particular people to
live in countrys free of immigrants.  One of my examples is the case of a
small town which wants a "pure" environment, for example, one free of
pornography.  How can we balance such a claim against others who want
pronography rich environments?  I am not sure.  Small communities is the
way to go, I think.... But I have many doubts and unworked out theories
here.

 The problem with "real interests"
>is that if we get basic enough,  sure - there is a shared "true"
>interest,  but then these interests are so basic,  so obvious that it's
>almost pointless to talk about them.  However,  if we get specific,  we
>find that interests (our conceptions of right and wrong,  our views of
>what constitute a good life,  etc.) diverge,  conflict.  As for the
>example of everyone's real interest in wanting to work in a pollution
>free environment ... well,  if only it were true - this world would a
>much cleaner place than it is right now !!!

Well, it wouod be a cleaner place if we were all aware that such a thing
were possible, if those who owned the pollution producing industries lived
in the areas polluted, and if we were not under the influence of other
"truths" such that pollution is not bad, or that capital is everything.
etc.  I don't think our real interests re as obvious as we would think,
though I think that Marcuse has lot to say in this area for example in Eros
and Civilization, Essay on Liberation and OneDimensional Man.

>
>>But this plays into a false dichotomy (as I suggested before): why does
>>realizing or admitting a true self mean that I have to be the same all the
>>time.  This is a static view of self.  I think we should view the self as
>>dynamic, as in potens, such as Aristotle or the Medievals did.
>
>Okay.  I'll buy that ... we pretty much agree on the conclusion (self as
>dynamic,  ever evolving,  changing) - we just disagree on how we got
>there - which is fine :  true self that is constantly rewriting itself or
>an ethos to be something other than who we are,  to escape the regime of
>the Same ... POtato,  poTato.
>

Yes, I agree.  I find Aquinas' and Aristotle's notion o eudaimonia very
helpful in making my potato salad.

>> My problem
>>with Foucault and other postmoderns that I have read is that the ignore
>>anything between Kant and PLato...
>
>Well,  that's a little unfair.  All the big shots of postmodernisms have
>done things in that area.  Half of Derrida's Grammatology is devoted to
>Rousseau;  a third of Dissemination to Plato;  D has also written a study
>of Condillac.  Let's also not forget D's debate with Foucault on
>Descartes and the place of Evil Genius within Descartes's discourse (kind
>of hard to say,  actually ... Descartes' discourse);  Lacan has written
>that marvelous thing on Kant avec Sade.  Foucault's Order of Things
>contains a great deal of materials on the Classical Period.  De Man
>devoted half of Allegory on Jean-Jacques and also did a fascinating
>reading of the concept of Zero in Pascal's work.  Jean-Luc Nancy wrote on
>Descartes in Ego Sum.  Luce Irigaray on Plato,  and Deleuze has written
>two excellent books on Spinoza and one book on Leibniz - in fact,  Gilles
>Deleuze's very first work (his dissertation I think) was on the good old
>English empiricist David Hume of all people !!!
>
Very good, I must be more careful of what I say.  But note that all of your
example are people from modern philosophy.  I beleive that the postmoderns
rightly challenge modernity on several grounds, but instead of going for
postmodernity which abandons everything, I think they skip the medievals
who probably have a lot of answers to these questions.  You might say that
I am being a bit unfair again.  BUt I said at the begginning "from what I
have read."  I may be totally off on this point which will become apparent
when I read more continental stuff (My training is in analytic, yuck!).
But for instance, if one reads Aquinas or Aristotle, one cannothelp but
notice the similarities between their notion of eudaimonia and the
postmodern urge for difference and creativity.  They also place more
emphasis on aesthetics and iomagination which vcan be found in the
postmoderns but which is downplayed in much enlghtenment thought:
enlightement thought focuses upon reason alone, bereft opf imagination
which leads to confusion and madness.  I think an interesting comparison
sometime wouold be between FOucault's Archeology of Knowledge, The Order of
Things and Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self.  While I don't agree with
everything Taylor says, he has some interesting insights...

Jeff