From: atefeho-AT-vms2.macc.wisc.edu
Date: Sun, 06 Oct 1996 01:39:42 -0500
Subject: Re: Foucault vs. Chomsky: PO MO? PO STRUC?


 I am a little confused as to how What is En. categorizes F. as Postmodern.
I appreciate some comments on this.
Atefeh


At 06:24 PM 10/6/96 GMT, sbinkley-AT-pipeline.com wrote:
>On Sun, Oct 6, 1996 12:55:03 PM, Omar Nasim wrote: 
> 
> 
>>--Thankyou very much for all the responses, however I was suprised at  
>>this one the most.  I was always under the impression that Foucault was a 
>
>>post-structuralist and a post-modern, not because he said he was, but  
>>because his works labled him as such.  He did not believe in the  
>>categorization of though and ideas into little names and stuff, that is  
>>probably why he never called himself anything.  But from the way he  
>>presents his ideas, his very thoughts, his genre is post-modern and  
>>post-structuralist.  His work "What is the Englightment" is a very clear  
>>work that classifies him as a post-modern.  I might be seperating the  
>>author from the work, but i think thats what Foucault whats.... 
>>I could very wrong about this, so i neeed your input... 
>>thanks 
>>Omar Nasim 
>>Department of Philosophy 
>> 
>Omar: 
> 
>These are very important questions which people often pass over too
>carelessly.  What precisely is the difference between structuralism, post
>structuralism and post modernism?  And where does F belong in  this scheme?
>  
> 
>Well I think it's fair to say that structuralism represents a distinct
>shift in anthropological writings after the second World war in France
>which used Saussure's reformulations of linguistic theory.  Saussure
>understood the construction of linguistic meaning not as the singular
>effect of an intending speaker but as the function of signs and symbols
>within a meaning system - or structure.  Levi Strauss developed this into a
>"structuralist" theory of subjects and social practices which broke with
>the phenomenological/existential  emphasis on the original subject (Sartre,
>merleau ponty....) and instead considered structures of social meaning and
>action.   
> 
>Post structuralists (Derrida, Kristeva, deleuze, though strictly speaking
>not Foucault) thought Levi strauss had merely dispensed with a static and
>idealistic notion of the subject in order to replace it with a static and
>idealist notion of structure.  Do structures have a history? How does power
>shape structures? What do structures conceal or repress?  
> 
>Foucault resembles this tradition,  but develops from a different
>intellectual lineage: first a history and philosophy of science and then
>philosophical historical application of Nietzsche and Bataille.  This is
>somewhat different from Levi Strauss's anthropology, but from our
>perspective as North American readers (if that's what we are) in the mid
>90's, the difference is merely a scholastic question.  
> 
>As for post modernism:  it depends entirely on what you mean by post
>modern, and there is no clear concensus.  taking the term in the strictly
>literal sense as the theory of a period after modernity, Foucault could not
>be a post modernist since his analyses rarely extend even as far as the
>20th century, let alone to an analysis "after" modernity, in the manner of,
>say Frederic Jameson.  If by post modern you mean theorists who express a
>general scepticism towards the project of modern progress itself, sure, he
>could be a post modernist, but then so could a lot of people.  In fact, the
>19th century is full of post modernists which is odd considering how much
>modern thinking was yet to be done.   
> 
>Personally I don't think the term post modern is very useful except in the
>strictly periodizing sense in which jameson and Lyotard use it (coupled
>with terms like post industrial, late capitalist and so on).   
> 
>Okay, enough! 
> 
>sb
>
>
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