From: "Samuel A. Chambers" <Samuel.A.Chambers-1-AT-tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re:  Foucault is a Kantian
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 96 00:58:25 -0500



> 
> I would tend to agree with your asseration, that Foucault is more Kantian 
> than lyotardean or derridean.  I read "What is Englightment", and your 
> right, Foucault's position seems to me, that of a Kantian postion, in 
> that he is a strong exponent of aesthetics and progressive change through 
> art, where, he believes, is the only way to trascend the power/knowledge 
> schemes, he's soo fond of.  That is, instead of being anti-aesthetical, a 
> post-modern position, he asserts the neccessity of aesthetics, just as 
> Kant did.  Being aesthetical as opposed to Anti-aesthetical, I feel that 
> Foucault still beliefs in the good ole values of judgement, and therefore 
> Truth, With MEANING!!! therefore, depth.
> Omar Nasim
> Department of Philosophy,
> University of Manitoba
> 
> .

I find this discussion of Foucault as the prototypical "modern" rather 
intriguing.  Foucault has now been made into one who wishes to "transcend" 
power/knowledge through the "progress" of art--along the way taking up his stand
for Truth and deep meaning.  

First, Foucault constantly argued the Nietzschean claim that truth is itself a 
product of a history of effects that we can only understand through genealogy.  
He thereby eschews any hermeneutics that would seek a deeper meaning (this is 
VERY explicit in his Archeology of Knowledge, but no less so in History of 
Sexuality), just as he rejects the psycho-analytical pursuit of a deeper meaning
in the individual self.  Next, while he may have provided a number of techniques
by which subjects can resist various disciplinary practices of power/knowledge 
regimes he ALWAYS (from Order of Things through to History of Sexuality) 
stressed that there is no OUTSIDE of power/knowledge.  

Finally, if we are right to characterize Foucault as a modern, then why not just
go ahead and throw him in with Habermas--defending truth and recuperating 
reason???

Yes, I agree that "What is Enlightenment" helps us to complicate any naive 
characterization of Foucault as a post-modern, but all of his writings make it 
clear that he would never buy into a simple modern/postmodern dichotomy in the 
first place.  Why not return to a close reading of Foucault's texts where we 
might be able to disentangle his position from both the modernists and the 
so-called post-modernists (sinced I'm not sure exactly who they are, Derrida 
certainly can't easily be labeled one either).

Sam Chambers
St. Olaf College