File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1997/97-03-08.144, message 116


Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 23:11:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Vainio  Andrew Douglas <vainio-AT-server.uwindsor.ca>
Subject: Re: A Preface to Transgression


On Sun, 23 Feb 1997, malgosia askanas wrote:

> Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 21:14:13 -0500 (EST)
> From: malgosia askanas <ma-AT-panix.com>
> To: foucault-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: A Preface to Transgression
>
> I have been struggling now for a while with the "Preface to Transgression"
> essay in LCP, and would love to discuss it with someone.  The problem is
> that I don't even know how to formulate cogent questions about it.
> Let me put forth the folowing as a first attempt.  How do you interpret the
> connection drawn in this essay between sexuality and philosophy?
> Between the death of God and the replacement of the dialectical method
> by the transgressive method?  Am I even right in ascribing to this essay
> a formulation of something like "the transgressive method of philosophy"?
>
> Or maybe I should just ask: what do you-all make of this essay?
>
>
> -malgosia
>
It may be that Foucault isn't really proposing a transgressive method,
but rather a language of transgression. For example, he speaks of "the
impossibility of attributing the millenary language of dialectics to the
major experience that sexuality forms for us." It is possible, however,
to speak of sexuality in the language of transgression because, as
Foucault contends, the appearance of sexuality marks the transformation
of man as worker into man as one who speaks.
The language of  transgression is a way of speaking of the way philosophy
"experiences itself and its limits in language and in this transgression
of  language which carries it...to the faltering of the speaking
subject." In  short, a "communication with communication" rather than a 
philosophical method per se.
Then again, it's been a while since I've sat down and read "Preface to
Transgression" thoroughly.  I just thought I'd flip through it and throw
out what I could muster.  It is quite likely I have no idea what I am
talking about.

=9A~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A man without God is like a fish
without a bicycle."
=09=09- Bob Black
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~






   

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