Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 01:57:54 -0500 (EST)
From: John Ransom <ransom-AT-dickinson.edu>
Subject: dispositif


Deleuze writes:

Foucault's philosophy is often presented as an analysis of concrete
social apparatuses [dispositifs]. But what is a *dispositif*? In the first
instance it is a tangle, a multilinear ensemble. It is composed of lines,
each having a different nature. And the lines in the apparatus do not
outline or surround systems which are each homogeneous in their own right,
object, subject, language, and so on, but follow directions, trace
balances which are always off balance, now drawing together and then
distancing themselves from one another. Each line is broken and subject to
*change in direction*, bifurcating and forked, and subject to *drifting*.
Visible objects, affirmations which can be formulated, forces exercised
and subjects in position are like vectors and tensors. Thus the three
major aspects which Foucault successively distinguishes, Knowledge, Power
and Subjectivity are by no means contours given once and for all, but
series of variables which supplant one another. It is always in a crisis
that Foucault discovers new dimensions, new lines. Great thinkers are
somewhat seismic; they do not evolve but proceed by means of crisis, in
fits, and starts. Thinking in terms of moving lines was the process put
forward by Herman Melville, and this involved fishing lines and lines of
descent which could be dangerous, even fatal. Foucault talked of lines of
sedimentation but also lines of 'breakage' and 'fracture.' Untangling
these lines within a social apparatus is in each case, like drawing a map,
doing cartography, surveying unknown landscapes, and this is what he calls
'working on the ground.' One has to position oneself on these lines
themselves, these lines which do not make up the social apparatus but run
through it and pull at it, from North to South, from East to West, or
diagonally.

		-- "What is a dispositif?", by Gilles Deleuze in _Michel
		    Foucault: Philosopher_, Routledge, 1989




<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>><
< John S. Ransom     717-2 <
< Political Science      4 <
^ Dickinson College      5 ^
^ Carlisle, PA 17013     - ^
> ransom-AT-dickinson.edu   1 <
< Denny 107              7 >
<                        1 >
>                        6 ^
><^<>^^<>^<>^<>^^>><<>^<^^<`