Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 12:43:19 -0400 (EDT) From: "M.A. King" <kingma-AT-mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA> Subject: Re: Misunderstanding of Foucault? On Wed, 10 Jun 1998 sissy-AT-ix.netcom.com wrote: > However both call themselves simply > "postmodern" and the listener has to figure out which > school is claiming the term. "Postmodern" and "postmodernist" are terms which philosophers who wish to be taken seriously rarely apply to themselves. Foucault, when asked whether he thought of himself as a "postmodernist", replied that he didn't know what the term meant--"postmodernist" in relation to which modernity? (See "Critical Theory/Intellectual History", collected in _Politics, Philosophy, Culture" among other places). In _The Order of Things_, Foucault does talk of a modern period, beginning in the 19th century and perhaps nearing its end--but this is not the "modernity", which usually begins either with the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, that most people refer to in speaking of "postmodernity". Meanwhile, in his late lectures on Kant, Foucault identifies himself with the critical modernity of Kant. For what it's worth, Rorty used to happily call himself "postmodernist" and came to regret doing so. Also, for what it's worth, some commentators--Joseph Margolis (who happily calls himself a relativist, tee hee) and Honi Faber among them--claim that Foucault is a poststructuralist but not a postmodernist. In Habermas's terms (and on his superficial reading of Foucault), Foucault is not a postmodernist but an anti-modernist. Around and around we go.... > Both groups talk of deconstruction, decentering and local > knowledges. Foucault never uses the term "deconstruction". He and Derrida did not see eye to eye on much.... > Both groups also differentiate between > the premodern, modern and postmodern by referring to > historical periods that are much the same. Again, this is not the case with Foucault. > However, political postoderns are more likely to use the > word "political" to mean something like the word "values" > in ordinary language. A political postmodern might well > say, "Everything is political." Well ... Foucault would say that everything is political because everything--all human relationships, all human activity--involves power relations. Which is not quite the same thing as saying that everything involves "values". I think this preoccupation with "the value-ladenness of theory" and so on is a peculiarly analytic (as opposed to Continental) one. > And political postmoderns are more likely > to talk of "marginalized people" and "oppression." I > think Foucault is the major inspiration for political > postmoderns although I question whether or not this is a > misinterpretation of Foucault's writing. You'd have to expand on what you mean by "marginalized people" and "oppression", and what "political postmoderns" are supposed to think about them, before it would be clear what Foucault had to do with it. "Marginalized people" is a phrase which resonates more with Foucault than "oppression", on the face of it. See his discussion of "subjugated knowledges" in "Two Lectures", collected in _Power/Knowledge_. > I think the postmodern > movement in psychoanalysis (of which I feel I am a part) Well, be warned: there is so little agreement on what "postmodernist" means and who is one, and the term is so frequently used pejoratively--by philosophers, but also by critics outside academia--that it may be more trouble than it's worth. Matthew ----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster University---- "The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness." -----------------------------(Michel Foucault)--------------------------------
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