File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1998/foucault.9808, message 61


From: "Flora P. H. Ni" <phni-AT-simon.pu.edu.tw>
Subject: Re: Althusser vs. Foucault 
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 11:28:00 +0800


Daniel,

I think you are insightful in your remark that "the 'false-consciousness model which Foucault rightly dismisses is, nonetheless, a straw-man in so far as it is made to stand for *all* concepts and methods of ideology-critique."  One more look at Althusser's definition and detailed explanation of "ideology" will refute an apostulate of a true/false consciousness binary in Alhtusser's theory of ideology.  For me, Foucault's "false consciousness" model is a purposeful "misreading" of Althusser in so far as he may overcome his intellectual anxiety and therefore create a space for his further development of philosophical thought, esp. that of his power theory.  I do not deny, of course, Foucault's achievement in envisioning a capillary  power network in/of a social body (formation).  Nor do  I fail to see the constantly dynamic and fluid relations of empowerment and resistance between and among different conflicting classes and groups.  However, I do believe that Althusser's notion of RSAs, shift to ISAs, assertion that philosophy as a form of knoledge is, in the last instance (yet it never comes), class struggle in the field of theory, and conceptualization of a social formation as overdetermined expressly anticipate Foucault's development of power theory.  Based on this ground, I assert an echo between Althusser and Foucault.

Best regards,

Flora P. H. Ni
Dep. of English
Providence University
Taiwan


P.S.
What is the web site for the online journal "Theory and Event" that the Muse/JHU project of John Hopkins supports?  Anybody help me?






   

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