Subject: RE: Structural Marxism
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 20:58:19 -0400


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.


It might be worth showing caution about entering into this discussion on the
unexamined nominative, 'Althusser's student.'  Sets things in an odd light.

    PAB

Paul Anthony Bove
Professor of English
Editor,
boundary 2
Department of English
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA  15260
412 - 624 - 6523
fax:  412 - 624 - 6639


  -----Original Message-----
  From: owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
[mailto:owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Philip
Goldstein
  Sent: Saturday, September 18, 1999 3:22 PM
  To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
  Subject: Re: Structural Marxism


  Stuart,
      Thanks for encouraging a dialog on the question of Foucault's
relationship to Althusser. I am sorry that I did not clarify my question. I
meant to ask you about the ties or similarities of Althusser and Foucault
because you said that Foucault is sharply critical of Althusser. To pursue
this line of questioning about these similarities, let me know what you
think of these overlaps or connections.

  In Althusser's later work (after Reading Capital) he argues that during a
discourse's historical evolution it develops a continuing opposition between
its later scientific or disciplinary forms and its early prescientific
forms. In this way economics, history, philosophy, mathematics, and other
disciplines and discourses establish their own "problematics," with their
"inward" criteria of validity and their own legitimate objects and distinct
"knowledge-effects." This revised account of the science/ideology opposition
describes the diverse epistemologies or "problematic" of a discourse's
established methods or schools. Although Althusser's student and colleague
Michel Foucault repudiates the science/ideology opposition and describes a
discourse's historical divisions and changes, Althusser's revised account of
a discourse's institutional reproduction approximates Foucault's accounts of
a discourse's effects of power and knowledge. In both Althusser and
Foucault, institutional power ensures the reproduction and development of
forms of knowledge. That's why both have been condemned as functionalist.
Moreover, Althusser and Foucault both assume that ideology or discourse
imposes conformity but resists ruling class purposes, and they both reject
humanist notions of universal truth.
  How about those similarities?

  Philip Goldstein
  Stuart Elden wrote:

    Hi Phillip,
    Welcome out of the shadows. I am slightly puzzled by your mail - what
    exactly is the question? I find Althusser almost intolerable to read - I
    know others don't. But I do read him. I think Foucault is very critical
of
    Althusser, but I never disputed that there are links between them -
though I
    didn't say that there were either. The example from the Introduction to
AK
    is a good one, but it comes in the context of a general discussion of
trends
    in the history of ideas.

    So when you say
        >No doubt Foucault disagrees with Althusser on many points, yet
    >Foucault, ALthusser's student and colleague, also accepts many of
    >Althusser's views. For example, what about the introduction to
    >Archaeology, where, to explain the assumptions of discontinuous
>history,
    Foucault cites Althusser's For Marx, especially his notion of
    >epistemological break (derived from Canguilhem and Bachelaard -- >see
p. 5,
    English translation)?
        I find nothing essentially to disagree with. But I still lack a
    question. Perhaps I can throw it back to you: what are the 'many views'
of
    Althusser that F accepts? Perhaps a detailed list would help us in the
    broader question of Foucault's relationship to structural Marxism.
Various
    other people (including myself) can then critique, dispute, add to, etc.
    this list.

        Best wishes

        Stuart

HTML VERSION:

Paul Anthony Bove
Professor of English
Editor,
boundary 2
Department of English
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA  15260
412 - 624 - 6523
fax:  412 - 624 - 6639

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu [mailto:owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Philip Goldstein
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 1999 3:22 PM
To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Structural Marxism

Stuart,

    Thanks for encouraging a dialog on the question of Foucault's relationship to Althusser. I am sorry that I did not clarify my question. I meant to ask you about the ties or similarities of Althusser and Foucault because you said that Foucault is sharply critical of Althusser. To pursue this line of questioning about these similarities, let me know what you think of these overlaps or connections.

In Althusser's later work (after Reading Capital) he argues that during a discourse's historical evolution it develops a continuing opposition between its later scientific or disciplinary forms and its early prescientific forms. In this way economics, history, philosophy, mathematics, and other disciplines and discourses establish their own "problematics," with their "inward" criteria of validity and their own legitimate objects and distinct "knowledge-effects." This revised account of the science/ideology opposition describes the diverse epistemologies or "problematic" of a discourse's established methods or schools. Although Althusser's student and colleague Michel Foucault repudiates the science/ideology opposition and describes a discourse's historical divisions and changes, Althusser's revised account of a discourse's institutional reproduction approximates Foucault's accounts of a discourse's effects of power and knowledge. In both Althusser and Foucault, institutional power ensures the reproduction and development of forms of knowledge. That's why both have been condemned as functionalist. Moreover, Althusser and Foucault both assume that ideology or discourse imposes conformity but resists ruling class purposes, and they both reject humanist notions of universal truth.
How about those similarities?

Philip Goldstein
Stuart Elden wrote:

Hi Phillip,

Welcome out of the shadows. I am slightly puzzled by your mail - what
exactly is the question? I find Althusser almost intolerable to read - I
know others don't. But I do read him. I think Foucault is very critical of
Althusser, but I never disputed that there are links between them - though I
didn't say that there were either. The example from the Introduction to AK
is a good one, but it comes in the context of a general discussion of trends
in the history of ideas.

So when you say
    >No doubt Foucault disagrees with Althusser on many points, yet
>Foucault, ALthusser's student and colleague, also accepts many of
>Althusser's views. For example, what about the introduction to
>Archaeology, where, to explain the assumptions of discontinuous >history,
Foucault cites Althusser's For Marx, especially his notion of
>epistemological break (derived from Canguilhem and Bachelaard -- >see p. 5,
English translation)?
    I find nothing essentially to disagree with. But I still lack a
question. Perhaps I can throw it back to you: what are the 'many views' of
Althusser that F accepts? Perhaps a detailed list would help us in the
broader question of Foucault's relationship to structural Marxism. Various
other people (including myself) can then critique, dispute, add to, etc.
this list.

    Best wishes

    Stuart