Folder Contents

Subject: Althusser and Foucault Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 10:23:20 +0100 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. Phillip, As I mention in the mail in reply to John - I'm very busy with a move, so apologies for the delay and the shortness of this response. What you say about Althusser is interesting, and I'm sure I should re-read some of his later work (I guess you particularly have in mind the Lenin and Philosophy collection here) with Foucault more in mind. I think that given Foucault's work in Les mots et les choses and Archaeology of Knowledge, there is certainly some kind of cross-over between their work on discourse, ideology and science. This may well be not just one way - Althusser makes much of Foucault's work in the autobiography. I also second Paul Bove's doubts about the 'Althusser's student' phrase. In any case Althusser's problematic sounds very similar to Canguilhem in this presentation, and of course Foucault knew his work by this time. As I think we've discussed before on the list, Kuhn is not a million miles away either. You highlight at least one potential area of difference - the repudiation of a science/ideology difference in Foucault's work. I think this is central - from my recollection much of Althusser's work revolves around this: his whole reading of Marx for one. You then say:- >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. Well, it may approximate it, but how helpful is this? I wonder if there are sufficient differences - the two-way working of knowledge-power relations in Foucault (which may cause problems for Althusser); the fact that power relations are diffused throughout society, which i think might well be a critique of Althusser and ISAs (Discipline and Punish can, i think, be read as a critique of Marxist critiques of state power, effectively stating that the problems can equally be found in what some would call 'civil society'. I know Foucault rejects this distinction, but i think that's part of the point) - in order for this not to be terribly productive in terms of comparison. >Moreover, Althusser and Foucault both assume that ideology or discourse >imposes conformity but resists ruling class purposes, That sounds like structuralism in a way - death of the subject (even the collective subject of a class), constraint by the structures of society. Foucault might have subscribed to that in some places - I'm not sure it characterises all of his work. >and they both reject humanist notions of universal truth. >How about those similarities? Okay - but this is surely not to say that Althusser influences on this point? Nietzsche, Heidegger, there are many others whose anti-humanism was a spur to Foucault. Heidegger's Letter on Humanism is central to post-war French thought - Derrida and Althusser both say so, Foucault certainly acts as if it was. The key here i think is the explicit critique of Sartre. Althusser is clearly seeking to reclaim Marxism from existentialist (or ex-existentialist) readings - the emphasis on the later scientific works, rather than, say the 1844 manuscripts which Sartre et al had used, etc. In brief, well, there are certainly affinities, and perhaps i should have toned down my earlier mail, but I think that there are sufficient differences to make us very sceptical of the links between the two. Althusser may have been a teacher of Foucault for a while, but then Foucault was of Derrida... and we know how the student likes to eclipse the master. Given the fact that they knew each other, and that their publishing careers were somewhat parallel, there was certainly an exchange of ideas. It wasn't one way, and from what i have read, i would say Foucault was more critical of Althusser than the other way round. Sorry I can't add more, and that this is lacking proper sourcing. This is far from a final word: more than happy to continue the dialogue. Best wishes Stuart

HTML VERSION:

Phillip,

As I mention in the mail in reply to John - I'm very busy with a move, so apologies for the delay and the shortness of this response.

What you say about Althusser is interesting, and I'm sure I should re-read some of his later work (I guess you particularly have in mind the Lenin and Philosophy collection here) with Foucault more in mind. I think that given Foucault's work in Les mots et les choses and Archaeology of Knowledge, there is certainly some kind of cross-over between their work on discourse, ideology and science. This may well be not just one way - Althusser makes much of Foucault's work in the autobiography. I also second Paul Bove's doubts about the 'Althusser's student' phrase. In any case Althusser's problematic sounds very similar to Canguilhem in this presentation, and of course Foucault knew his work by this time. As I think we've discussed before on the list, Kuhn is not a million miles away either.

You highlight at least one potential area of difference - the repudiation of a science/ideology difference in Foucault's work. I think this is central - from my recollection much of Althusser's work revolves around this: his whole reading of Marx for one. You then say:-

>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.

Well, it may approximate it, but how helpful is this? I wonder if there are sufficient differences - the two-way working of knowledge-power relations in Foucault (which may cause problems for Althusser); the fact that power relations are diffused throughout society, which i think might well be a critique of Althusser and ISAs (Discipline and Punish can, i think, be read as a critique of Marxist critiques of state power, effectively stating that the problems can equally be found in what some would call 'civil society'. I know Foucault rejects this distinction, but i think that's part of the point) - in order for this not to be terribly productive in terms of comparison.

>Moreover, Althusser and Foucault both assume that ideology or discourse >imposes conformity but resists ruling class purposes,

That sounds like structuralism in a way - death of the subject (even the collective subject of a class), constraint by the structures of society. Foucault might have subscribed to that in some places - I'm not sure it characterises all of his work.

>and they both reject humanist notions of universal truth.
>How about those similarities?

Okay - but this is surely not to say that Althusser influences on this point? Nietzsche, Heidegger, there are many others whose anti-humanism was a spur to Foucault. Heidegger's Letter on Humanism is central to post-war French thought - Derrida and Althusser both say so, Foucault certainly acts as if it was. The key here i think is the explicit critique of Sartre. Althusser is clearly seeking to reclaim Marxism from existentialist (or ex-existentialist) readings - the emphasis on the later scientific works, rather than, say the 1844 manuscripts which Sartre et al had used, etc.

In brief, well, there are certainly affinities, and perhaps i should have toned down my earlier mail, but I think that there are sufficient differences to make us very sceptical of the links between the two. Althusser may have been a teacher of Foucault for a while, but then Foucault was of Derrida... and we know how the student likes to eclipse the master. Given the fact that they knew each other, and that their publishing careers were somewhat parallel, there was certainly an exchange of ideas. It wasn't one way, and from what i have read, i would say Foucault was more critical of Althusser than the other way round.

Sorry I can't add more, and that this is lacking proper sourcing. This is far from a final word: more than happy to continue the dialogue.

Best wishes

Stuart

File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1999/foucault.9909, message 43

HTML VERSION:

Driftline Main Page