Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 07:55:34 -0400 From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-UDel.Edu> Subject: Re: Althusser and Foucault Stuart, Sorry I did not reply sooner -- too busy. When I wrote that Althusser and Foucault both critique humanist notions of universal truth, you replied as follows: "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." This comment, along with the issue about calling Foucault Althusser's student, raises a methodological issue concerning the legitimacy of appropriating Foucault's work for a perspective or a standpoint, rather than a totalizing account. If we read Foucault's work from a Marxist standpoint, we may not want to say that Heidegger's letter was so important. We may want to situate Foucault's work within the development of Marxist accounts of civil society, ideology, or hegemony. A totalizing approach, even a totalizing Marxist approach, would exclude such claims on the grounds that they are reductive or neglect matters which are more important for the whole picture. What do you think about that distinction? Philip Goldstein
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