From: Fmacke4sph-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 04:08:58 EST
Subject: Re: Foucault and Dewey


Rorty compares Foucault and Dewey a couple of times.  He offers a detailed 
comparison in a chapter of Consequences of Pragmatism (1982, I think).  He 
also revisits his argument in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989).  
It's an interesting line of analysis--flawed but potentially inspirational to 
a Foucault scholar who might want to explore some of Dewey's thoughts on 
experience and freedom.  Thomas Alexander's magnificent John Dewey's Theory 
of Art, Experience, and Nature (SUNY Press, 1987) is a wonderful antidote to 
Rorty's reduction of Foucault.  I developed my own critique of Rorty (on 
Dewey and Foucault)--largely inspired by Alexander's book--in a chapter of 
Langsdorf & Smith's Recovering Pragmatism's Voice (SUNY Press, 1995).

Frank Macke