From: Vunch-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 23:09:20 EST
Subject: Re: Foucault and rational choice



--part1_73.9d4a8f9.278945f0_boundary

In a message dated 1/5/01 5:56:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
rlevesqu-AT-ccs.carleton.ca writes:


> So what I would want to know is this: Does anybody know about any person
> or any work that has tried to confront rational choice theories of
> institutional choice with Foucault's views on productive power? Are
> there any fundamental objections to use Foucault's insights on
> productive power in a rational choice context? Is there any interest
> among the community of scholars that study and use Foucault's work for
> such a confrontation?  
> 
> 

Having read your blurb, I am compelled to ask you to try to write it up so 
that there is more context to what you are claiming.  It is impossible to 
tell where you are coming from.  You should introduce Foucault either in an 
historical or a conceptual format by using quotes and commenting upon his 
varying positions. You should use examples.  When you talk about 
institutions, please don't assume they are all the same, Foucault would be 
turning over in his grave.  He was trying to make the point that each locale 
uses a different set of practices.  When you introduce the concept of power 
you might consider juxtaposing other theories of power, like Arendt's, 
Neitzsche's, or Habermas's.  Somewhere you switched into the notion of 
authority, and there implied the process of authorization; well this field, 
from Weber to Richard Sennett to the entire political science of the state is 
a rather broad arena of competing ideas.  You might consider adding some 
flesh to the terms you are using and not introducing them so quickly.  You 
need to discuss a term and then integrate it into your thesis and show the 
connections.  Lastly, you are using a concept, 'transactors.'  I wold imagine 
that few people have any idea to what you are referring: what is a 
transactor, how are transactors different from actors, and the implication 
is, what is a transaction?  Micheal Baseeches uses the notion of transactions 
in his text, "Dialectical Thinking."  In other words, where are you coming 
from, and how are you going to deal with the criticisms of Foucault?

Fwelfare-AT-aol.com

--part1_73.9d4a8f9.278945f0_boundary

HTML VERSION: