File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_2001/foucault.0102, message 35


Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 11:00:08 -0800 (PST)
From: sj <jr6670-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Foucault and Kant


I think the Kantian rigour that Bryan C. is trying
to invoke is ultimately a false rigour.  It fails to
take into account numerous receptions of Kantian
thinking that may well have been much more important
for Foucault than any such or such a "problem."

The question for me would be, what *instead* of Kant's
system would have informed the motoring or
systematiza-
tion of Foucault's thought?  What in Kant was rejected
by Foucault, and for what reasons, is obviously the
starting point that has been adopted here.  Equally
important, though, is which elements of Kant's think-
ing were preserved, transformed, or discarded by, say,
a thinker such as Husserl, whose version of the
transcendental subject seems closer to Foucault, and,
to my eyes, infinitely more interesting.  

I'm also extremely displeased by the equation of Kant
with his version of the subject, and with such stock
items as the categorical imperative, etc. While
notorious and necessary, they are among the very last
of Kant's contributions to philosophy, IMO, and should
probably be forgotten in this context.

I would have to be convinced of the value of
preserving
each of the moments of the textbook, and to be con-
vinced that just such an orientation -- as if no other
-- concerns Foucault *at all*.  (The textbook also
seems to limit very severely the necessity of actually
*reading* Kant, as if he were, well, a writer, or a
great philosopher, or something.  Logodaedalus, or
whatever he was.) 

Would have to be convinced that *Foucault* was even
remotely interested, in his maturity, in any of this
history of philosophy itself.  It just doesn't seem
like a useful tool for analyzing his work, and it only
appears to divide and "lower the tone" of what should,
by rights, be a gripping, modern, and lighthearted
list discussion.  There was probably a good reason
Gilles Deleuze was so interested in Foucault's work,
and I would bet it had very little to do with any such
an history.  

Best of luck,
simone j.

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