From: "celia guichal" <cguichal-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: foucault on polemics
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 18:48:37 -0000
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A fragment in
Michel Foucault, "Discourse and truth: the problematization of parrhesia."
(six lectures given at the University of California at Berkeley, Oct-Nov.
1983; ed. by Joseph Pearson in 1985.
...
P.R. Why is it that you don’t engage in polemics ?
M.F. I like discussions, and when I am asked questions, I try to answer
them. It’s true that I don’t like to get involved in polemics. If I open a
book and see that the author is accusing an adversary of “infantile leftism”
I shut it again right away. That’s not my way of doing things; I don’t
belong to the world of people who do things that way. I insist on this
difference as something essential: a whole morality is at stake, the one
that concerns the search for truth and the relation to the other.
In the serious play of questions and answers, in the work of reciprocal
elucidation, the rights of each person are in some sense immanent in the
discussion. They depend only on the dialogue situation. The person asking
the questions is merely exercising the right that has been given him: to
remain unconvinced, to perceive a contradiction, to require more
information, to emphasize different postulates, to point out faulty
reasoning, and so on. As for the person answering the questions, he too
exercises a right that does not go beyond the discussion itself; by the
logic of his own discourse, he is tied to what he has said earlier, and by
the acceptance of dialogue he is tied to the questioning of other. Questions
and answers depend on a game—a game that is at once pleasant and
difficult—in which each of the two partners takes pains to use only the
rights given him by the other and by the accepted form of dialogue.
The polemicist , on the other hand, proceeds encased in privileges that
he possesses in advance and will never agree to question. On principle, he
possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just
undertaking; the person he confronts is not a partner in search for the
truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is armful, and whose very
existence constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists not of
recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak but of
abolishing him as interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final
objective will be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but
to bring about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly
upholding from the beginning. The polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his
adversary is by definition denied.
Perhaps, someday, a long history will have to be written of polemics,
polemics as a parasitic figure on discussion and an obstacle to the search
for the truth.
>From: Patrick Crosby <pcrosby-AT-ieee.org>
>Reply-To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: if -- And
>Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 09:39:47 -0700
>
Glen,
Come on dude, this is all a bunch of bullcrap and you know it. Plato's
texts, like all texts, stand on their own. Your claim "to have known Plato
the person" is laughable. I've been subscribed to a number of lists, but
I've never seen such psyco-babble in all my life. Some of you are even worse
than the Ayn Rand followers, and they're some of the dumbest people on the
planet. The reason why you and a large number of other people are doing what
you do is obvious: it's all you can do. And the reason it's all you can do
is because you haven't yet educated yourselves to the point that you can
read and understand the texts involved, and comment upon them intelligently.
In essence, what a number of you are saying is this: "Well, maybe I can't
understand the text, but I can understand that the author liked to have sex
just like I do! And that the author pissed and crapped just like I do! I can
talk about all of that with authority! Nobody can put out crap any better
than I can!"
Well, it was fun making light of you pseudo-intellectual morons for a while,
but the novelty of it has worn off. In fact, I now find it disturbing to see
that ability of so many people to think in this "post modern" era has eroded
to such an extent. Go buy yourselves some Foucault love-dolls and have your
fun. I want nothing further to do with this silliness.
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>From owner-foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Tue, 03 Jul 2001 09:42:24 -0700
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Message-ID: <3B41F553.1020508-AT-ieee.org>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2001 09:39:47 -0700
From: Patrick Crosby <pcrosby-AT-ieee.org>
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To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: if -- And
References: <F271xPDh5vNpqY1Yf1U00014e5c-AT-hotmail.com> <DAV42p7pD5kKCw5zQQS00001929-AT-hotmail.com>
HTML VERSION:
Hi,
I agree with Charmaine. My logic is as follows:
If we are to say that sexual preference (or any facet of a theorist's
background) does not matter, then what we are saying is that what that
theorist is 'communicating' (and how we 'listening') is unaffected by the
aforementioned sexual preference (or, again, any facet of a theorist's
background)? Yes?
I can imagine some of you are about ready to crucify me with my implicit
suggestion that it is important we know what the sexual preference is of a
theorist so as to fully understand his/her work...
No, that is not what I am saying, not really...
If we discard the sexual preference (or any other facet of a theorist's
background) then we are assuming that what is being communicated (and how we
are listening) is above (unaffected) by sexual preference, as it probably
is... but how do we know?
We have made a critical assumption regarding the nature of the relative (to
the listeners - us) speaking position of the theorist, maybe? Perhaps?
And if we are suggesting that what a theorist is suggesting is unaffected by
his/her sexual preference (or any other, etc) then what is the implicit
suggestion there? Like, what, when it is communicated, is unaffected by the
relative speaking position of the 'speaker'? Well, nothing. Nothing within
the social that is...
Therefore the implicit assumption being made when any element of a
theorist's personal background is trivialised as unimportant, is that what
is being communicated is outside of the social, and that is impossible.
Sexuality isn't necessarily one of the foundations on which I base much
theoretical currency, unless of course what is being theorised IS
sexuality... And I am not suggesting we have a mini autobiography with every
word uttered...
What I am suggesting is that awareness of such personal details of theorists
may affect and effec! t their theories may lead to a greater understanding of
the what they are trying to communicate.
E.g. if someone is university educated, or if they stopped their schooling
in the third grade.
And THAT is the essential point I am trying to make, we should judge the
theorist's work, not the theorist, but to judge his/her work requires
knowledge of the social trajectory of the speaker as well.
yep,
Glen Fuller.
----- Original Message -----
From: "charmaine driscoll" <missplateau-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Cc: <deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 11:02 AM
Subject: Re: if -- AndNow we are getting somewhere. As a matter of fact Foucault initiated this
project. With his life and ideas; for instance;The Lives of Infamous Men;
his writing about the hermaphodite,the one about Pierre Riviere, and
naturally his own scandalous behaviour. And whether Plato was homosexual
makes all the difference in how we, and how I, and how he wrote.From: Patrick Crosby <pcrosby-AT-ieee.org>Alright, let me see if I have this correct now. To understand the
differences in the political philosophies of Plato and Aristotle,
one needs to understand that Plato was gay and Aristotle was straight. And
whether Foucault was a top, a bottom, or liked to
be in the middle position of a 3-way just naturally makes all thedifferencein the world when you want to understand "The
Order of Things." Of course! Why didn't I think of that?
Regards,
C.Driscoll
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