From: "Ali Rizvi" <ali_m_rizvi-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: Re: unconscious of knowledge Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 10:32:11 <html><div style='background-color:'><DIV> <P>Stuart </P> <P>Thanks for your thoughtful reply. It gave me stimulus to think again and anew.</P> <P>I agree with your point about retrospective reading. But the point is precisely about the legetimicy of such reading. I think it is legetimate retrospection.</P> <P>The issue, for me, I think is not of translation the issue is conceptual. The issue is problematisation of Foucault's self understanding of 1970 and around, otherwise I would have certainly based my formulations on OT and AK. Whether this problematisation is correct is to be seen.</P> <P>Now I think you are right in pointing out that Foucault's analysis concerns savior. My point was that although it certainly cocnerns savior, it does not maily cocnerns savior. I mean to say that strategic intent is surely working at the level of savior, this is not the main level of analysis though. Thus certainly as far as the analysis of modern episteme is concerned (for example) it helps us know the conditions of the possibility of savior as far as (through analysis of modern episteme and its internal dynamics) it points towards the possibility of the emergence of new episteme, but as far as the analysis of modern episteme pe se is concerned it seems to me certainly to be the level of connaissance. I am simply unable to understand how 'positive unconscious of knowledge' can constitute the conditions of the possibility of connaisance, to my mind we will then be switiching to the gnealogical level. The quotes you cite from (especially) shows Foucault still struggling to attain the desired level of cocneptualisation. In later works I think these things are straightened out. The process of the formation of subject and object can not be separated given fudnamental assumptions of Foucault's ontology. </P> <P>Another problem may be Foucault's loose use of terms like savior and connaisance. He has this habit of formulating and reformulating them again and again through new angles. This is extremely fruitful at times but can be very confusing too.</P> <P>This is just an iniital response. I shall keep thinking and reading on this over next few weeks and will keep you informed.</P> <P>thanks again for being such a help</P> <P>regards</P> <P>ali</P> <P><BR><BR> </P></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>----Original Message Follows---- <DIV></DIV>From: Stuart Elden <STUART.ELDEN-AT-CLARA.CO.UK> <DIV></DIV>Reply-To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <DIV></DIV>To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <DIV></DIV>Subject: Re: unconscious of knowledge <DIV></DIV>Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 18:57:19 -0400 <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>Jivko wrote <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>> arent knowledge much like conscious? Dont You rather <DIV></DIV>> mean the "historical unconscious"? <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>This is where you need to understand the difference between savoir and <DIV></DIV>connaissance. The English preface to The Order of Things suggests he wants <DIV></DIV>to look at the "positive unconscious of knowledge: a level that eludes the <DIV></DIV>consciousness of the scientist and yet is part of scientific discourse". <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>"What was common to the natural history, the economics, and the grammar of <DIV></DIV>the Classical period was certainly not present to the consciousness of the <DIV></DIV>scientist. but unknown to themselves, the naturalists, economists, and <DIV></DIV>grammarians employed the same rules to define the objects proper to their <DIV></DIV>own study, to form their concepts, to build their theories. It is these <DIV></DIV>rules of formation which were never formulated in their own right, but are <DIV></DIV>to be found only in widely differing theories, concepts, and objects of <DIV></DIV>study, that I have tried to reveal, by isolating, as their specific locus, a <DIV></DIV>level that I have called, somewhat arbitrarily perhaps, archaeological" (OT <DIV></DIV>xi). <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>The French version of this text, which is a retranslation of the English, is <DIV></DIV>found in Dits et ecrits (Vol II). Presumably the original French is lost. <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>This level of knowledge - savoir - can be thought of as unconscious because <DIV></DIV>it is not articulated explicitly, consciously, by those that utilise it. <DIV></DIV>Rather, it is what allows, that is the condition of possibility, for what <DIV></DIV>might be seen as 'conscious' knowledge, that is, connaissance. <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>I don't think the unconscious/conscious distinction is terribly useful, but <DIV></DIV>i think that's what Foucault is driving at. As i said, the distinction <DIV></DIV>between savoir and connaissance. <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV>Stuart <DIV></DIV> <DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href='http://go.msn.com/bql/hmtag_itl_EN.asp'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></html>
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