Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 10:14:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: HAB: re: Foucault vs. Habermas



--- Stefan Szczelkun <stefan-AT-szczelkun.greatxscape.net> wrote:
> Re: the Habermas/ Foucault debate
 
[S] At the time of the Archeology of Knowledge Foucault agrees with
Habermas in emphasising the social production of knowledge....


[G] Yet, Habermas's analysis of knowledge wasn't basically about its
*social* production (though at *least* about that), but rather the
*cognitive* character of human interests in the social enterprise of
knowledge production (which Marx's materialism occludes). The
analysis of empirical-analytic, practical and self-reflective
knowledge was vastly superior to Foucault's physicalistic
structuralism.


[S]... but [Foucault] adds the prescence of fields of force, which
are characterised by 'an essential silence' and which guide the
production of knowledge. These forces are the exertions of power
within the process of knowledge formation and are embedded in the
context. 

[G] Far beyond such a physicalistic perspective, a psychoanalytic
perspective on embodied relations of power (and systematically
distorted communication) allows the critique of ideology to draw on
the rich field of therapeutic approaches to getting beyond mere
diagnosis of pathology. Again (as I mentioned in a reply to Ali),
Foucault never figured out a post-critical basis for analysis; he
never got beyond diagnosis. And the reality of the developmental
interests of psychotherapy, which are basically educational, was
unavailable to Foucault, as shown by Foucauldians who don't get
beyond critique of ideology, to constructive, future-oriented
engagements. 

[S] Foucault would see it as unrealistic to exclude such forces with
an 'ideal speech situation'.

[G] So would Habermasians, because an ideal speech situation is a
principle of *openness* to what's been excluded. It's ABOUT
inclusion. Foucauldian analysis is very attractive for critique of
ideology, up to the point that IT EXCLUDES the openness of futures,
due to Foucault's ontologistic physicalism that reduces lifeworld
intentionality to processes modeled on objectivistic systems. 

[...]

[S] Foucault relates his idea of freedom closely with the practices
of play and insubordination. If free play and expression is
restricted,power tends to become domination. (see Final Foucault p12
and The Subject and Power p225)

[G] Yet an ultimately transgressive approach to freedom is
philosophically adolescent. In fact, an ideal speaking situation is
an arena of free play, but its was conceived by Habermas in the
interest of providing a constructive standard for understanding
actual scenes of cooperation, consensus-formation, and evaluation of
communicative relations, including (but not basically aiming for)
expressivist resistance. 


[S] Habermas reaches beyond the isolated idea of the statement with
his adoption of Searles Speech Act Theory in TCA 1 [ref?check] but
this never seems to have the critical force of Foucault's
deconstruction of the statement in the context of the Discursive
Formation.


[G] Habermas' adoption of speech act theory goes back to 1971, in his
appropriation of the psychoanalytic model of critical self-reflection
for a theory of embodied activities of emancipation. The
deconstructive potential of psychoanalytically-conceptualized scenes
of performative contradition far surpasses a mere critique of
contradictory relations. But communication is not fundamentally
motivated by interests of critique; rather critique serves the
interests of communication, which are manifoldly constructive,
collaborative, and expressive of valid lifeworld engagements. In
contexts of discursive formation (e.g., social theory), critique
serves the interests of interdiscplinary research and progressive
practice. 

Foucault's sense of discourse formation pales in comparison to
Habermas' comprehensive approach to the evolution of society
(thinking here of material available while Foucault was still alive,
but which Foucault didn't address, let alone complement; see
_Communication and the Evolution of Society_). 

 
[S] Archeology concerns itself with practices rather than ideas. (AK
p138) 

[G] But it's sense of knowledge cannot provide for appreciation of
the difference between practical (intersubjective) and
self-reflective knowledge, and doesn't express a differentiation of
practices, between empirical-analytic and hermeneutical practices.
Foucault understands intersubjectivity through a rhetoric of
subjectivity and objective processes. 

[S] [AK] sees discourses as material practices to be systematically
analysed rather than interpreted. 

[G] But Foucault reduces material practices to discourses. By radical
contrast, Habermas understands material processes (during this
period) in terms of the systematic analyses of _Legitimation Crisis_,
which is incomparable to Foucault's sense of materiality. 


[S] It differs from the history of ideas in a focus on innovation,
contradictions, comparisons and transformations.  AK p155. It is
interested in establishing diversities rather than modelling ideal
unities, in highlighting rupture and discontinuity rather than
forming tidy linear narratives.

[G] But Foucault just never got to establishing those diversities
beyond deconstruction of power and transgressive freedom, while
Habermas HAS, in an interdisciplinarity that dovetails with the
cognitivist turn in all of the human sciences and with the democratic
turn in all developing societies.

 
[S] [Foucault} "The horizon of archeology,... is a tangle of
interpositivities ...."

[G] which is unfortunate.

[S] "...Archeology is a comparative analysis that is...intended to
divide up ... diversity into different figures. Archeological
comparison [has] a diversifying effect." AK p159/160]

[G] But archeology doesn't have a theorization of that diversity, in
the sense of a trans-disciplinary evolutionary philosophy like
Habermas, which shows homologies of 3-foldness from the immanence of
lifeworld communication (validity relations of intentionality) to the
systems of global relations (personality, culture and society).


[S] Although they have a similar emphasis on social discourses...

[G] but they don't. They both focus on discourses, but in no similar
way. Foucauldian discourse fits readily within Habermasian discourse,
while Habermasian discourse doesn't at all fit with Foucauldian
discourse. Foucauldian discourse is exclusive; Habermasian discourse
is inclusive. Foucault's deconstructions are transparently
comprehensible from perspectives of psychoanalysis and developmental
inhibition, while Habermasian foci on developmental processes
essentially alien to Foucauldian analysis (due ultimately to
Foucault's ontologism of processes and subjectivities).


[S] Foucault differs from Habermas in his emphasis on the extra
discursive processes that he forcefully argues structure the
formation of knowledges. 

[G] But this doesn't differ from Habermas at all, since the analysis
of system and lifeworld is clearly about extra-discursive processes,
and goes far beyond Foucault's grasp of extra-discursivity.


[S] According to Foucault these spaces are characterised by
dissension and silences...


[G] which is the problem: Foucault's self-capture in deconstruction
and transgression. 

[S] ...rather than Habermas' emphasis on consensus and rational
speech acts. Consensus is often produced covertly by extra discursive
and non-rational manoevres and forces and is a mask for power. 

[G] This shows a failure of appreciation of the critical difference
between real agreement (consensus) and forced agreement
(pseudo-consensus).


[[S] ...some Foucauldians read a sinister sub-text to Habermas'
theoretical juggernaut....[But]A close reading of Habermas shows that
he does not theorise about norms and consensus on this crude level
but perhaps Foucault does allow us to think more clearly about the
prediscursive formation of the democratic subject and her freedom to
think, than we can with TCA. 

[G] Clearly not, since Habermas' analysis of lifeworld relations in
TCA provides an incomparable sense of prediscursive relations as
COMMUNICATIVE relations of genuineness, normativity, and
factuality---subjectivity, intersubjectivity and
objectivity---personality, culture and society. There's no plausible
comparison in Foucault's work.

[S] This allows us to focus on the production of subjectivity. It
allows us to think about affect outside of a rigidly intellectualised
psychoanalytic framework.

[G] In fact, though, Foucault never got beyond productions of
subjectivity, and never got outside of critique and transgression,
unlike Habermas' extensive work on development. 


[S] Foucault provides a better expression of anger (via cynicism) at
an opprssive system, whilst Habermas is coming at things from another
direction to reinforce the democractic potential latent within human
communicative action with a rather cool and boring argumentative
style.

[G] Well, difficult issues are boring when they don't address one's
interests. Foucault just wasn't interested in the lifeworld of the
vast majority of humanity. When he came here to Berkeley every year
for a semester (during the final several years of his life), he was
aloof, cynical, exhibitionistic and so eager to get to the leather
bars across the San Francisco Bay. Habermas, on the other hand, was
gracious and generous with his time, while he was writing TCA. 


Best regards,


Gary

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