Heidegger was *GoD*
Ian Michael Thal
have chosen to crosspost this discussion on alt.postmodern]
I do read Foucault very differently from many Foucaultians, many of whom
seem to want to read him as a social or cultural scientist, who makes
statements about causes and effects, that is as one who makes the human
condition something determinable and determinated. One reason for this
reading is his rhetoric of danger and his indictment of instrumental and
scientific reason as having led to this danger. This rhetoric feeds into
a gut reaction anti-establishment paranoia. "Intellectuals", as self
appointed guardians of reason, have been reluctant ever since the
Enlightenment to admit of that that which is indeterminable, that which is
indeterminate, that which evades or transcends to _aufheben_.
Consequently, when they read Foucault, they tend not to see the these
tendencies in his writings: History as something which takes
unpredictable turns dispite the best laid plans, subjects of
power/knowledge that somehow retain mystery or become subversive of
power/knowledge, unknowable movements that destablize networks of power
and resistances. Foucault was sometimes guilty of ignoring these threads
in his own works, yet they were always there, and he was always offering
correctives to those blindnesses. It is easy to see networks of
power/resistence of being just another sublimation by power/knowledge of
that which evades power/knowledge... but in Foucault's work, especially
(though not exclusively) in his latter work, there is an ecstatic moment,
frequently hidden, that evades this sublimation (perhaps what Derridians
would call "Differance").
This is the Foucault that I read, and it is the one that I think with.
This is also where I believe that Foucault is a step beyond Nietzsche, for
Nietzsche still writes the language of humanism-- Lamarckian biologism,
the philology of textual sources-- he takes continuity with the past as a
given, not as a mystery. And a step beyond Heidegger, who needs to
essentialize all human potential for ek-sistence into a
being-towards-death (this is a thread of continuity that connects _SuZ_
with the later 'dwelling in the fourfold' in "The Thing" and "Building
Dwelling Thnking", and who needs to congeal the history of the west into a
metaphysics of pressence (note how he dismisses Kierkegaard as "a
religious writer", and ignores the ecstatic and transcendent dimension of
thinkers from Aquinas to Nietzsche) and continually waxes eligies about
the originary _Erignis_ that founds the west. Heidegger was a
crypto-humanist. (I am willing to stand corrected.)
As far as Dreyfus' reading of Foucault... I feel that he tries to
asimulimate Foucault into a scientific reading much the way he does with
Heidegger.
I do not think that I have encountered in my readings anyone akin to
Foucault. The "structuralists" with whom he is often lumped together:
Lacan and Levi-Strauss... are sharply criticized (though never named) near
the end of the first volume of the History of Sexuality, for their
determinism and participation in the "Regime of Sexuality". Foucault also
strongly felt that Derrida was too much a Heideggerian, telling the story
of a falling away from Being in the writings of Plato. Most of what I
have seen in common with Foucault is either common influences with, or a
tutalege from, Foucault.
-Ian
JSoffer
task' that Nietzsche set out to do. Namely, Foucault relentlessly subverts
the possibility of a self-same truth proclaiming itself, destabilizes
history at its very inception, before it can solidify itself into a linear
historization. He exposes the groundlessness of rationalist scientific
method, the mystery and incommensurability at the very heart of meaning.
There is a tremendous rigor to be found in such a project, but from what
does such rigor and clarity derive? What has really taken place in the
move from rationalism, dualism idealism to the post-modern discourse of
Foucault which allows us to prefer it as more philosophically satisfying?
At first glance, what is most notable in post-modern language is a
terminology of opposition, incommensurability, paradox, mystery,
destabilization, negation, unpredictability. Does the postmodern thinker
`know less' about the world than than the rationalist or naturalist? In
other words, is the rigor and advantage of Foucault's thinking to be
located in it's not-knowing, in it's destruction of rationalist unities?
Does this thinking see the world as a more chaotic place than do its
metaphysical predecesors? I argue that the opposite is the case. The
crucial effect of a `psot-modern' discourse of disposession in relation to
rationalist, idealist and naturalist programs is that it portrays the
world in MORE orderly and unified terms than do these older ideas. The
limitation of the `metaphysics of presence' is that while it claims the
world as grounded on fixed and eternal verities, these a priori truths
which justify existence arre impenetrable, mysterious, solid, substatial.
The great advatage of a discourse which multiplies differrences and has no
privileged center is that it's very multiplication of differences
desubstatializes what would lie at the heart of the meaning content of
`things' in a world. Post-modern discourse allows less mysterious
substantiality, solidity, power, to effect and infect meaning than do
older notions. This is its ethical advtage. It works against
authoritarianisms because the world is less mysterious to it,less grounded
in impenetrables to wield their capricious authority.In this way the
thinking of destabilization and change contributes more toward a truly
elegant and unified `worldview' than any rationalist scheme ever could. It
is important to establish the means by which Foucaultian discourse
achieves its effect, because by means of the closest possible contact with
the dynamics of incommesurability and mystery, we can recognize its
limitations. Jacques Derrida deconstructs the very terminology at the
heart of post-modern and Foucaultian thinking. What does it mean to say
that he does this? He recognizes that a remnant of substantiality,
solidity, self-sameness, prresence, remains in any thinking which deals in
negations, oppositions, irreconcilabilities. To proclaim a thing as
unpredictable or contradictory is to give it power in its refusal to be
co-opted. The horizon of meaning for Derrida is not substantial enough to
justifiy even the claim of difference and contradiction. These terms
express something too `fat'. Diffrerence has its effect not `between
things' but within difference itself. Thus, the term difference is
disseminated, deconstructed bu Derrida so tat in its very heart is
differance with an `a', expressing a differing deferring within every
notion of difference. Negation is not the opposite of affirmation, but is
inseparable from it at such a radically fundamental level that it prevents
us from justifying levels or types or groupings of difference. Thee is no
animal as such to be distinguished from human as such, no signature or
text which escapes ts own dissemination, no ideology which is not
complicitous with what it contradicts. The precision of Derrida is in its
reealization that similarity is a more subversive move than contradiction.
The unity and difference, affirmation and negation which are complicitious
in a notion of similarity have their `effect' at a much more originary and
desubstatialized level than these terms do in a post-modern discourse of
substantial paradox. Derrida moves not to contradict but to play from
within Foucault's discourse. Derrida does this exquisitely in `Cogito and
the history of madness' in Writing and Difference. In this same way,
Derrida moves within any text,(He has done this with Freud, Hegel,
Husserl, Marx, Gadamer, Searle, Foucault, Nietzsche, Heidegger,Levinas and
others) decentering it's in-themselves terms with respect to themselves
in a move which is not at all contradictory, random or arbitrary but is
almost mathematical in its precision. One of the best ways to expose the
solidity still residing in Foucault's approach is to examine the
`moodiness' of the terms he uses. If a thing, an entity, an effect is
defined or marked by what it subverts, contradicts, opposes, destabilizes,
then the power or thickness inhering in it is inscribed in the moodful or
affective quality with which the contradiction is characterized. If
Foucault for example characterizes the `madness' of history what is
implied is history as the movement of phases or events which are
identical in themselves BEFORE they exist in contradiction to other
events. To critique the reading of Derrida I have laid out from Foucault's
position is to critique from a more conservative vantage point. It is
Foucault who stands closer to the tradition of presence, and Derrida who
sees `less' in the world, less substance, quality, power. One must from
this vantage claim that Derrida goes too far, not that he maintains
concepts Foucault subverts. As far as heidegger is concerned, it is
impossible to make proper sense of his treatment of history, the Greek
tradition and German culture without this understanding of Derrida.
Derrida has written what I think is the most coherent and on-target
analysis of Heidegger's dealings with these issues in `Of Spirit'. Here he
locates Heidegger's limitations at a level much more radically situated
than that a Foucaultian reading would establish.
a few words about science here. A 19th century naturalism or 17th
century Baconian method certainly framed the projects of many an empirical
worker, but one may be missing something by equating science per se as a
general style of thinking with pre-post-modern impulses. There are
interesting areas of study today which may be more difficult to accuse of
ratioanlism or naive positivism. Scientists are not particularly
interested in or good at clarifying their terminology or philosophic
presupposition, but because 19th century terminology is used does not
mean that a particular approach or scientific framework does not express
intrinsically ideas which are consonant with a psot-modern thinking. I
believe that a number of psychological approahces have exceeded the limits
of the thinking of Foucault, that he would not have been able to
understand the philosophical implications of these approaches. Again I
emphasize that certain notions, both in psychology and philosophy, which
posit similarity, gentle interrelationality, embodied subjectivity as
fundamental to Being, come closer to Derrrida than to Foucault, and
precisely because an idea of self-consistency which does not rely on an a
priori foundation, has no teleological goal, does not unfold as a linear
or appropriating hisotrization and claims no rationalist structure
accomplishes exactly what Foucault's does. With one difference.
Discourses of radical `similarity' desubstantialize meaning more
effectively and fundamentally than do the more conservative discources of
incommensurability and tragic paradox.
Omar Haneef '96
Given your stance on Foucault, I can see why you would cross post to
this newsgroup (alt.postmodernism). With this cross posting, I take it you
believe Foucault's belief in indeterminism to be "postmodern." This would be
a useful term to employ because you seem invested in seperating Foucault's
ideas out as new. Um, I want to question that but I realise that the
argument is a tired on so I'll just let the question hang there...
"History as something which takes the unpredictable turns despite
the best laid plans..." Surely the best laid plans are not themselves are
only power/knowledge. The unpredictable turns are exactly power/knowledge.
By your own admission, "it is easy to see networks of power/resistance [as]
being just another sublimation by power/knowledge of that which evades
power/knowledge." This is very clear and compelling. Where are these
mysterious "ecstatic moments" that evade sublimation? Foucault's whole
point, as far as I can tell, is that the Subject is constituted by power
(and knowledge: consider "I think therefore I am" translateable into "Learn
to exist as a subject through knowledge/power"). There is no subversion OF
power/knowledge because that would be the collapse of the Subject. There is
subversion within power/knowledge. He claims that play offers hope of
subversive possibilities. Games (like S&M) where master/slave dynamics are
reversed. This, the only, subversive pointers that Foucault leaves us with
is not buried in the indeterminism of Historical Discourse. That I cannot
see. History may be indetermined but its not subversive.
Secondly, this is VERY different from Derrida's "subversive"
differance. For Derrida, Differance is the chaotic stuff of meaning
generated by the metaphysical difference between being and language. It is
the incapacity of language to apprehened being, to contain the excess of
being, that gives you the Differance. Thus Differance must be produced at a
very specific site: the text, and at a specific moment: the "enacting" of
the text. If we examine a historical text, our ability to "Deconstruct" the
text reveals the Differance in the text. An indeterminism this time born in
the aftermath. Foucault would see this moment as the production of the
discourse. The text is born and cultured in a discourse, an episteme, which
is history. Derrida's site of subversion is Foucault's site of
power/knowledge. (Both are much closer to each other then I let on, of
course, as I draw the straw men apart). In any case, it can't be produced by
an indeterminism born in the "unpredictability" of the "best laid plans".
I hope that was clear.
> This is the Foucault that I read, and it is the one that I think with.
Are you a philosopher or a literary critic? This is not mean't to be rude or
snobbish. I think the two are equally valid and all that but I think they
have different stances (both interesting) and your seems more lit crit.
> I do not think that I have encountered in my readings anyone akin to
> Foucault. The "structuralists" with whom he is often lumped together:
> Lacan and Levi-Strauss... are sharply criticized (though never named) near
> the end of the first volume of the History of Sexuality, for their
> determinism and participation in the "Regime of Sexuality". Foucault also
> strongly felt that Derrida was too much a Heideggerian, telling the story
> of a falling away from Being in the writings of Plato. Most of what I
> have seen in common with Foucault is either common influences with, or a
> tutalege from, Foucault.
Try Deleuze and Guattari(sp?) and also Althusser (who taught Foucault).
-Omar Haneef
> -Ian
dev...@smart.net
>
> Given your stance on Foucault, I can see why you would cross
post to
> this newsgroup (alt.postmodernism). With this cross posting, I take it
you
> believe Foucault's belief in indeterminism to be "postmodern." This
would be
> a useful term to employ because you seem invested in seperating
Foucault's
> ideas out as new. Um, I want to question that but I realise that the
> argument is a tired on so I'll just let the question hang there...
You're not a postmodernist! Just as I suspected.
MJD
Gordon Fitch
|
|
| >
| > Given your stance on Foucault, I can see why you would cross
| post to
Please. It's "alt.postmodern."
--
}"{ Gordon Fitch }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
Omar Haneef '96
> >
> > Given your stance on Foucault, I can see why you would cross
> post to
> > this newsgroup (alt.postmodernism). With this cross posting, I take it
> you
> > believe Foucault's belief in indeterminism to be "postmodern." This
> would be
> > a useful term to employ because you seem invested in seperating
> Foucault's
> > ideas out as new. Um, I want to question that but I realise that the
> > argument is a tired on so I'll just let the question hang there...
> You're not a postmodernist! Just as I suspected.
> MJD
OH NO! Caught red handed! Busted! There can be no denying it...
Or can there? That I disagree with Foucault's ideas in some cases
necessarily being postmodern DOES NOT necessarily mean that I do not employ
the term "postmodern" to describe certain things (I don't, I think the term
is useless and confusing for my purposes), or that the term can be used by
others (I think a lot of others find it useful and it leaves their writing
often clear and readable), and that I find the term useful (I sometimes do).
But good eye (I was thinking of you when I wrote it).
-Omar Haneef
p.s. To Gordon Fitch: sorry that I called alt.postmodernity the wrong thing
(alt.postmodernism). Maybe it should just be alt.pomo?
Ian Michael Thal
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) wrote in response to an
earlier posting of mine:
> ...I can see why you would cross post to
> this newsgroup (alt.postmodernism [sic- cute, Gordon]). With this cross
posting, I take it you
> believe Foucault's belief in indeterminism to be "postmodern." This would be
> a useful term to employ because you seem invested in seperating Foucault's
> ideas out as new.
My choice in cross-posting had to do with the readership of this newsgroup
(it certainly caught your interest). What could be called "indeterminism"
is similar to themes and concepts that I also see in Kierkegaard and
Thomistic philosophy-- neither of which I call postmodern.
> "History as something which takes the unpredictable turns despite
> the best laid plans..." Surely the best laid plans are not themselves are
> only power/knowledge. The unpredictable turns are exactly power/knowledge.
Agreed... the "best laid plans" are the power/knowledge of utopian
humanism. The unpredictable turns, upon becoming schmaticized as
knowledge, of course become power/knowledge. One is "always already
there" (said to be by Louis Mackey the calling card of any Continental
philosopher) in power/knowledge.
> By your own admission, "it is easy to see networks of power/resistance [as]
> being just another sublimation by power/knowledge of that which evades
> power/knowledge." This is very clear and compelling. Where are these
> mysterious "ecstatic moments" that evade sublimation? Foucault's whole
> point, as far as I can tell, is that the Subject is constituted by power
> (and knowledge: consider "I think therefore I am" translateable into "Learn
> to exist as a subject through knowledge/power"). There is no subversion OF
> power/knowledge because that would be the collapse of the Subject.
Foucault's subject... or rather "the self" is no Archemedian point as in
Descartes or phenomenology (at least as I understand the
Husserlian/Sartrean branches of that tradition). The self is shot through
with "instability", motion that I can only call "non-Aristotilian". To
identify the ecstatic moments, is to attempt to master them, and thus
bring them to knowledge, to power. This is the focus of Foucault's
lectures on the "Hermeneutics of the Self"... specifically, the Christian
technologies found in Cassian's writings, as well as in other sources.
Desire, the Devil, is named as the "ecstacy" (Foucault does not use the
term in any technical sense... I have reappropriated it from Heidegger)
that is to be resisted for peace of mind, for beatude... but that requires
submission to another force, namely God, who is also unknowable and
unmasterable (this is another "ek-stasis", namely "religious
experience")... However this experience of ecstacy, is within a context of
power/knowledge that can not master it, only judge which is ecstatic
moment to submit to. The human sciences that Foucault spent his career
critiquing had a tendency to obliterate this "standing outside oneself" in
favor of a transparency of knowledge and instrumentality.
"Power/knowledge" makes power and knowledge a standing outside oneself...
Think of the moment of initiation to knowledge, or capacities.
> History may be indetermined but its not subversive.
When Historiography opens one up to new possibilities not part of one's
subjection, it is subversive. It allows for one to practise forms of
autonomy that are not given as part of subjection, by allowing the self to
actively create these possibilities.
> Secondly, this is VERY different from Derrida's "subversive"
> differance. For Derrida, Differance is the chaotic stuff of meaning
> generated by the metaphysical difference between being and language. It is
> the incapacity of language to apprehened being, to contain the excess of
> being, that gives you the Differance. Thus Differance must be produced at a
> very specific site: the text, and at a specific moment: the "enacting" of
> the text. If we examine a historical text, our ability to "Deconstruct" the
> text reveals the Differance in the text. An indeterminism this time born in
> the aftermath. Foucault would see this moment as the production of the
> discourse. The text is born and cultured in a discourse, an episteme, which
> is history. Derrida's site of subversion is Foucault's site of
> power/knowledge.
I understood "Differance" to be a sort of "Aufheben" that has been turned
inside out. That is, instead of a sublimation of different into same that
is then confronted with another different that is to be sublimated (a
logic I think to be in operation throughout language), Differance is a
proliferation of that which can not be sublimated by the logic of
Aufheben, not as mere excess, but an unsubjectiafible, unobjectiafible,
unschematicizable, (thus always at work in language... and ignored by the
lovers of the aufheben.) The texts that Foucault attends to are ennacted
in, not merely a "matrix" of intertextuality, but a matrix that includes
technologies, practices, spaces, selves, etc. that are then (re)presented
in texts that he attends to. This reveals the "differance" in these
regimes, epistemes, problematizations, etc.
>
> > This is the Foucault that I read, and it is the one that I think with.
> Are you a philosopher or a literary critic? This is not mean't to be rude or
> snobbish. I think the two are equally valid and all that but I think they
> have different stances (both interesting) and your seems more lit crit.
>
I am a philsopher by training. I have little idea how lit crits read
Foucault. The reading of Foucault I have the greatest problem with is the
"social scientist" reading. I think too many philosophers read him in
that fashion. They trade in metaphysics for socialogy of knowledge.
Thanks for jumping into the conversation!
-Ian
Ian Michael Thal
You posed some very diifficult questions, I will try to answer. I take
your first satement as a compliment (I assume that is how it was posed).
Apologies: I expended energy in replying to Omar Hanneef's intervention in
our thread, and this may not be the best reply.
In article <3rl1gl$m...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, jso...@aol.com (JSoffer) wrote:
> Hi, Ian. Your close reading of Foucault reveals him to `complete the
> task' that Nietzsche set out to do. Namely, Foucault relentlessly subverts
> the possibility of a self-same truth proclaiming itself, destabilizes
> history at its very inception, before it can solidify itself into a linear
> historization. He exposes the groundlessness of rationalist scientific
> method, the mystery and incommensurability at the very heart of meaning.
> There is a tremendous rigor to be found in such a project, but from what
> does such rigor and clarity derive? What has really taken place in the
> move from rationalism, dualism idealism to the post-modern discourse of
> Foucault which allows us to prefer it as more philosophically satisfying?
Foucault's subversive behavior operates within a regime that still
believes in truth, this is what allowed him to set upon such a project,
and for such a project to have an effect on institutions including the
academies within whose walls we encounter his project. Certainly, we have
been disciplined to be receptive to "the truth" and to speak truthfully,
even to ourselves, as was Foucault. Perhaps the consequence is that we
must be open to possibilities other than truth. (As a side note: Foucault,
in his political interventions, persuit of S&M, and extreme literary
forms, may be seen as attempting to divorce his capacities from the truth,
that is, the political, the erotic, and the rhetorical.) I am not sure
how to take this further yet.
> ["Postmodernism"] works against
> authoritarianisms because the world is less mysterious to it,less grounded
> in impenetrables to wield their capricious authority.In this way the
> thinking of destabilization and change contributes more toward a truly
> elegant and unified `worldview' than any rationalist scheme ever could.
I am prone to agree with you in this. It means we can move away from
systematic forms of ethics, such as liberalism, marxism, and theology, and
back to the experience of ethical problems, like, "How do I, in opposition
to the truth of my authorities, prevent cruelty?" or "How do I respect the
one I desire?". Of course, this is still "back to the things
themselves"-- it is deconstructable as "metaphysics of pressence".
> It is important to establish the means by which Foucaultian discourse
> achieves its effect, because by means of the closest possible contact with
> the dynamics of incommesurability and mystery, we can recognize its
> limitations. [Jacques Derrida] ...recognizes that a remnant of substantiality,
> solidity, self-sameness, prresence, remains in any thinking which deals in
> negations, oppositions, irreconcilabilities. To proclaim a thing as
> unpredictable or contradictory is to give it power in its refusal to be
> co-opted.
True. The language of pressence, can be seen as operating with Hegel's
logic of _aufheben_. This language of pressence is operative in Derrida's
writings, which is why when some smart aleck proclaims that Derrida can be
deconstructed, hypothetically, Derrida can say "Of course my text can be
deconstructed! If that is a suprise to you, you should read my text more
closely".
I have not been able to examine the Foucault/Derrida debate very easily
(few Americans can, due to the fact that most of the relevent materials
are not yet translated into English, (I read French very slowly). Missing
are: an unabridged translation of _l'Histoire du Folie_, and Foucault's
response to Derrida's article. Foucault did issue a corrective to that
book, along with correctives to _Birth of the Clinic_ and _The Order of
Things_, within the covers of _The Archaeology of Knowledge_. He agreed
in retrospect that his history of madness was too much a metaphysical
history. On the otherhand, he also felt that Derrida was too much a
Cartesian and not enough a reader of Descartes. I am not prepared to go
any further along that axis of the discussion, due to lack of reading. I
can not say who is "right".
Indeed, there may be a precission in the deconstruction of texts. But, I
am under the impression that Derrida has long discouraged methodological
readings of his texts, this is not to say that there is no formalism or
formula. However, it is one thing to deconstruct the abstract statement
"I am I" and show where difference and differance emerge; it is yet
another for me to deconstruct "I am I" when _I_ know that _I_ am the "I"
and the "I" refered to... my own identity... becomes shot through with
Differance, I become a mystery to myself, somehow I am not object nor
subject and both and recourse to transcedental signifiers that might "hold
me together" is not available... I must live with these consequences or
stop doing philosophy. It is no longer an issue as to whether the world
is more or less orderly than the pre-postmodernist's world. Foucault does
a history of the attempts to "hold together" the "I"s both within
discourse, and non-discursive practices (re)presented by discourse.
You are correct in pointing out the varied history of "science". The
Greek "Episteme" treated of causes (all four of them); universal causes of
things treated as the subject of that science. With Thomism, "scientia"
came to include the particular causes previously assigned to practical
wisdom (a transcendal signifier named God allowed for this). Bacon's
science was concerned greater mastery of the world and pragmatically
proposed theories and hypothesises instead of universal causes. Other
scientists were happy just to name species and construct tables. Others
were happy to pursue research grants and be the subjects of "NOVA" on PBS.
I am not sure what the significance is that Foucault reads scientists and
technocrats who might not be philosopically or systematically rigorous as
the philosophers that Derrida reads. In my view that puts Derrida more
squarely within certain disciplinary limitations, i.e. philosophy
departments, and lessens the political impact that his work might
otherwise provide. Mind you, I am not saying that Derrida subverts less,
just that less is open to his subversion. That choice of readings may be
but a prejudice for metaphysics as the ground of all other sciences.
(just a devilish provocation).
-Ian
PS: I would be interested if you could name the psychologists you view as
exceeding the limits of Foucault... I am still trying to master Freud's
corpus (some puns intended, some unavoidable)
Omar Haneef '96
> > being just another sublimation by power/knowledge of that which evades
> > power/knowledge." This is very clear and compelling. Where are these
> > mysterious "ecstatic moments" that evade sublimation? Foucault's whole
> > point, as far as I can tell, is that the Subject is constituted by power
> > (and knowledge: consider "I think therefore I am" translateable into "Learn
> > to exist as a subject through knowledge/power"). There is no subversion OF
> > power/knowledge because that would be the collapse of the Subject.
> Foucault's subject... or rather "the self" is no Archemedian point as in
> Descartes or phenomenology (at least as I understand the
> Husserlian/Sartrean branches of that tradition). The self is shot through
> with "instability", motion that I can only call "non-Aristotilian".
I think we may agree here but I'm not quite sure. When I said
Foucault believes the Subject to be constituted by power, I do not mean that
Foucault "believes" in this subject. This is not "The Foucauldian Subject"
but, rather, this is the Cartesian subject that Foucault tries to explain as
the historically produced entity, bounded in its moment, and a function of
power. I think Foucault predicted the end of this Subject, the dissolution
of the self and thus, as you say, the self is shot through with instability.
But that the self ever was stable, stability of the self, is a function (I
am tempted, twice, to say illusion) of power.
> To
> identify the ecstatic moments, is to attempt to master them, and thus
> bring them to knowledge, to power. This is the focus of Foucault's
> lectures on the "Hermeneutics of the Self"... specifically, the Christian
> technologies found in Cassian's writings, as well as in other sources.
> Desire, the Devil, is named as the "ecstacy" (Foucault does not use the
> term in any technical sense... I have reappropriated it from Heidegger)
> that is to be resisted for peace of mind, for beatude... but that requires
> submission to another force, namely God, who is also unknowable and
> unmasterable (this is another "ek-stasis", namely "religious
> experience")...
Clearly I will have to read the "Hermeneutics of the Self" but
Foucault is usually everywhere in Foucualt (after reading any one book, the
second always seems redundant to me). So I'm getting to the point: I do not
understand the following:
(1) If ecstatic moments are moments that resist the matrix of
power/knowledge, then how can Foucault "know" they exist? Surely he admits
he himself produces "just another discourse" and then to claim that he has
found that which undermines discourse and reveals it inside a discourse
seems contradictory.
(2) The resistance of the Devil and submission to God is, of course,
simeltaneous. There is no contradiction here, the two acts are one so to
label the whole experience ecstatic is exactly correct. What is harder to
understand is why this ecstatic experience is not seen as a re-inscription
of the power/knowledge that religion is so fully commited to reproducing?
> However this experience of ecstacy, is within a context of
> power/knowledge that can not master it, only judge which is ecstatic
> moment to submit to.
I guess your answer is buried in these words but I can't see it. These words
are going to start sounding arbitrary without the examples. Why do you think
ecstatic experiences are "within the context" of power/knowledge but outside
of mastery? Surely to contextualize IS, in many senses, to master. I would
suggest that the ability to judge the moment of submission is an aspect of
mastery.
> The human sciences that Foucault spent his career
> critiquing had a tendency to obliterate this "standing outside oneself" in
> favor of a transparency of knowledge and instrumentality.
> "Power/knowledge" makes power and knowledge a standing outside oneself...
> Think of the moment of initiation to knowledge, or capacities.
What do you mean by "standing outside oneself"? Do you mean when one finds
oneself transformed as in a Dionysian rite? Do you mean when one projects
oneself onto, say, a Lacanian mirror image? Do you mean when one uses the
universalized "I"? Do you mean when one finds oneself suspect to one's own
gaze?
> > History may be indetermined but its not subversive.
> When Historiography opens one up to new possibilities not part of one's
> subjection, it is subversive. It allows for one to practise forms of
> autonomy that are not given as part of subjection, by allowing the self to
> actively create these possibilities.
This is interesting. The word you use is subjection. There are no
possibilities outside subjection, subjection is what produces the subject.
Subjection is what produces subjectivity. Subjection IS what produces the
illusion of freedom. Indeed, subjection is responsible for possibilities.
The trick, I thought, was to introduce NEW forms of subjection that allow
one to have more choices (in life) as a function of ones new subjectivity.
> > Secondly, this is VERY different from Derrida's "subversive"
> > differance. For Derrida, Differance is the chaotic stuff of meaning
> > generated by the metaphysical difference between being and language. It is
> > the incapacity of language to apprehened being, to contain the excess of
> > being, that gives you the Differance. Thus Differance must be produced at a
> > very specific site: the text, and at a specific moment: the "enacting" of
> > the text. If we examine a historical text, our ability to "Deconstruct" the
> > text reveals the Differance in the text. An indeterminism this time born in
> > the aftermath. Foucault would see this moment as the production of the
> > discourse. The text is born and cultured in a discourse, an episteme, which
> > is history. Derrida's site of subversion is Foucault's site of
> > power/knowledge.
> I understood "Differance" to be a sort of "Aufheben" that has been turned
> inside out. That is, instead of a sublimation of different into same that
> is then confronted with another different that is to be sublimated (a
> logic I think to be in operation throughout language), Differance is a
> proliferation of that which can not be sublimated by the logic of
> Aufheben, not as mere excess, but an unsubjectiafible, unobjectiafible,
> unschematicizable, (thus always at work in language... and ignored by the
> lovers of the aufheben.)
I think thats a very strong reading of Differance, I agree with it.
> The texts that Foucault attends to are ennacted
> in, not merely a "matrix" of intertextuality, but a matrix that includes
> technologies, practices, spaces, selves, etc. that are then (re)presented
> in texts that he attends to. This reveals the "differance" in these
> regimes, epistemes, problematizations, etc.
But Foucault can only present this existence as a discourse. In the way you
use Differance, ALL writing reveals it (and I agree that in a certain way
all writing DOES reveak it). But Foucault himself can't be seeing this as
empowering in any way other than as a discourse. I don't think Foucault was
looking for Differance.
> Thanks for jumping into the conversation!
My pleasure.
> -Ian
-Omar Haneef
Ian Michael Thal
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) wrote:
> (1) If ecstatic moments are moments that resist the matrix of
> power/knowledge, then how can Foucault "know" they exist? Surely he admits
> he himself produces "just another discourse" and then to claim that he has
> found that which undermines discourse and reveals it inside a discourse
> seems contradictory.
Good question. Perhaps you have shown me the limits of Foucault's
thought, I will see how far I can defend him... how radical a reading I
can give. As I stated in an earlier post, I hypothesize that one can see
the appropriative aufheben as a function of language. Any attempt to
formalize knowledge is an appropriation into discourse, and a
hypostasisation into the matter of discourse (objects, subjects,
statements, etc.). However, there is the moment of intrusion upon
consciousness, when the moment of appropriation occurs and something is
known to evade discourse. This is the differance obscured by the aufheben
(note how nameing differance is an appropriation into discourse.)
Furthermore, Foucault, as a non-utopian would find what some would call
the "mere" proliferation of heterogenious localized discourses politically
advantageous. Hence his strong interest in the arts.
> (2) The resistance of the Devil and submission to God is, of course,
> simeltaneous. There is no contradiction here, the two acts are one so to
> label the whole experience ecstatic is exactly correct. What is harder to
> understand is why this ecstatic experience is not seen as a re-inscription
> of the power/knowledge that religion is so fully commited to reproducing?
Yes, the ecstatic experience is reinscribed into power/knowledge.
Nonetheless that particular form of power, the power of the confession of
the flesh in the pressence of the spiritual master is a regime of the self
that could only emerge, not merely from the appropriation earlier
techniques of the self, but also a recognition of ecstacy as a problem
both for power (hence the command to "master oneself") and knowledge
(hense "know thyself!" which begins to develop into hermeneutics). I
suggest that differance is/occurs/gives whenever the aufheben is present.
I think that those of us who are interested in "Post-Modernism" (whatever
that may mean) may find medieval theology of interest, because in much of
it being is equivocal (has more than one voice), that is, it has voices
not knowable to humans except by religious ecstacy. Very different from
the univocal being of much of modern philosophy. Yes, it is a
reinscription into power/knowledge, but it is a reinscription that
acknowledges an uninscribible. Of course, the uninscribable then gets
reappropriated into "negative theology"-- thus reappropriated by God. (I
am using my small understanding of Thomism as pardigmatical of medieval
theology.)
>
> What do you mean by "standing outside oneself"? Do you mean when one finds
> oneself transformed as in a Dionysian rite?
I made a leap without explaining it (ie: reappropriating the leap into
discourse). "Standing outside oneself" I use as synonomous with ecstasis
(or as the Heideggarians put it: ek-stasis). If "hupostasis" is the
"standing-under" or the Greek ancestor of the Latin "Subjectum",
"ekstasis" is the "standing-out", that which is not subjectable. I find
that Nietzsche's Dionysian is not radical enough to qualify: In _Birth of
Tragedy_ it seems to be a breaking down of individuality in favor of what
Hegel might call a "spiritual mass" or more contempory thinkers would call
"inter-subjectivity". Later, Nietzsche seems to understand the Dionysian
as a cross between the romantic era's "genius" and the "appropriation
artist".
> There are no possibilities outside subjection, subjection is what
produces the subject.
> Subjection is what produces subjectivity. Subjection IS what produces the
> illusion of freedom. Indeed, subjection is responsible for possibilities.
> The trick, I thought, was to introduce NEW forms of subjection that allow
> one to have more choices (in life) as a function of ones new subjectivity.
An openess to ecstasis is not an autonomy for the individual subject, but
autonmy from a regime of subjection. That, is a radical idea of freedom.
Although, as an individual subject I also like the idea of more choices.
I am enough of a postmodernist to desire both radical and reactionary
froms of freedom.
>
> > The texts that Foucault attends to are ennacted
> > [not merely in] a "matrix" of intertextuality, but a matrix that includes
> > technologies, practices, spaces, selves, etc. that are then (re)presented
> > in texts that he attends to. This reveals the "differance" in these
> > regimes, epistemes, problematizations, etc.
> But Foucault can only present this existence as a discourse. In the way you
> use Differance, ALL writing reveals it (and I agree that in a certain way
> all writing DOES reveak it). But Foucault himself can't be seeing this as
> empowering in any way other than as a discourse. I don't think Foucault was
> looking for Differance.
>
Agreed, Foucault was not looking for differance, he was looking at the
moments of appropriation. But he kept finding differance, and I think,
late in his life, that he began to turn his attention to differance
(though he never used the word that is not a word). Admitedly, I have a
very radical reading of Foucault, and I have had to borrow language from
Heidegger and Derrida to articulate that radicality. But I do think that
Foucault is admissible to this sort of reading.
I think Derrida, at least the Derrida I have read.... one who dates back
about twenty years, would admit that discourse can only present existence
as discourse. That is no criticism of Foucault, that is a criticism of
language.
_Ian
Omar Haneef '96
> han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) wrote:
> > (1) If ecstatic moments are moments that resist the matrix of
> > power/knowledge, then how can Foucault "know" they exist? Surely he admits
> statements, etc.). However, there is the moment of intrusion upon
> consciousness, when the moment of appropriation occurs and something is
> known to evade discourse.
This "moment of intrusion upon consciousness" that you speak of is
the same that occurs when we learn a word for the first time? Is this the
same sort of thing that happens in Heidegger when he insists on looking for
meaning in the original greek? Do you really think that this moment is
revealatory? I think it might be, there is quite possibly a moment when we
first learn a word, that accounts for meaning and that somehow evades
discourse but this moment must be explained through cognitive psychology to
make it convincing. What happens on a physiological level, do you think, to
explain this moment?
> Furthermore, Foucault, as a non-utopian would find what some would call
> the "mere" proliferation of heterogenious localized discourses politically
> advantageous. Hence his strong interest in the arts.
Absolutely. That is why I put my "mere" in quotes as well. I think this is
Foucault's take on discourse. It can't be escaped but a proliferation is
good anyway. Let us not confuse this with Derrida's call for play or any
form of Jouissance which are different.
> > (2) The resistance of the Devil and submission to God is, of course,
> > simeltaneous. There is no contradiction here, the two acts are one so to
> > label the whole experience ecstatic is exactly correct. What is harder to
> > understand is why this ecstatic experience is not seen as a re-inscription
> > of the power/knowledge that religion is so fully commited to reproducing?
> Nonetheless that particular form of power, the power of the confession of
> the flesh in the pressence of the spiritual master is a regime of the self
> that could only emerge, not merely from the appropriation earlier
> techniques of the self, but also a recognition of ecstacy as a problem
> both for power (hence the command to "master oneself") and knowledge
> (hense "know thyself!" which begins to develop into hermeneutics).
This is quite convincing. At the very least is a whole.
> > What do you mean by "standing outside oneself"? Do you mean when one finds
> > oneself transformed as in a Dionysian rite?
> I made a leap without explaining it (ie: reappropriating the leap into
> discourse). "Standing outside oneself" I use as synonomous with ecstasis
> (or as the Heideggarians put it: ek-stasis). If "hupostasis" is the
> "standing-under" or the Greek ancestor of the Latin "Subjectum",
> "ekstasis" is the "standing-out", that which is not subjectable. I find
> that Nietzsche's Dionysian is not radical enough to qualify: In _Birth of
> Tragedy_ it seems to be a breaking down of individuality in favor of what
> Hegel might call a "spiritual mass" or more contempory thinkers would call
> "inter-subjectivity".
But are not both a "spiritual mass" and an "inter-subjectivity" (you really
think they are the same?) different from a subject? Isn't this the only way
one could not be a subject and yet be aware of the subject? For the
Cartesian subject, self-awareness IS existence but isn't the spiritual mass
a self aware non-existant? In any case, if the Dionysian self fails then who
is the subject that is outside of itself? what is it?
> > There are no possibilities outside subjection, subjection is what
> produces the subject.
> > Subjection is what produces subjectivity. Subjection IS what produces the
> > illusion of freedom. Indeed, subjection is responsible for possibilities.
> > The trick, I thought, was to introduce NEW forms of subjection that allow
> > one to have more choices (in life) as a function of ones new subjectivity.
> An openess to ecstasis is not an autonomy for the individual subject, but
> autonmy from a regime of subjection. That, is a radical idea of freedom.
> Although, as an individual subject I also like the idea of more choices.
> I am enough of a postmodernist to desire both radical and reactionary
> froms of freedom.
I don't understand this. My understanding of Foucault (and I belive him) is
that he saw subjection as the same as subjectivity. How can the autonymy
from one lead to anything but the end of the other. The end of discourse is
the end of man, the end of subjection is the end of self-consciousness and
the Cartesian subject, isn't it?
> > But Foucault can only present this existence as a discourse. In the way you
> > use Differance, ALL writing reveals it (and I agree that in a certain way
> > all writing DOES reveak it). But Foucault himself can't be seeing this as
> > empowering in any way other than as a discourse. I don't think Foucault was
> > looking for Differance.
> >
> Agreed, Foucault was not looking for differance, he was looking at the
> moments of appropriation. But he kept finding differance, and I think,
> late in his life, that he began to turn his attention to differance
> (though he never used the word that is not a word). Admitedly, I have a
> very radical reading of Foucault, and I have had to borrow language from
> Heidegger and Derrida to articulate that radicality. But I do think that
> Foucault is admissible to this sort of reading.
And I try as hard as I can to seperate Foucault from Derrida/Heidegger so I
can tell them apart. What Differance can it make?
> I think Derrida, at least the Derrida I have read.... one who dates back
> about twenty years, would admit that discourse can only present existence
> as discourse. That is no criticism of Foucault, that is a criticism of
> language.
That was Derrida with his Heidegger hat. I think Derrida has gone one step
further and (this is where I think he gets brilliant) that writing/language
is also an experience, an existence of itself.
> _Ian
Ian Michael Thal
han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) wrote:
This "moment of intrusion upon consciousness" that you speak of is
> the same that occurs when we learn a word for the first time? Is this the
> same sort of thing that happens in Heidegger when he insists on looking for
> meaning in the original greek? Do you really think that this moment is
> revealatory? I think it might be, there is quite possibly a moment when we
> first learn a word, that accounts for meaning and that somehow evades
> discourse but this moment must be explained through cognitive psychology to
> make it convincing. What happens on a physiological level, do you think, to
> explain this moment?
No, I do not locate the moment of intrusion as a fixed origin in
psychological development or as a point in the history of metaphysics.
Intrusion upon consciousness is what phenomena, all phenomena do,
including the phenomena of cognative psychological or physiological
explainations.
> [A]re not both a "spiritual mass" and an "inter-subjectivity" (you really
> think they are the same?) different from a subject? Isn't this the only way
> one could not be a subject and yet be aware of the subject? For the
> Cartesian subject, self-awareness IS existence but isn't the spiritual mass
> a self aware non-existant? In any case, if the Dionysian self fails then who
> is the subject that is outside of itself? what is it?
Hegel's critique of the Cartesian (and indeed, Kantian and Fichte-ian)
subject is that they are mere ungrounded abstractions that must be
grounded in inter-subjectivity (Spirit)... Of course... after Heidegger,
Foucault and Derrida... we recognize spirit as nothing more than another
ungrounded hupostasis.
>
IMT:
> > An openess to ecstasis is not an autonomy for the individual subject, but
> > autonmy from a regime of subjection. That, is a radical idea of freedom.
> > Although, as an individual subject I also like the idea of more choices.
> > I am enough of a postmodernist to desire both radical and reactionary
> > forms of freedom.
OH:
> I don't understand this. My understanding of Foucault (and I belive him) is
> that he saw subjection as the same as subjectivity. How can the autonomy
> from one lead to anything but the end of the other. The end of discourse is
> the end of man, the end of subjection is the end of self-consciousness and
> the Cartesian subject, isn't it?
Subjection as subjectivity. We agree on that. But I am not writing of a
subject free from subjection... rather, a non-subject free from
subjection: Ek-stasis free from hupo-stasis. Yes, it is the end of man
as we know it, and I feel fine [I've been want to make that joke for a
while]. Are you saying we can't experience ourselves as
non-hupostasisized?
>
IMT:
> > ... Foucault was not looking for differance, he was looking at the
> > moments of appropriation. But he kept finding differance, and I think,
> > late in his life, that he began to turn his attention to differance
> > (though he never used the word that is not a word). Admitedly, I have a
> > very radical reading of Foucault, and I have had to borrow language from
> > Heidegger and Derrida to articulate that radicality. But I do think that
> > Foucault is admissible to this sort of reading.
OH:
> And I try as hard as I can to seperate Foucault from Derrida/Heidegger so I
> can tell them apart. What Differance can it make?
I would separate all three. Even Derrida with his "Heidegger hat" and
Nietzsche umbrella. I only introduce the vocabulary into my reading of
Foucault, because is helps me chart the directions that Foucault was (to
me) already clearly heading towards near the end of his life. Foucault
does not use a standardized vocabulary over the course of his career, he
introduces key terms in one book or essay, only to forget about it when
writing the next. As exegetes, we tend to like standardized vocabulary,
even if we have to import it. I am being both honest and dishonest
towards the text.
-"Ian"
dev...@smart.net
> > Given your stance on Foucault, I can see why you would cross
> > post to
> > > this newsgroup (alt.postmodernism). With this cross posting, I take
> > you
> > > believe Foucault's belief in indeterminism to be "postmodern." This
> > would be
> > > a useful term to employ because you seem invested in seperating
> > Foucault's
> > > argument is a tired on so I'll just let the question hang there...
>
> > You're not a postmodernist! Just as I suspected.
>
> > MJD
>
> OH NO! Caught red handed! Busted! There can be no denying it...
> Or can there? That I disagree with Foucault's ideas in some cases
> necessarily being postmodern DOES NOT necessarily mean that I do
not employ
> the term "postmodern" to describe certain things (I don't, I think the term
> is useless and confusing for my purposes), or that the term can be
used by
> others (I think a lot of others find it useful and it leaves their writing
> often clear and readable), and that I find the term useful (I sometimes
do).
>
> But good eye (I was thinking of you when I wrote it).
>
>
a week, and so I may have missed a post. I still don't see why we need
the term"postmodern" at all. I may or may not convince you yet that we
have no need for such a term--I have found, though, as I've mentioned,
that there's an investment in it, a pyschological one that I don't really get. I
say "don't reallly get" because I can sort of understand what I suspect
fuels the investment--a need, desire, to set oneself apart, a desire, in
sum, for distinction of some variety or another. But though I think
understand that, I'm not interested in it, and more than that, I find it
intellectually irresponsible. I have thought long and hard about this issue,
and I do think I'm right. The problem is not just with "postmodernism" but
with any "ism." The largest problem, for me, however, is that all sorts of
academics, not just postmodernists, that I speak to are very, very
resistant to my ideas. They want to be able to talk about "Victorianism" or
"Modernism" in broad strokes, and I want to "problematize" those notions.
There's no way to historize "Modernism" or "Victorianism," but one could
talk about how particular writers/critics/theorists have constructed, say,
"Modernism," so long as one understands that they may well be
uncritically buying into conceptions that they really ought to be more
critical about, and so long as one points this sort of thing out in one's
discussion of them, rather than assuming that they are "authority" figures
(because that's just how the sorts of generalizations about x get
generated and proliferated in the first place). There absolutely is, some
sort of teleogical impulse behind the desire to periodize, and I find this
impulse completely spurious.
MJD
JSoffer
relating the work of one philosopher with others. We can cosntruct
beautiful `family trees' of resemblance marking out the mutual influences
and overlaps between writers in any given period of time. The writers
themselves uusually overtly exprees their sense of who is closest to their
own work, who doesnt seem to `get' it, etc. Baased on this ,we can group
people like Descartes, Spinoza, Locke and Leibnitz, or Kant, Fichte,
Sheeling and Hegel. Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida also associaate
themselves intimately with each others work, not just in style but
content. As far as psot modernism is concerned, there Do seem to be
writers who coverse heavily with each other, who borrow and hare many
notions with among each other, and this leads itself naturally to the
suggestion of some sort of loose grouping, like the `Vienna Circle'.
Unfortunately, a label may come to be used so broadly that it ends up
having almost no uselfulness at pointing to a clearly distinguishable set
of ideas. Existentialism reached that point a while ago and now
postmodernism seems to have joined it among the ranks of overused
expressions. But I think pointing to a specific group of writers, like
Foucault, Adorno, and Nietzsche, for example, and referring to them
collectively in some way, is useful and justifiable. There ARE respects in
which these writers share characteristics which differe them as a group
from other writers.
Omar Haneef '96
> Ah, so I've made some sort of impression. But, seriously, I was away for
> a week, and so I may have missed a post. I still don't see why we need
> the term"postmodern" at all. I may or may not convince you yet that we
> have no need for such a term--I have found, though, as I've mentioned,
> that there's an investment in it, a pyschological one that I don't really get. I
> say "don't reallly get" because I can sort of understand what I suspect
> fuels the investment--a need, desire, to set oneself apart, a desire, in
> sum, for distinction of some variety or another.
thinkers as wielders of worthy ideas. And not all of them, just a few whom I
know and admire. This is where I wanted to hold my ground.
Secondly, If you are against -isms in general, like postmodernism for
instance, then I don't really have a carefully thought out position and
hence no real quarrel. I DO want to add that ALTHOUGH postmodernism is
meaningless for me as a term that describes a system of ideas, in that I have
to define it for myself all over again every time I use it, I find it useful
to describe a mood or aesthetic in general. (I still have to define it every
time I use it but the point is, it IS useful).
> But though I think
> understand that, I'm not interested in it, and more than that, I find it
> intellectually irresponsible. I have thought long and hard about this issue,
> and I do think I'm right. The problem is not just with "postmodernism" but
> with any "ism." The largest problem, for me, however, is that all sorts of
> academics, not just postmodernists, that I speak to are very, very
> resistant to my ideas. They want to be able to talk about "Victorianism" or
> "Modernism" in broad strokes, and I want to "problematize" those notions.
> There's no way to historize "Modernism" or "Victorianism," but one could
> talk about how particular writers/critics/theorists have constructed, say,
> "Modernism," so long as one understands that they may well be
> uncritically buying into conceptions that they really ought to be more
> critical about, and so long as one points this sort of thing out in one's
> discussion of them, rather than assuming that they are "authority" figures
> (because that's just how the sorts of generalizations about x get
> generated and proliferated in the first place). There absolutely is, some
> sort of teleogical impulse behind the desire to periodize, and I find this
> impulse completely spurious.
You realise, of course, that your desire to point out the DIFFERENCES in
history and see them as similarities - as mere DIFFERANCES - is indicative
of what can be usefully described as a postmodern impulse to deconstruct
history. This is the same thing I did in the above sentance with your ideas
and postmodernism (from which, I take it, you want to distance/different
yourself).
In any case, if you believe that -isms in general have no point then you
might have a case but thinking about POSSIBLE advantages to lumping periods
and styles leads me to the following list:
(1) insights: I think that there are certain insights to be gained from
lumping things (from observing on a "macro" level). I don't think it would
be as easy to see the rise of bourgouis capitalism without having labelled
mercantilism, the bourgouisie, the French Revolution, the Industrial
Revolution etc. etc.
(2) Efficieny: When historians talk, or when anyone talks of history and
historical events, I take they want to refer to a range of phenomenon in a
single word. "And of course, Victorian Doctors believed in XYZ so poor
Mr.ABC died..."
(3) Organization: Related to (1) and (2) but important in its own right.
Every discipline seeks to organize its knowledge into categories, if you are
against disciplines, organization and categories (and hence, by all
accounts, a postmodernist) then you should point this out so the focus of
the discussion may change appropriately.
-Omar Haneef
> MJD
Omar Haneef '96
Ian Michael Thal (Th...@bcvms.bc.edu) wrote:
> In article <3rsihi$6...@larch.cc.swarthmore.edu>,
> han...@engin.swarthmore.edu (Omar Haneef '96) wrote:
> No, I do not locate the moment of intrusion as a fixed origin in
> psychological development or as a point in the history of metaphysics.
> Intrusion upon consciousness is what phenomena, all phenomena do,
> including the phenomena of cognative psychological or physiological
> explainations.
Then all phenomena produce a moment of intrusion? And this moment
escapes discourse? I'd like some more detail on how and why ALL phenomena
escape discourse for a moment. Why only a moment? And why even a moment? How
does this come about?
> > [A]re not both a "spiritual mass" and an "inter-subjectivity" (you really
> > think they are the same?) different from a subject? Isn't this the only way
> > one could not be a subject and yet be aware of the subject? For the
> > Cartesian subject, self-awareness IS existence but isn't the spiritual mass
> > a self aware non-existant? In any case, if the Dionysian self fails then who
> > is the subject that is outside of itself? what is it?
> Hegel's critique of the Cartesian (and indeed, Kantian and Fichte-ian)
> subject is that they are mere ungrounded abstractions that must be
> grounded in inter-subjectivity (Spirit)... Of course... after Heidegger,
> Foucault and Derrida... we recognize spirit as nothing more than another
> ungrounded hupostasis.
Fine, then what is the "self outside the self"? How is this external
self implicated in the ecstasis? And most importantly how does this self
allow phenomena to escape discourse (a most radical suggestion that I
can't seem to understand the operation of)?
> >
> IMT:
> > > An openess to ecstasis is not an autonomy for the individual subject, but
> > > autonmy from a regime of subjection. That, is a radical idea of freedom.
> > > Although, as an individual subject I also like the idea of more choices.
> > > I am enough of a postmodernist to desire both radical and reactionary
> > > forms of freedom.
IMT
> Subjection as subjectivity. We agree on that. But I am not writing of a
> subject free from subjection... rather, a non-subject free from
> subjection: Ek-stasis free from hupo-stasis. Yes, it is the end of man
> as we know it, and I feel fine [I've been want to make that joke for a
> while]. Are you saying we can't experience ourselves as
> non-hupostasisized?
No, I would merely ask that you advance a theory or, at least, a
notion of what this "non-hypostatized" experience of the self is. Where and
when does it occur, and again, how does it allow phenomena to (for a moment)
produce the ecstasis that transcends discourse.
> -"Ian"
dev...@smart.net
> dev...@smart.net wrote:
> > Ah, so I've made some sort of impression. But, seriously, I was away
for
> > a week, and so I may have missed a post. I still don't see why we
need
> > the term"postmodern" at all. I may or may not convince you yet that
we
> > have no need for such a term--I have found, though, as I've
mentioned,
> > that there's an investment in it, a pyschological one that I don't really
get. I
> > say "don't reallly get" because I can sort of understand what I suspect
> > fuels the investment--a need, desire, to set oneself apart, a desire, in
> > sum, for distinction of some variety or another.
> Firstly, I thought I was defending the (so-called, I guess) postmodern
> thinkers as wielders of worthy ideas. And not all of them, just a few
whom I
> know and admire. This is where I wanted to hold my ground.
Fine. Just stop calling those thinkers "postmodern." Then we can just talk
about whether they are wielders of worthy ideas.
> Secondly, If you are against -isms in general, like postmodernism for
> instance, then I don't really have a carefully thought out position and
> hence no real quarrel. I DO want to add that ALTHOUGH
postmodernism is
> meaningless for me as a term that describes a system of ideas, in that
I have
> to define it for myself all over again every time I use it, I find it useful
> to describe a mood or aesthetic in general. (I still have to define it every
> time I use it but the point is, it IS useful).
>
I don't see that it is useful--with reference to what you say below, in
particular, if every time you use it you have define it for yourself all over
again, then it doesn't seem to be a very efficient term.
> You realise, of course, that your desire to point out the DIFFERENCES
in
> history and see them as similarities - as mere DIFFERANCES - is
indicative
> of what can be usefully described as a postmodern impulse to
deconstruct
> history. This is the same thing I did in the above sentance with your
ideas
> and postmodernism (from which, I take it, you want to distance/different
> yourself).
> In any case, if you believe that -isms in general have no point then you
> might have a case but thinking about POSSIBLE advantages to lumping
periods
> and styles leads me to the following list:
> (1) insights: I think that there are certain insights to be gained from
> lumping things (from observing on a "macro" level). I don't think it would
> be as easy to see the rise of bourgouis capitalism without having
labelled
> mercantilism, the bourgouisie, the French Revolution, the Industrial
> Revolution etc. etc.
Mercantilism, the bourgeosie, the French Revolution and the industrial
revolution are not periods. I have little problem with talking about how
mercantilism as an actiivty, or about how the French Revolution or the
fact that the western world was rapidly industrialized in the 19th century,
contributed to the development of capitalism as we know it. I DO have a
problem with the idea of the "bourgeosie," especially insofar as
postmodernist theorists suggest that "the bourgeosie" shared certain
assumptions about the nature of self, reality, language, truth, ethics,
politics that postmodernists like to call "modernist" or "enlightenment"
assumptions.
> (2) Efficieny: When historians talk, or when anyone talks of history and
> historical events, I take they want to refer to a range of phenomenon in
a
> single word. "And of course, Victorian Doctors believed in XYZ so poor
> Mr.ABC died..."
I have already pointed out that there is no efficiency advantage to your
own use of the term "postmodern" if you have to redefine for yourself
every time you use it. But, as to your example here, I see no reason why
historians can't say "And many doctors in the 1850's believed in XYZ so
poor Mr ABC died" since it's not because the posited doctors here were
"Victorian" (of course, they were no such thing) that Mr ABC died but
because they believed XYZ. It's just as efficient to list the doctors who
believed XYZ, and to do so one doesn't have to invoke this mysterious
"Victorianism."
> (3) Organization: Related to (1) and (2) but important in its own right.
> Every discipline seeks to organize its knowledge into categories, if you
are
> against disciplines, organization and categories (and hence, by all
> accounts, a postmodernist) then you should point this out so the focus
of
> the discussion may change appropriately.
You must see that to question periodization and isms like "modernism"
and THEN to call that questioning an aspect of "postmodernism" is to buy
into the very notions I'm questioning. My stance is NOT postmodernist or
modernist or premodernist or any "ist." A number of postmodernists claim
that part of what defines the "postmodern" is a questioning of
periodization (see David Couzens Hoy's essay "Foucault: Modern or
Postmodern?" for example; you will also remember the Butler
essay I quoted in an earlier post)--and I find the unselfconsciousness
with which these theorists assert this rather remarkable.
--MJD
Omar Haneef '96
> > Firstly, I thought I was defending the (so-called, I guess) postmodern
> > thinkers as wielders of worthy ideas. And not all of them, just a few
> whom I
> > know and admire. This is where I wanted to hold my ground.
> Fine. Just stop calling those thinkers "postmodern." Then we can just talk
> about whether they are wielders of worthy ideas.
I thought you this is what you first attacked when you attacked "postmodern
thought" but we'll let this one rest since I think we have got ahold of the
heart of the issue we are debating below. (phew)
> I have
> > to define it for myself all over again every time I use it, I find it useful
> > to describe a mood or aesthetic in general. (I still have to define it every
> > time I use it but the point is, it IS useful).
> >
> I don't see that it is useful--with reference to what you say below, in
> particular, if every time you use it you have define it for yourself all over
> again, then it doesn't seem to be a very efficient term.
>
Its useful because I say: "You know Bob. I have a feeling that MTV's split
second adverts that throw all these sound bites at you really fast is a
symptom of something bigger. I think, on the whole, that it relects the
maturing of McLuhan's vision and out moving out of an era where the written
word is dominant into a new kind of era." (I DON'T think this is entirely
true but there is an insight in there that needs to be brought out with MUCH
qualification).
Bob:"Yeah, I know what you mean. The Kids are taking to the streets with all
this rock'n'roll and drugs and nobody studies anymore."
Me:"No Bob, I'm talking about postmodernism"
Bob:"Oh" (or sometimes "What the f*&% does that mean?" but the important
thing is that sometimes its "oh" and thats all the term needs to do to be
useful)
> > In any case, if you believe that -isms in general have no point then you
> > might have a case but thinking about POSSIBLE advantages to lumping
> periods
> > and styles leads me to the following list:
> > (1) insights: I think that there are certain insights to be gained from
> > lumping things (from observing on a "macro" level). I don't think it would
> > be as easy to see the rise of bourgouis capitalism without having
> labelled
> > mercantilism, the bourgouisie, the French Revolution, the Industrial
> > Revolution etc. etc.
> Mercantilism, the bourgeosie, the French Revolution and the industrial
> revolution are not periods. I have little problem with talking about how
> mercantilism as an actiivty, or about how the French Revolution or the
> fact that the western world was rapidly industrialized in the 19th century,
> contributed to the development of capitalism as we know it. I DO have a
> problem with the idea of the "bourgeosie," especially insofar as
> postmodernist theorists suggest that "the bourgeosie" shared certain
> assumptions about the nature of self, reality, language, truth, ethics,
> politics that postmodernists like to call "modernist" or "enlightenment"
> assumptions.
Wait a second. This is not about "the postmodernists" anymore (I'm
sick of you lumping them togather - :) ). There is some hypocrisy here
because, by your own assertion there should be no such thing as "the
postmodernists" but, anyway (that aside), labels have been applied to people
and historical periods before the term postmodern was ever close to being
dream't up. I think are debate is no longer concerned with postmodernism, we
are now talking about lumping in general: something that every discipline
does but we are especially concerned with the social sciences and humanities
(I think).
> > (2) Efficieny: When historians talk, or when anyone talks of history and
> > historical events, I take they want to refer to a range of phenomenon in
> a
> > single word. "And of course, Victorian Doctors believed in XYZ so poor
> > Mr.ABC died..."
> I have already pointed out that there is no efficiency advantage to your
> own use of the term "postmodern" if you have to redefine for yourself
> every time you use it. But, as to your example here, I see no reason why
> historians can't say "And many doctors in the 1850's believed in XYZ so
> poor Mr ABC died" since it's not because the posited doctors here were
> "Victorian" (of course, they were no such thing) that Mr ABC died but
> because they believed XYZ. It's just as efficient to list the doctors who
> believed XYZ, and to do so one doesn't have to invoke this mysterious
> "Victorianism."
See above. You have a point about the doctors though.
> > (3) Organization: Related to (1) and (2) but important in its own right.
> > Every discipline seeks to organize its knowledge into categories, if you
> are
> > against disciplines, organization and categories (and hence, by all
> > accounts, a postmodernist) then you should point this out so the focus
> of
> > the discussion may change appropriately.
> You must see that to question periodization and isms like "modernism"
> and THEN to call that questioning an aspect of "postmodernism" is to buy
> into the very notions I'm questioning. My stance is NOT postmodernist or
> modernist or premodernist or any "ist." A number of postmodernists claim
> that part of what defines the "postmodern" is a questioning of
> periodization (see David Couzens Hoy's essay "Foucault: Modern or
> Postmodern?" for example; you will also remember the Butler
> essay I quoted in an earlier post)--and I find the unselfconsciousness
> with which these theorists assert this rather remarkable.
Agreed. I lay no claims to being "a postmodernist" so I can happily label my
brains out.
-Omar Haneef
>
> --MJD
CBRETTSCHNEI
James Drummond Morris
--
James Drummond Morris
******************************************************************************
cybe...@tzero.demon.co.uk
"A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous.
Got me?"
******************************************************************************
Ian Michael Thal
Foucault over Heidegger with regards to certain matters. JSoffer (Joshua
(?) Soffer) challenged me to offer my "radical" reading of Foucault. As
our conversation continued, I crossposted the thread onto alt.postmodern,
whereupon Omar Haneef '96 (like Josh, a proponent of Derrida) got
involved. Since then, the conversation seems less about my radical
reading of Foucault then about my appropriation of that interpretation
into my own thought. Incidently, I have begun to better appreciate what I
owe to Heidegger. This posting is a reply to Omar's questions and
criticisms but it has been formulated so that readers who have not read
earlier postings in this thread may follow along. Enjoy and feel free to
join in.]
In my earlier posting, I mention a "moment of intrusion upon
consciousness" that evades [the appropriation into] discourse. My
Hegelian education leaves me frequently appropriating his vocabulary
without realizing that most people use words very differntly. Moments are
not fleeting temporal events, but thematizable levels of of phenomenon. I
apologize for the confusion. Other causes for confusion were imprecise
language. Omar rightly put me to task on this question.
Phenomena intrude upon consciousness, yet, in the attempt to assimulate or
appropriate the phenomena into discourse, something is lost, something
evades the appropriation. This evaision of appropriation is a function of
what Derridians call differance [In an earlier posting I describe
differance as an "inside-out" _Aufheben_]. Furthermore, in the
communication of discourse (phenomena of discursive beings), there is an
evaison of the communication: meanings are lost and meanings multiply.
Again, this simultanious loss and multiplication is a fuction of
differance. This "differancial" phenomenon is the phenomenon
* * *
Omar Haneef:
> ...I would ...ask that you [to] advance a theory or, at least, a
> notion of what this "non-hypostatized" experience of the self is. Where and
> when does it occur, and again, how does it allow phenomena to....
> produce the ecstasis that transcends discourse.
I have gone on to claim that as Foucault's archaeologies, genealogies, and
problematizations undermine the modern subject, they point to towards the
possibility of ecstatic, non-subjective self, perhaps a non-subjective
non-self. Perhaps this makes me a nihilist. This might be called a
differncial self. This seems to be the point where I genuinely break from
Foucault. This is also where things become very difficult as I am trying
both to construct and avoid constructing a frame of reference.
Here I quote myself (IMT):
> An openess to ecstasis is not an autonomy for the individual subject, but
> autonmy from a regime of subjection. That, is a radical idea of freedom.
A note on terminology: subjection is the process in Foucault's middle and
later writings by which a body becomes a subject in the modern sense:
consciousness that has the nature of being what is in Latin known as a
Subiectum (Sp?) or a "thrown-under", that is, thrown under accidents,
change, and form. This is the translation of the Greek Hupostasis, the
"standing-under" of all things. In opposition to this modern subject, I
allow for the possibility of an ekstasis, a "standing-out" (from which our
modern words ecstatic and ecstasy are derived). I am suggesting that our
selves not be subjects, but for lack of a better word, ejects. Self as
eject is not a self that merely appropriates into itself, covering up all
differance, but one which is plunged into differance, which finds it
mysterious that it can say "I am I", for the I that it identifies itself
finds itself lost to this identification [confusion between subject and
object both intended and unintended], lost to subjectification, lost to
objectification.
More of me:
> ...I am not writing of a
> subject free from subjection... rather, a non-subject free from
> subjection: Ek-stasis free from hupo-stasis. Yes, it is the end of man
> as we know it, and I feel fine [I've been want to make that joke for a
> while].
Ejectivity is strange (I do not yet know what to make of it) but I propose
it as the other side of that metaphysical mirage: the subject. Foucault
has offered us histories of how we come to describe ourselves as
subjects. But, in no way can one describe the becoming a subject (in the
metaphysical sense, not in the Foucaultian sense of the term), western
metaphysics does not allow for that type of motion nor that aspect of
subjects (The doctrine of creation, at least in Aquinas, is not a
becoming; it is a relation that relies on the highest being, an eternal
subject, called "Deus"). Ejectivity must be offered as a suppliment to
subjectivity, just as Derrida offers differance as a suppliment to
Aufheben and Kierkegaard offered repeatition as a suppliment to
recollection.
I do not know if I can offer a theory of ejectivity. I can remind you of
memories that seem so initimate, yet it is with wonder that you are
reminded that those memories are your own. When you cannot believe what
you are doing or reading or thinking. When you cannot give an acount of
yourself to the questions of a Socrates. "Religious" experiences. I do
not think that these ecstatic experiences are just exceptional moments,
but suppressed in hupostatic experience, like the schematicism of these
sentences.
-"Ian" who is Ian
JSoffer
`eject', from subjection? Is'nt the essense of subjection the being
constrained by that which we do not know or control? In the instant you
articulate the essense of the `eject' as mysterious to him\herself you
crreate a new source of subjection, the subjection of that whichis
mysterious within ourselves. The only way out of this rap is through a
notion of experience as radically self-consistent, as an unfolding or
flowing which is never alientated from itself.The freedom you speak of is
the freedom of chaos and this is no freedom at all in relation to the
freedom which a self which is always familiar to itself expresses. Am I
talking about a Cartesian , Kantaian, Hegelian sbject? Does one have to
regress to 19h century notions of mind or earlier notions to do better
than the idea of a tragic, Appollonian-Dyonisian non-self with crummy
insight into human motivation? The reason Freud has been rejected, and
behaviorism too, by most of the psychological community, is because we
have found more intricate and useful ways to understand human exerience
than to see ourselves as blindly pushed or pulled by external or internal
catalysts. The non-self eject who is non-subjugated is still blindly
pushed. On the other hand, the growing number of philosophical and
psychological approaches which make human functioning and meaing a gentle
intricate, dynamic flowing interrelationship within self and between
selves in a community(Gendlin, Piaget, Rychlak, Kelly, Merleau-Ponty,
Gadamer, Adler, Dewey, Husserl) nderstand more of human experience and are
able to be more tolerant toward self and other. I find it crucial to focus
on how affectivities like guilt, anger, anxiety, and sadness are treated
by an approach. It is at this very sepcific level that we find our
philosophical outlook differing from another. Often, lengthy discussions
of our understanding of Derrida versus Foucault versus Heidegger fail to
bring out exactly how we mean these ideas when we turn off the computer
and deal with family, friends, our childnren, people in the news. It is
at the level of mood, emotion, affect, that we can come to see most
clearly the unsefulness, the clarity, the elegance of a position. The way
I see Foucault and Nietzsche and Freud and Adorno and Lacan and DeMan,
among others, dealing with the nature of mood encapsulates beautifuly for
me what they still dont understand about human experiencing. They
hypostasize suffering and tragedy to a degree I believe unnecessary, but
which is a natural outcome of a framework which worships difference with a
capital D in the name of freedom but does not realize that hidden within
their tragic nonsubject is an exquitisite order of self-consistent,
continually self-transforming meaning which is not beholden to guilt ,
anger, anxiety, to the degree necessary for the `post-moderns'. Anger,
anxiety, gulit, these are question marks, temporary interruptions in the
flow of experiencing. They are not substantive things of experience but
gaps, which implies that they can be `filled in' via an awareness on our
part of the whole of our experiencing rather than or narrowing ourselves
to what seems to separate us from oursleves and others. Alienation is a
less liberating value than the relation of sef-consistecy and community.
Masses
>I HAVE read Heidegger, and if you think he knows anything about freedom,
>you
>just might think he learned it from Mussolini (a great admirer of his).
Help me respond.
Ian Michael Thal
I don't think Mussolini had time for the study of contemporary philosophy
(Heidegger's first major work was published in German in 1927).
Heidegger had little to say about political freedom as those of us who
inherited the French, English, Scotish, and American Enlightenments
understand it. This sort of freedom would, in H.'s view, be just another
manifestation of modern metaphysics, which is de-cadent, or fallen.
The only form of freedom that H. was concerned with was the freedom to be
an authentic being-towards-death (If anyone has a better explanation,
please correct me...)
As far as Heidegger's politics: Yes, there is a connection between his
support of the Nazi party and his philosophy. But it has little to do
with Mussolini or political freedom (or lack of thereof). It is based on
a linguistic (as opposed to biological) racism (i.e. "One can only
philosophize in German...") and a bitter hatred of the modern (i.e.
technological, bourgois, cosmopolitan [read "Jewish"]) world.
For Heidegger, Mussolini spoke the wrong language (Romance languages, just
for being descendents of Latin, were decadent), and was supportive of the
Italian Jews (Italians, by the way were far more likely to protect their
Jewish neighbors from the Gestapo than the French or the Dutch).
Heidegger, though, was ultimately a philosophy professor. However
repugnant the man may have been, to blame the crimes of that took entire
nations to commit, upon a philosophy professor who lived contemporary to
the crimes is ridiculous. Germany, with help from its French, Croation,
Latvian, Dutch, etc. collaborators sent millions to extermination and
slave labor camps, and displaced millions more. Heidegger did not. The
Americans, the British and the Soviets ignored the atrocities until it was
far too late.
Heidegger can be condemned for even after the fact, when all was known, to
look at the Holocaust with utter depravity.
Your annoying interlocutor is, indeed, an idiot. But Heidegger was not an
admirable man, to say the least.
-Ian