Absolutist epistemologies self-unravel-refute also.
ian
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of James Farmelant
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 1999 6:12 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: litcritter bashing and the academic factory
>
>
>
> On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 09:14:08 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> writes:
> >James Farmelant wrote:
> >
> >>Foucault seemed capable of mixing deep insights with a lot of
> >nonsense.
> >
> >Could you give examples of each?
>
> Very briefly, Foucault in his work attempted to blend
> together Nietzschean and Marxian insights. This worked
> wll in such books as *Discipline and Punishment* where
> he provided a brilliant analysis of the social meanings
> of punishment. His Nietzschean based discourses on
> how notions of truth constitute power plays consitute
> potentially valuable contributions to our understanding
> of ideology. Likewise, I think there is much to be said
> for his studies on the relations between the exercize
> of power within a society and the ways that people
> for instance relate to their own bodies. His studies of
> the history of sexuality seem to be very suggestive even if many
> specialists find fault with the detail of his research.
> On the other hand his pretty whole hearted
> adoption of Nietzsche's perspectivism led him to embrace
> a radically relativistic epistemology. Such forms of radical
> relativism are in the end self-refuting. His book *The
> Order of Things* where he advanced his thesis that
> the evolution of science and culture in Europe
> could be understood in terms of changes in the
> prevailing epistemes from the 16th century to
> the 19th centuries, replicates IMO some of the
> strengths and weaknesses that can be found
> in Thomas Kuhn's *The Structure of Scientific
> Revolutions*. Just as Kuhn saw science as
> evolving by means of paradigmatic revolutions,
> Foucault posited that human knowledge similarly
> evolves by revolutions in the prevailing epistemes
> involving transitions from the Classical episteme
> of the 17the century when the human sciences
> were dominated by general grammar, natural
> history, and the analysis of wealth. By the 19th
> century according to Foucault these disciplines
> had been replaced by philology, biology, and
> political economy, representing a radical shift in
> the prevailing episteme. Certainly there is much to
> be said for Foucault's thesis, on the other hand
> he pushes the idea that there was such a radical
> difference between the Classical episteme and
> the modern episteme that recalls Kuhn's contention
> that different paradigms are incommensurable.
> Foucault seems to be saying something similar when
> he argued that general grammar was quite a distinct
> discipline from philology or natural history from
> biology. But this like Kuhn's thesis of the incommensurability
> of different paradigms seems to call into question our notions
> that human knowledge as it develops over time comes
> to give us a more and more accurate representation of the
> world.
>
> As I recall Justin Schwartz commented (perhaps either
> on this list or on Proyect's) that he thought Foucault to have been
> a brilliant scholar but that his epistemology was a tissue
> of nonsense. That is pretty much my view of him too.
>
> Jim F.
> >
> >Doug
> >
>
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