> After 1968, French philosophy devoted itself to the exploration of
discourse and language. In as much as Hegel was equated with a humanist
neo-Marxism, the relentless emphasis on language and discourse was
perceived to be a renouncing of Hegel altogether. The fact that this
emphasis was thoroughly anti-humanist underscored this sense of
renunciation. Yet it is not difficult to argue that French philosophy
sought thereby to return to Kojève's insight that discourse was
arbitrary not only in its distance from any referent but also in the
manner in which it can refashion and recombine its constituent elements.
French philosophy was also perhaps recalling Kojève's insight that
discourse was a mediated suicide -- a suicide that implicated the very
idea of man....<
well, that's obviously wrong. it wasn't kojeve from whom the insight that language is arbitrary comes, but saussure, who was both a determined structuralist (not poststructuralist) and argued that the linguistic sign has an arbitrary relationship to that which it signifies. in any case, 'arbitrary' does not mean without determination, but with 'capricious' determination. and kojeve is not an anti-humanist, but rather the Last Humanist, who posits the end of humanism as its accomplishment through (as) the creation of a homogeneous and sovereign state. the echo is not in foucault, but fukuyama (the Last Man). kojeve then interiorises a nostalgia for 'times past' (when humanism was on the move), hence all the stuff about suicide, etc; as does fukuyama wander of into a nostalgia about the days when men were men because they died for their country, a Cause, etc. moreover, kojeve has an existential, anthropological reading of hegel, worked entirely through the passages on the master/bondsman. that butler and, to some extent an early foucault, likewise focus on master/bondsman, for quite different reasons perhaps, is indeed to be criticised but, given that in france, kojeve's reading of hegel dominated for over twenty years it's understandable that for foucault at least it was a terrain to explore, critique (and not finally accept) in his early writings. but neither took from kojeve the idea that humanism had been accomplished, the anthropology, or the existentialism, nor that we were, as fukuyama says (following kojeve) at the end of history and the realisation of a humanist essence in the state. that this version of hegel is what dominated the PCF already places the issue in perspective: as an important terrain on which to conduct an argument around the organisation and theorisation of an anti-capitalist politics in 1968 in france, and hardly as disconnected from political strategies as US readers are likely to receive it as.
> Foucault has passed on an intractable dilemma to his followers: the
price of fascinating and compelling analyses of power seems to be a
commitment to a notion of power that is stripped ultimately of any
historical or political specificity<
foucault can be easily accused of charting the shifts in forms of knowledge without reference to the struggles which made those shifts occur or situated them as truths, as my essay i mentioned to you some time back is more or less is based on doing, without thereby harumphing it is the fault of foucault for not doing the work i would like to see done. but that is not the same as not being historically specific. this was exactly his concern, perhaps too much. foucault gives us history without the historicism. whether his way is an effective or the best way to do this is open to question, but the parallel with hegel, or rather a kojevian hegel, is a laboured absurdity. nietzsche is more the thing, with a certain attachment to a notion of power as will. but, foucault's contribution lies in seeing those shifts not as a movement of an essence through different epiphenomenal forms (contrary to mr barnett and kojeve), but as breaks, both of form and essence (if we are to use hegelian terminology, which foucault in any event does not). the idea of the break comes from the work done in the philosophy of science by canguillem and bachelard, and whether that is interesting or useful is a discussion best conducted directly with the works of those in mind. accusing foucault of not being historically specific is pretty strange, given that's what the whole deal was about.
> It is thus not too far-fetched to suggest that one could recast the
story of the post-war French philosophy (and recent American literary
theory and criticism) as the story of Hegelianism by other means.<
it is far-fetched, because mr barnett does not even begin to do what he claims should be done, ie., be historically specific. this would show that the critique of hegel/kojeve in the late 60s and early 70s was always and quite consciously conducted as a critique of the notions and practices, dominant amongst various communist parties in europe, that the line to communism was guranteed by virtue of the subjective essence of the proletariat, or bequeathed by the true consciousness of the party, that the aim of communism was to bring about an end to history without an end to the state -- all rather hegelian/kojevian themes ti would seem. that a US reception has effaced this history of that critique, while all the while wallowing in complaints that these are not historically-specific enough is unfortunate, since it comes from an ignorance of the extent to which there was a context for this critique.
moreover, because either one claims that the problematics (of history, subject, citizen, nation, sovereignty, party, etc) embodied by hegel have been overcome someplace else (where?) or else they are is still in force, not least as continuing topics for those who attempt a critique than for those who pretend to have rediscovered it in this critique. but that 'discovery' too is far-fetched, and hardly worthy of being called an insight, since only a humanist in the manner of kojeve or mr barnett would think that there is some place _in theory_ (another theory, in the heads of the enlightened petty-bourgeois intellectuals, or in the state) which avoids these kinds of repetitions by having accomplished the end of (the) history (of theory).
Angela _________