> CB: Away from the socialist social theory.
>
what socialist social theory? it's not a unitary body.
>>>and maybe that he's having fun messing with people's minds.
>
>
> So people who think he has something to offer don't know the error of
> their ways and need to led back to..... where?
>
> ^^^
> CB: I didn't characterize Foucault followers that way. Doesn't
> Foucault criticize lots of other social theorists ? Is he trying to
> lead them back to...where ?
>
> I can criticize Foucault just like Foucault can criticize somebody
> else. When I do so, I am no more "acting superior" to Foucault or his
> "followers" than you are acting superior to those you criticize. That's
> the game here. Argument. I'm arguing with Foucault and proponents of
> Foucault ideas. It's social theorist vs social theorist.
I've read critiques of Foucault that have value, but critique is always a serious engagement with a person's work. We can see a good example of this of course in Capital or Jameson's work on structuralism in the Prison House of Language. You have not engaged in Foucault's work at all. If you were honest, you have been 'talking shit', and not involved in criticism at all. I don't have an issue with 'talking shit per se. I do it all the time, particularly around the work of Badiou and Zizek, but I do have an issue with calling that criticism.
> Why don't you take the time to write down a complete list of Foucault's
> main ideas for discussion.
>
Charles, you're the one who sounds like a prosecutor. I believe within
that logic, you have to make the case. I should note that there isn't a
unitary uptake of the work of Foucault anymore than there is a unitary
uptake of Marx, Kant, Hegel or any other serious writer. To get back to
your earlier question about structuralism, I always liked my professor's
(Cesare Casarino) take on this question. There is actually a lot more
that structuralism and post-structuralism have in common, when you think
about the work as a split from existencialism/phenomenology. Both
emphasize a critique of a subject centered conceptualization of the world
and both point to the fact that the subject is created through well...
structures. The post-structuralist critique of structuralism is around
the nature of those structures and can't be turned into a monolithic
response (that is to say, Foucault's critique is actually antagonistic to
Derrida's etc.
To return to the original question, I can respond to specific critiques of Foucault, but the only real intellectual response to talking shit is more shit.
robert wood