> This is an apt illustration of the disciplinary silos in academe. The
> notion that there are social structures that operate independently of any
> individual is a fundamental idea covered in any Soc 101 class. In this
> respect, Foucault's work is almost banal sociology. It fascinates me that
> a fundamental principle in one academic discipline is construed by someone
> trained in another discipline as outrageous solipsism.
>
> Miles
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The just so stories of independence have been undergone so many contestations/mutations in various disciplines in the last 80 years that the last place anyone should think the final words have been uttered on the topic are in a Soc 101 class.
Historicizing the various notion of independence and the explanatory cum political purposes the term serves would be slightly less interesting than the contestations over the historicizing of the concept of objectivity. Indeed the two terms inhabit the same party circuits.
Ian