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It... it really doesn't, and this article makes that fact quite plain. Foucault's philosophies are nuggets of well-worn common sense extrapolated out into billo

It... it really doesn't, and this article makes that fact quite plain. Foucault's philosophies are nuggets of well-worn common sense extrapolated out into billowing collections of unnecessary text. I wonder if anyone has done the kind deed of whittling his most oft-cited gaseous emanations down to their core common sense origins. That'd save a lot of time for those of us not interested in a career in academia.

barce 10y ago
The first page of "Discipline and Punish" is a very clear description of the drawing and quartering of a regicide. I am not sure what nuggets you are referring to. Citations, please. I think he is arguing against "whittling... down to their core common sense origins," because such origins are illusory.
- jseliger 10y ago
  Citations, please This is a hilarious comment, given that Foucault's History of Sexuality contains almost no citations! If you are interested in why Foucault ought to be a laughingstock, see Windshuttle's The Killing of History: https://www.amazon.com/Killing-History-Literary-Theorists-Murdering/dp/1893554120 https://www.amazon.com/Killing-History-Literary-Theorists-Mu... or the many essays Camille Paglia wrote on him. Her latest book has a reprint of "Review: Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf."
norswap 10y ago
Isn't that what most of philosophy is about? But of course, well-worn common sense is, and always has been, in perilous short supply.
- lemonberry 10y ago
  I always hate appeals to commmon sense. Common sense is often wrong. It gives us things like "the world is flat".
  - norswap 10y ago
    Bit of a strawman. Common sense is not folk wisdom. Also common sense doesn't really have a place in "cold" scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to point out that "the world is flat" was a perfectly good theory that fit the fact for most observers. What is foolish is the refusal to change one's belief once it was proved to be wrong, or even to be closed to the possibility of an alternative.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
StClaire 10y ago
My freshman year of college I took a Polish literature seminar and I had to give a presentation on the Foucault and the body applied to a short story I hadn't read from The Street of Crocodiles. An important thought crashed into my head that froze me solid for about 30 seconds, "who the F cares?" I thanked the professor for her time, told her I was done with her class and I walked out. I dropped her class and switched my major to applied math. She sent me a very nice email that wished me luck.
cuspy 10y ago
Power and knowledge are co-constitutive. Knowledge masks power relations between individuals and it always has a disciplinary function. All discourses, including science, are rooted in their historical epoch. There are no transhistorical truths, but truth and justice are true relative to the field of power/knowledge they are embedded in. Does that really sound like widely accepted common sense? Do you not agree that western societies are driven by a popular belief in either pure nationalist authority or in authority masked in terms of objectivity, scientific progress and justice?
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > There are no transhistorical truths, but truth and justice are true relative to the field of power/knowledge they are embedded in. Which is at least stated as if the quoted statement itself were a transhistorical truth. That is, the quoted statement, applied to itself, refutes itself. (Because if the statement itself is a transhistorical truth, then the statement itself is a counterexample to the claim of the statement. And if the statement itself is not a transhistorical truth, then there are transhistorical truths in other historical epochs and/or other fields of knowledge.)
  - cuspy 10y ago
    My position as a materialist (and a practicing scientist) is that propositions are not magical transcendental objects. The idea of "refutation" rests on the presupposition of a given linguistic exchange being inside a self-consistent system of argument. In reality, language behaviors, including writing and argument, are always material, contingent and underspecified. Language is a "reef of dead metaphors". Utterances take place in a cultural and historical context, and their meaning, both at the level of reference and argument structure, is always dependent on that context, <i>including what I am writing right now</i>. You run into this kind of boring infinite recursion refrain when you remain attached to the idea that "proof" and "truth" operate at a metaphysical level above material. It's unfortunate that this is so widespread.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago

barce 10y ago

The first page of "Discipline and Punish" is a very clear description of the drawing and quartering of a regicide. I am not sure what nuggets you are referring to. Citations, please. I think he is arguing against "whittling... down to their core common sense origins," because such origins are illusory.

jseliger 10y ago
Citations, please This is a hilarious comment, given that Foucault's History of Sexuality contains almost no citations! If you are interested in why Foucault ought to be a laughingstock, see Windshuttle's The Killing of History: https://www.amazon.com/Killing-History-Literary-Theorists-Murdering/dp/1893554120 https://www.amazon.com/Killing-History-Literary-Theorists-Mu... or the many essays Camille Paglia wrote on him. Her latest book has a reprint of "Review: Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf."

norswap 10y ago

Isn't that what most of philosophy is about? But of course, well-worn common sense is, and always has been, in perilous short supply.

lemonberry 10y ago
I always hate appeals to commmon sense. Common sense is often wrong. It gives us things like "the world is flat".
- norswap 10y ago
  Bit of a strawman. Common sense is not folk wisdom. Also common sense doesn't really have a place in "cold" scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to point out that "the world is flat" was a perfectly good theory that fit the fact for most observers. What is foolish is the refusal to change one's belief once it was proved to be wrong, or even to be closed to the possibility of an alternative.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

StClaire 10y ago

My freshman year of college I took a Polish literature seminar and I had to give a presentation on the Foucault and the body applied to a short story I hadn't read from The Street of Crocodiles. An important thought crashed into my head that froze me solid for about 30 seconds, "who the F cares?" I thanked the professor for her time, told her I was done with her class and I walked out. I dropped her class and switched my major to applied math. She sent me a very nice email that wished me luck.

cuspy 10y ago

Power and knowledge are co-constitutive. Knowledge masks power relations between individuals and it always has a disciplinary function. All discourses, including science, are rooted in their historical epoch. There are no transhistorical truths, but truth and justice are true relative to the field of power/knowledge they are embedded in. Does that really sound like widely accepted common sense? Do you not agree that western societies are driven by a popular belief in either pure nationalist authority or in authority masked in terms of objectivity, scientific progress and justice?

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> There are no transhistorical truths, but truth and justice are true relative to the field of power/knowledge they are embedded in. Which is at least stated as if the quoted statement itself were a transhistorical truth. That is, the quoted statement, applied to itself, refutes itself. (Because if the statement itself is a transhistorical truth, then the statement itself is a counterexample to the claim of the statement. And if the statement itself is not a transhistorical truth, then there are transhistorical truths in other historical epochs and/or other fields of knowledge.)
- cuspy 10y ago
  My position as a materialist (and a practicing scientist) is that propositions are not magical transcendental objects. The idea of "refutation" rests on the presupposition of a given linguistic exchange being inside a self-consistent system of argument. In reality, language behaviors, including writing and argument, are always material, contingent and underspecified. Language is a "reef of dead metaphors". Utterances take place in a cultural and historical context, and their meaning, both at the level of reference and argument structure, is always dependent on that context, <i>including what I am writing right now</i>. You run into this kind of boring infinite recursion refrain when you remain attached to the idea that "proof" and "truth" operate at a metaphysical level above material. It's unfortunate that this is so widespread.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago