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I can not understand why Foucault is taken seriously. In fact, I cannot understand how Sociology is taken seriously. In my uni course, the textbook tried to cla

I can not understand why Foucault is taken seriously. In fact, I cannot understand how Sociology is taken seriously. In my uni course, the textbook tried to claim that childhood development is a myth. When I pointed out the decades of child development psychological studies and research, I was told "we aren't studying psychology, we are studying sociology." Great! And yet there is an entire field that claims the direct opposite of what is being espoused and this is the best argument they could give me.

beepbooptheory 5mo ago
What was the textbook?
drooby 5mo ago
Foucault is taken seriously because his ideas are politically empowering
- appreciatorBus 5mo ago
  Just like Marx, the words & concepts are not really about the words or the concepts. Instead they form a theology whose practice promises to give frustrated elites an alternate path to power.
dvt 5mo ago
> why Foucault is taken seriously I studied philosophy at a pretty prestigious institution, and he's not taken that seriously. He lives squarely in the deep caverns of the "continental" space, where philosophy is often intertwined with psychology, politics, sociology, and so on. But even there, he doesn't reach the level of Sartre, Heidegger, or (of course) Hegel. Let alone Kant, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (who generally all have specifically dedicated courses). I'm not a huge fan of Nietzsche, but he always has a point. When I read Sartre or Foucault, I'm just left scratching my head as to what they are talking about.
- voidhorse 5mo ago
  Funnily enough, iirc Foucault viewed a large part of his work as extending the style of investigation Neitzsche initiated in Genealogy of Morals. I think Nietzsche is great. His prose is a breath of fresh air and he's arguably the greatest literary stylist among philosophers since the Greeks. Sartre was pretty good too, likely thanks to his ability as a novelist. Some later continental philosophers would have really benefited from reading his aphorism that good writers write to be understood.
  - __patchbit__ 5mo ago
    David Macey (2000) Dictionary of Critical Theory; mentions Foucault a few times.
- lo_zamoyski 5mo ago
  > where philosophy is often intertwined with psychology, politics, sociology To be fair, these - and pretty much anything - have philosophical roots. And philosophy is omnivorous. Of course, philosophy in the highest and most rarified sense deals with the first principles of its scope, but I’m not sure the distinction matters here.
- ofrzeta 5mo ago
  So what point does "Zarathustra" make, say, in comparison with "Discipline and Punish"? I think both authors have published a broad spectrum of works, ranging from "accessible, rational" to "confusing". Both are suitable for having catchy citations ripped out of their context. "He who does battle with monsters needs to watch out lest he in the process become a monster himself. And if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you." (Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse)
- operatingthetan 5mo ago
  > He lives squarely in the deep caverns of the "continental" space And yet continental became the zeitgeist of virtually all contemporary popular culture and analytic is left as a stodgy academic dead end.
- 5mo ago
voidhorse 5mo ago
I have a lot of issues with latter 20th cen continental (particularly french) philosophers, but of all of them Foucault is the last one anyone should have an issue with. While he's guilty of some of the pompous and needlessly intelligible stylistics this crew adopted, he at least has some pretty substantial ideas behind his work. Derrida and Lacan on the other hand.... As far as sociology goes, I think you probably realize claiming an entire field is bunk is dumb. In fact you are committing the very wrong you are apparently complying about (writing off the field of developmental psychology). I haven't heard of. a single beef between these two fields btw, must have been an odd textbook.
- gershy 5mo ago
  Asking open-mindedly and genuinely: what, for you, comes to mind as an especially useful and/or powerful idea uniquely articulated by foucault?
  - voidhorse 5mo ago
    Biopower is the most famous one, but I actually think his greatest contribution was to make philosophers pay more attention to the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power. I actually think his phd thesis "the history of madness" is his best work. It encapsulates much of the subject matter that would occupy him (knowledge and power) in a domain that's easier to understand than some of his later arguments, and it predates his adoption of a more contorted literary style (or maybe the translation is just better, idk). Ian Hacking also has a great text that extends Foucault's work "Historical Ontology" that picks up many of the chief ideas in a far more lucid manner for those of us who aren't fans of the later continental style (which if I'm being honest, was always a little too concerned with being obtuse just to sound intelligent)
    - Avicebron 5mo ago
      > the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power Right. Which was immediately weaponized but poorly and at the wrong target(s), which is why he is so reviled.
dogscatstrees 5mo ago
Fans of Nassim Taleb will know his disdain for Foucault.
- potsandpans 5mo ago
  Why is nassim taken seriously?
  - Antibabelic 5mo ago
    He is loud and wrote some useful books.
  - unixhero 5mo ago
    Because he is an erudite and writes insightful things such as Antifragile and Black Swan. And in addition these are fun reads.
robwwilliams 5mo ago
You are making a point that shares much with Foucault’s work: trying to understand why and how fields like psychology and sociology came to be crystallized into academic pigeonholes. Your frustration is what he studied. If you want a deeper answer to your question read: R. Rorty (1991) “Moral Identity and Private Autonomy: The Case of Foucault” (in Essays on Heidegger and Others) Rorty makes the point that there are (at least) two ways to read Foucault: both interesting and also in tension.
utopiah 5mo ago
3 different opinions amalgamated as 1 logical conclusion. 1 : your university course had a perspective another field of study contradicted (according to you and your teachers then) 2 : because of that one of those fields, the "new" one according to your learning process, can't be taken seriously 3 : consequently any author from that field can not be taken seriously No, assuming your recall of the situation is correct it just means you had teachers who didn't care and relied on shitty textbooks, nothing deeper about entire fields.

beepbooptheory 5mo ago

What was the textbook?

drooby 5mo ago

Foucault is taken seriously because his ideas are politically empowering

appreciatorBus 5mo ago
Just like Marx, the words & concepts are not really about the words or the concepts. Instead they form a theology whose practice promises to give frustrated elites an alternate path to power.

dvt 5mo ago

> why Foucault is taken seriously I studied philosophy at a pretty prestigious institution, and he's not taken that seriously. He lives squarely in the deep caverns of the "continental" space, where philosophy is often intertwined with psychology, politics, sociology, and so on. But even there, he doesn't reach the level of Sartre, Heidegger, or (of course) Hegel. Let alone Kant, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (who generally all have specifically dedicated courses). I'm not a huge fan of Nietzsche, but he always has a point. When I read Sartre or Foucault, I'm just left scratching my head as to what they are talking about.

voidhorse 5mo ago
Funnily enough, iirc Foucault viewed a large part of his work as extending the style of investigation Neitzsche initiated in Genealogy of Morals. I think Nietzsche is great. His prose is a breath of fresh air and he's arguably the greatest literary stylist among philosophers since the Greeks. Sartre was pretty good too, likely thanks to his ability as a novelist. Some later continental philosophers would have really benefited from reading his aphorism that good writers write to be understood.
- __patchbit__ 5mo ago
  David Macey (2000) Dictionary of Critical Theory; mentions Foucault a few times.
lo_zamoyski 5mo ago
> where philosophy is often intertwined with psychology, politics, sociology To be fair, these - and pretty much anything - have philosophical roots. And philosophy is omnivorous. Of course, philosophy in the highest and most rarified sense deals with the first principles of its scope, but I’m not sure the distinction matters here.
ofrzeta 5mo ago
So what point does "Zarathustra" make, say, in comparison with "Discipline and Punish"? I think both authors have published a broad spectrum of works, ranging from "accessible, rational" to "confusing". Both are suitable for having catchy citations ripped out of their context. "He who does battle with monsters needs to watch out lest he in the process become a monster himself. And if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you." (Friedrich Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse)
operatingthetan 5mo ago
> He lives squarely in the deep caverns of the "continental" space And yet continental became the zeitgeist of virtually all contemporary popular culture and analytic is left as a stodgy academic dead end.
5mo ago

voidhorse 5mo ago

I have a lot of issues with latter 20th cen continental (particularly french) philosophers, but of all of them Foucault is the last one anyone should have an issue with. While he's guilty of some of the pompous and needlessly intelligible stylistics this crew adopted, he at least has some pretty substantial ideas behind his work. Derrida and Lacan on the other hand.... As far as sociology goes, I think you probably realize claiming an entire field is bunk is dumb. In fact you are committing the very wrong you are apparently complying about (writing off the field of developmental psychology). I haven't heard of. a single beef between these two fields btw, must have been an odd textbook.

gershy 5mo ago
Asking open-mindedly and genuinely: what, for you, comes to mind as an especially useful and/or powerful idea uniquely articulated by foucault?
- voidhorse 5mo ago
  Biopower is the most famous one, but I actually think his greatest contribution was to make philosophers pay more attention to the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power. I actually think his phd thesis "the history of madness" is his best work. It encapsulates much of the subject matter that would occupy him (knowledge and power) in a domain that's easier to understand than some of his later arguments, and it predates his adoption of a more contorted literary style (or maybe the translation is just better, idk). Ian Hacking also has a great text that extends Foucault's work "Historical Ontology" that picks up many of the chief ideas in a far more lucid manner for those of us who aren't fans of the later continental style (which if I'm being honest, was always a little too concerned with being obtuse just to sound intelligent)
  - Avicebron 5mo ago
    > the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power Right. Which was immediately weaponized but poorly and at the wrong target(s), which is why he is so reviled.

dogscatstrees 5mo ago

Fans of Nassim Taleb will know his disdain for Foucault.

potsandpans 5mo ago
Why is nassim taken seriously?
- Antibabelic 5mo ago
  He is loud and wrote some useful books.
- unixhero 5mo ago
  Because he is an erudite and writes insightful things such as Antifragile and Black Swan. And in addition these are fun reads.

robwwilliams 5mo ago

You are making a point that shares much with Foucault’s work: trying to understand why and how fields like psychology and sociology came to be crystallized into academic pigeonholes. Your frustration is what he studied. If you want a deeper answer to your question read: R. Rorty (1991) “Moral Identity and Private Autonomy: The Case of Foucault” (in Essays on Heidegger and Others) Rorty makes the point that there are (at least) two ways to read Foucault: both interesting and also in tension.

utopiah 5mo ago

3 different opinions amalgamated as 1 logical conclusion. 1 : your university course had a perspective another field of study contradicted (according to you and your teachers then) 2 : because of that one of those fields, the "new" one according to your learning process, can't be taken seriously 3 : consequently any author from that field can not be taken seriously No, assuming your recall of the situation is correct it just means you had teachers who didn't care and relied on shitty textbooks, nothing deeper about entire fields.