Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Herodotus, Michel Foucault and Buddhaghosa

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8 ideas

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 3. Natural Values / c. Natural rights

21940	Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault]
	Full Idea: The decision 'to prefer the risk of death to the certainty of having to obey' is the 'last anchor point' for any assertion of rights, 'one more solid and closer to the experience than "natural rights"'.
	From: Michel Foucault (works [1978], EW III:449)
	A reaction: I recall a group of Afrikaan men going to face certain death, rather than give up apartheid.

24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State

15043	Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault]
	Full Idea: Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth - the types of discourse it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms for distinguishing; the means of sanctioning it; the values in its acquisition; the status of its keepers.
	From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.131)
	A reaction: [compressed] This idea is appropriately filed under 'society' rather than under 'truth'. Foucault knows there is a genuine truth beneath the complex social story.

24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 1. Social Power

15040	Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault]
	Full Idea: Power in Western capitalism was denounced by the Marxists as class domination; but the mechanics of power in themselves were never analysed.
	From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.117)
	A reaction: This seems to pinpoint Foucault's distinctive contribution to political thought, and it makes him one of the most interesting thinkers in the area. It is a good approach to history, but also to the role of power as a background to conventional thought.

15041	Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault]
	Full Idea: If power was only repressive, would we obey it? What makes power accepted is the fact …that it also traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse.
	From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.120)
	A reaction: Once you present 'power' this way, it permeates so deeply into human activity that it is in danger of becoming a mere triviality of social analysis. Is every conversation that ever took place actually a power struggle?

8991	Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton]
	Full Idea: It became impossible for Foucault to accept that power is sometimes decent and benign.
	From: report of Michel Foucault (Power/Knowledge [1980]) by Roger Scruton - Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture p.12
	A reaction: Actually Idea 7425 suggests that Foucault has no dream of eliminating power, but he does seem to be utterly in favour of maximum autonomy, and to regard paternalism as inherently evil. What sort of parent would Foucault have been?

7425	The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault]
	Full Idea: The problem is not to dissolve power relations in a utopia of transparent communications, but to acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, the morality, the practice of the self, that allows games of power with minimum domination.
	From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.298)
	A reaction: If you are a democrat it is hard to disagree with this, though I am still unclear why being dominated should rank as a total disaster. A healthy personal relationship might involve domination. 'Management techniques' is interesting.

24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 3. Government / a. Government

22236	The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault]
	Full Idea: How to govern was one of the fundamental question of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. ...How to govern children, the poor and beggars, how to govern the family, a house, how to govern armies, different groups, cities, states, and govern one's self.
	From: Michel Foucault (What is Critique? [1982], p.28), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 9
	A reaction: A nice example of Foucault showing how things we take for granted (techniques of control) have been slowly learned, and then taught as standard. Of course, the Romans knew how to govern an army.

24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / a. Centralisation

21947	Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting]
	Full Idea: Foucault's analysis suggests that meaningful revolution, hence genuine liberation, is impossible: the only alternative to the modern net of micro-centres of power is totalitatian domination. Hence his politics, even when revolutionary, is always local.
	From: report of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish [1977]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 8
	A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this.