9 ideas
| 21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: In early work Foucault writes in opposition to the Enlightenment. ..The reason that was supposed to liberate us has itself become the primary instrument of our domination. ..His heroisation of the mad aims to set up an alternative to the regime of reason. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 7 | |
| A reaction: Adorno and Horkheimer are cited as background. I hear Spinoza turning in his grave, because right reason could never be an instrument of domination. |
| 21681 | Given all true atomic propositions, in theory every other truth can thereby be deduced [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Given all true atomic propositions, together with the fact that they are all, every other true proposition can theoretically be deduced by logical methods. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Intro to 2nd ed of Principia Mathematica [1925], p.xv) | |
| A reaction: This is evidently his strongest statement of the ideal underlying logical atomism. The atoms were initially sense-date, but then became atomic propositions saying an object has a property. |
| 21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Foucault's project is to question quite specific claims to cognitive authority, made by many psychologists and social scientists. He has not problems with other domains, such as mathematics and the basic sciences. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 5 | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we describe his target as Epistemic Injustice (see book of that title by Miranda Fricker). |
| 21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Unlike Marxists, Foucault's project is to offer an internal account of human thinking, without assuming a privileged status for the conscious content of that thought. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 4 | |
| A reaction: His project is historical. Personally I resent anyone who claims to understand my thought better than I do. I suppose my intellectual duty is to read Foucault, and see (honestly) whether his project applies to me. |
| 21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Foucault maintains that for any 'authored' text a plurality of selves fulfils the author function. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 2 | |
| A reaction: This is a completely different concept of a 'self' from the one normally found in this database. I would call it the sociological concept of self, as something changing with context. So how many selves is 'Jane Austen'? |
| 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. |
| 21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
| Full Idea: For Foucault power is less about repressing people or issuing commands, and more about producing identities and ways of living. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 01 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the culmination of the Hegelian view of a person, as largely created by social circumstances rather than by biology. I'm beginning to think that Foucault may be a very important philosopher - although elusive. |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |