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. |
16660 | Are things distinct if they are both separate, or if only one of them can be separate? [Duns Scotus, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Later standard theories said that a real distinction obtains between two things that can each exist without the other. For Scotus a real distinction requires only that one of the pair be able to exist without the other. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (In Metaphysics [1304], V.5-6 n91) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.5 | |
A reaction: His example is the similarity relation, which is independent of the whiteness on which it is based (since the other thing can become non-white). |
16626 | Substance is only grasped under the general heading of 'being' [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: No substance is understood in its own right, except in the most universal of concepts, namely of 'being'. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (In Metaphysics [1304], III n. 116), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.3 | |
A reaction: This is a fairly standard scholastic pessimism about knowing anything about substance. The modern view suggests that actually scientists know 'substance' pretty well. |
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'? |
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
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. |