10 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. |
| 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. |
| 21004 | Hart (against Bentham) says human rights are what motivate legal rights [Hart,HLA, by Sen] |
| Full Idea: Whereas Bentham saw rights as a 'child of law', Herbert Hart's view takes the form of seeing human rights as, in effect, 'parents of law'; they motivate specific legislations. | |
| From: report of H.L.A. Hart (The Concept of Law [1961]) by Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice 17 'Ethics' | |
| A reaction: [He cites Hart 1955 'Are there any natural rights?'] I agree with Hart. It is clearer if the parents of law are not referred to as 'rights'. You can demand a right, but it is only a right when it is awarded to you. |
| 20932 | Positive law needs secondary 'rules of recognition' for their correct application [Hart,HLA, by Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Hart says we have secondary legal 'rules of recognition', by which primary positive law is recognised and applied in a regulated manner. | |
| From: report of H.L.A. Hart (The Concept of Law [1961]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction 6 'Rules' | |
| A reaction: The example of the authority of a particular court is given. |
| 20931 | Hart replaced positivism with the democratic requirement of the people's acceptance [Hart,HLA, by Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Hart replaced Austin's concept of positive law as sovereign command with a more democratic ideal. In modern law-based societies the authority of law depends on the people's acceptance of a law's enduring validity. | |
| From: report of H.L.A. Hart (The Concept of Law [1961]) by Jens Zimmermann - Hermeneutics: a very short introduction 6 'Hart' | |
| A reaction: Presumably the ancestor of this view is the social contract of Hobbes and Locke. |
| 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. |