r/foucault

Hello!

I am a lowly political philosophy postgrad who has, in an act of genuine insanity (sorry mr foucault I know how you feel about that) chosen a critical theory sociology module and chosen an essay question on foucault. The question is...

Is the genealogy of critique proposed by Foucault a viable project? Does critique survive the operation?

I'm pretty worried that I don't fully understand his genealogy of critique (I've found reading crit theory scholars pretty hard because 1. I'm used to poli theory which loves clarity and 2. I am disabled and have a pretty poor working memory - I keep getting to the end of sentences and forgetting what they said at the start). As I understand it:

• Critique involves the relationship between knowledge, power and the subject.
• We would expect knowledge to free us from the coercive force of power, but in fact power is able to use knowledge to empower it's coercive force.

In the seminar on the subject, the lecturer seemed to describe it as a bit of a cycle where there is no truth at the end of the rainbow, just more levels of power.

At the moment, I'm thinking of making a bit of an argument that

1. the genealogy of critique is a viable project - it is important that critique is a continuous or cyclical process, constantly regenerating society, rather than a search for an answer. Acknowledging how power uses knowledge gives us a reason to continue asking questions.
2. Critique survives because, while knowledge can be used by power, we have also seen in recent times how misinformation can be wielded the same way (alternative facts, fake news), and in a world with the internet we cannot expect the moderation to be done for us.
3. Power's use of knowledge to coerce has become far easier in the age of the internet due to how easy it is for those in power to reach us. In this light, mistrust is a way of retaining our agency in whatever way we can and will, hopefully, ultimately reduce the coercive potential of knowledge and misinformation both.

My question is basically: am I barking up the wrong tree re: the theory and is my potential answer to the question totally off course?

Would be very appreciative of any support!!! : ) Thank you!

The Normal and the Pathological is one of the crucial contributions to the history of science in the last half century. It takes as its starting point the sudden appearance of biology as a science in the nineteenth century and examines the conditions determining its particular makeup.

Canguilhem analyzes the radically new way in which health and disease were defined in the early nineteenth century, showing that the emerging categories of the normal and the pathological were far from objective scientific concepts. He demonstrates how the epistemological foundations of modern biology and medicine were intertwined with political, economic, and technological imperatives.

Canguilhem was an important influence on the thought of Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser, among others, in particular for the way in which he poses the problem of how new domains of knowledge come into being and how they are part of a discontinuous history of human thought.

https://preview.redd.it/xf8uh1cpbm0h1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ede8d0a0e6fcccdbe529c76e385e3e840b3b627e

Hi everyone, welcome to the next series presented by Philip. This will be a 3 hour event meeting every 2 weeks. For the first 2 hours we will be reading from Canguilhem's book "The Normal and the Pathological." We will be using the Zone Books translation. During the last hour we will discuss this book: Canguilhem (Key Contemporary Thinkers) by Stuart Elden.

To join the 1st meeting, taking place on Friday May 15 (EDT), please sign up in advance on the main event page here (link); the Zoom link will be provided to registrants.

Meetings will be held every other week on Friday. Sign up for subsequent meetings through our calendar (link).

Here is the reading schedule for the first few sessions:

First Session (Friday May 15)

• In Canguilhem: Please read up to page 24 (Foucault's Introduction)
• In Elden: Please read up to page 13

Second Session (Friday May 29)

• In Canguilhem: Please read up to page 46
• In Elden: Please read up to page 20

Third Session

• In Canguilhem: Please read up to page 64
• In Elden: Please read up to page 27

Check the group calendar for updates. A pdf of reading materials will be provided to registrants.

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MORE ABOUT THIS DISCUSSION GROUP

This meetup on Canguilhem will be followed by a meetup on Foucault's book "The Archaeology of Knowledge". The "Archaeology of Knowledge" meetup may in turn be followed by further meetups on Philosophy of Science in the French tradition, perhaps centred around Foucault as well as Foucault's great successor, the Canadian philosopher Ian Hacking.

This Canguilhem meetup can be enjoyed for its own sake, even if you have no intention of attending the companion meetup on Foucault's "The Archaeology of Knowledge".

However, if you do plan to attend the "The Archaeology of Knowledge" meetup, I strongly recommend that you attend this Canguilhem meetup first. Foucault's thought is of interest to people in a very wide range of disciplines. But the side of Foucault's thought that we encounter in "The Archaeology of Knowledge" is really only studied in any depth by philosophers. It is very far removed from the side of Foucault's thought that has become popular. This Canguilhem meetup will serve as an introduction to Philosophy of Science in the French tradition, and some familiarity with this tradition will serve you well when you encounter "The Archaeology of Knowledge".

The format will be my usual "accelerated live read" format. What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 10-15 pages from each book before each session. Each participant will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading.

People who have not done the reading are welcome to attend this meetup. However if you want to TALK during the meetup it is essential that you do the reading. We mean it! It is essential that the direction of the conversation be influenced only by people who have actually done the reading. You may think you are so brilliant and wonderful that you can come up with great points even if you do not do the reading. You probably are brilliant and wonderful — no argument there. But you still have to do the reading if you want to talk in this meetup. REALLY.

Please note that this is a "raise hands" meetup and has a highly structured format, not an anarchy-based one. This is partly for philosophical reasons: I want to discourage a simple-minded rapid fire "gotcha!" approach to philosophy. But our highly structured format is also for disability related reasons that I (Philip) can explain if required.