Nov. 16, The Courage of Truth, 1984 CdeF lectures, Chs. 9 & 10
Questions, discussion topics
-174, 179: Cynicism as a transhistorical category: what is a trans-historical category?
-Return to the question of ethnocentrism, e.g., Socrates; is he only arguing that Socratic practice is sufficient, though not necessary?
-161, 164-6: what's the relationship between metaphysics of the soul and the stylistics of existence?
-historical accuracy (pretty big claims)? too general? what difference does it make?
-165: what's the significance of noting that Cynical stylistics of existence takes place without doctrinal mediation?
-does he reduce the care of self to the aesthetics of existence? is this where care of self becomes self-styling?
Trans-historical Cynicism:
-'no universals' (from BofBio): presupposition; methodological supposition
-so here, he is supposing that there is the possibility of a trans-historical universal, viz., Cynicism
-there are other places where he uses similar language
-it's a mistake to confuse something trans-historical with a universal; here he is tracing a particular (something) in its continuity
-what's at stake for him in doing things this way?
-180: we cannot understand more contemporary forms of Cynicism without understanding its continuity; however, we cannot say they are exactly similar
-but carefully defining Cynicism allows us to see how he is really making a somewhat humble claim, i.e., that a particular practice has remained somewhat stable over time
-he is not asserting that Cynicism is universal; trans-historical does not imply universality; all it implies is some sort of continuity
-174: runs through the whole of western history; 178: from Antiquity to our present time
-it seems that the purpose of genealogical inquiry is to render history discontinuous; but it is also an empirical explanation of a particular continuity
-also, the second hour of the lecture is offered as an experiment
-once methodological constraints are established, then empirical claims can be made with respect to the object of the study
-he is interested in finding continuity in non-doctrinal form: practices that carry over; in this case, practices that are constitutive of a particular tradition, viz., the western tradition; practices are carried over and maintained (i.e., not offering a trans-historical ontology, but rather an account of how truth-telling has come to be associated with ontology)
-but this is different than Foucault's prior strategies: he is not doing something like overturning the 'repressive hypothesis,' he is attempting to define an aesthetics of existence
-narrowed in scope; still trans-historical, but not universal; situated methodologically as an attitude and way of being rather than a doctrine
-Cynicism as a stylistics of existence that is not deeply related to a metaphysics of the soul; this is not the same as there not being a theoretical framework
-what's an example of a practice that takes place without doctrinal mediation?: gender norms (one can give a fairly elaborate theoretical account, but one need not have a theory in order to practice gender norms)
-practices can be related to doctrine that is not necessarily tied to the doctrine (e.g., the changes within Christian religious practice)
-practices may be transmitted without reference to a body of doctrine
-what's interesting to Foucault in Cynicism is a certain kind of parrhesiatic insolence transmitted without a whole lot of doctrinal training
-what seems important is that we can analytically distinguish between one set of practices and another; in this case, we can see how, although a metaphysics of the soul was tightly wedded to a stylistics of existence in Socratic philosophy, this is not the case in Cynicism
-these are practices that have carried over without doctrinal mediation
-the problem then is how we would verify this continuity
-disappearance of parrhesia connected to the disappearance of destitution; can we connect this with the prevalance of capitalism? there are no 'scandalous manifestations of an unacceptable truth?' (186)
-destitution is not a necessary feature of Cynicism, e.g., artist
-they are less scandalous because they are parasitic on other modes of veridiction
-are these contemporary forms (in hour two, chap. 10) really not scandalous? are these parrhesiatic?
-modern art, for example, is only scandalous in a banal way; but we are not talking about contemporary art, which is perhaps just evidence of the how difficult it has become for art to retain the scandalous nature of modern art
-counterexample, Claire Fontaine (art collective): set of keys to galleries, map of U.S. made of matchsticks
-link to Cynicism in modern art (186)
-the scandal does happen: perhaps only to individuals or groups rather than to society as a whole
-a scandalization must be the manifestation of an unacceptable truth
-Occupy as an example of Cynical mode of life
-so what exactly makes something scandalous?: the mode of life (170-1); in the case of the artist, there must be some form of being that has a truth to it that manifests in a style of living that is scandalous, precisely because this manner of being is unacceptable, and this practice is transmitted with a minimal of theoretical development in its transmission
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