Will to Know, Lectures, 3 Feb. & 10 Feb. 1971

We began as per usual with questions:

What is Foucault's relation to Hegel here, esp. Hegel's analysis of Antigone in the Phen. Geist?

How is Foucault parsing the two Greek conceptions of justice: krinein, dikazein (see 88-90, 101)?  How does dikazein give way to krinein?  Does Foucault want to explain their transformation (genealogy) or does he aim to parse their difference (archaeology)?

How does dike-dikaion related to the two forms of justice?

What is the role of music and song in the judicial discourse (briefly mentioned by Foucault, p. 95)?

Is there a relation to Nietzsche in the discussion of debtor relationships?

Discussion the ensued:

Parsing the terms:

• Dikazein has to do with struggle between litigants.
• Krinein has to do with truth in the form of external judging: memory, disclosure of truth, exercise of sovereignty (109).
• Dike-dikaion is connected to krinei not dikazein.

"Disclosure of the truth and exercise of sovereignty are interdependent and jointly replace the indication of the agonist and the risk he voluntarily accepts" (109).  Truth in the form of knowledge and being replace truth as the outcome of struggle.

What effects the transformation to krinein?  "A whole new set of economic relationships" (107), "Writing" (108), political technologies of "the State and the administrative system" such as calendars, "measure", "royal power" and "magical-religious structure" (111).  In this network of conditions, can we discern proto-genealogy?  Are all of these on the same level?  Is the appeal to 'economic relationships' as "underlying" reductive?  What about the appeals to techniques of the state?  Does Foucault yet have the methodological equipment in place to conceptualize a network or an apparatus as a motor of historical transformation?

Will to Know Lectures - 13 Jan. 1971 & 27 Jan. 1971

The group began, as per our usual practice, with questions:

1) How exactly is Foucault periodizing the various eras of Greek thought he is here considering?  What are the historical relations between the archaic period, the classical age, the sophists, and the philosophers?

2) Why the Greeks, Monsieur Foucault?  (Consider p. 67 and Foucault's assertion of continuity from the Greeks to us.)

3) How does Platonic phil. differ from Sophistry, for Foucault?  (See p. 67).

4) What is truth as it emerges in Foucault's investigation into its emergence?  If truth is emergent, is it made up?  If there is truth, then what is it for Foucault? (See. p. 73-75)

5) Foucault suggests that true statements, in order to be true, must neutralize their status as events, their materiality, etc..  How do the intentions of the sophist versus those of the philosopher condition this neutrality?  (See p. 60).

6) Is there a normative evaluation on Foucault's part here of the pre-philosophical sophists?

Discussion ensued:

We began with a discussion of philosophy's attempt to purify itself in Aristotle.  We asked about the extent to which we can trace contemporary (1971) philosophy to the classical philosophy of the Greeks.  Aristotle, says Foucault, is "the point of view that still commands us" (67).  Is Foucault here tracing an unbroken line from the Greeks to the present?  In response, it was suggested that Foucault is characterizing philosophy in terms of exclusion, and so if those exclusions persisted through to the present Foucault is trying to gain a view of how philosophy depends on exclusions.

We then discussed the exclusion by Aristotelian discourse of intention, will, desire.  How is Aristotle excluding the Sophist?  And with what interests?  Is the exclusion of the sophistical itself a philosophical move?

What is the relation of judicial limits on truth to, apophantic philosophical discourse?  Do the two phases of judicial discourse anticipate philosophical and sophistical discourse, respectively?

Will to Know Lectures - 16 Dec. 1970 & 6 Jan. 1971

First we aired out our questions:

• 26 - Is the Kantian dilemma the same as the transcendental-empirical?
• 24-25 - How is truth different from knowledge?
• 27 - What does Foucault mean by Nietzsche's "positivism"?
• What is the relationship between the Kantian dilemma and sophism?
• 38 - What is Aristotle excluding in order to make philosophical knowledge possible?
• 31-32 - What does it mean to say that "truth...is in principle linked to knowledge, but both exist in a relation to each other of both support and exclusion"?
• 27 - Why does Foucault want to kill Spinoza?

Then worked through discussion:

• Spinoza seems to ground the quest for truth in the pursuit of happiness; for Aristotle, the quest for truth is simply the result of an innate desire.  Both, Foucault seems to be arguing, are idealists, and therefore must be surpassed.
• Foucault seems to be excavating from both Aristotle and Spinoza the notion that knowledge is worth pursuing because it makes us happy.
• For Nietzsche, the desire for knowledge is simply one configuration that desire might take.
• Foucault talking about positivism in terms of Comte, most likely.  Idea is that one can't assert anything without grounding it in empirics.  Nietzsche, in Human, All Too Human, appears to be a positivist - Foucault is suggesting that Nietzsche has a positivist theme (but it needn't be overcome).
• Foucault suggests that the Sophist is "outside," in the history of philosophy.  Meaning, possibly, that the Sophist rejects the identification of truth and knowledge.
• Aristotle accuses the sophists of excluding truth from debate, but Foucault is suggesting that Aristotle himself is attempting to exclude sophistical reasoning from debate.

Lectures on the Will to Know – 9 Dec. 1970

 We began by refreshing the material we covered last term, and offering some questions we had for the current reading:

I.               Refresher on The Order of Discourse

a.     Theme of exclusions

b.     Where are we picking up?

                                               i.     F’s turn to practices.

II.              Questions

a.     What is the significance of Foucault’s distinction between savoir and connaissance as he introduces these terms in these lectures?

b.     Is the will to know in modernity for an “animal”-kind of knowing, since it is concerned with means, and is ancient knowledge of a higher form, since it is concerned only with ends?

c.     How does the will to truth exercise itself “on other discourses” as well as “on…other practices” that are external to discourse?

d.     What does Foucault mean by his definitions of savoir and connaissance as given on pg. 17?

e.     Is Foucault setting up a causal relationship between desire and knowledge in his first lecture?

We then turned to further discussion:

 

III.            Discussion

a.     Distinction between savoir/connaissance

                                               i.     Definition her provides on pg. 17 seems less like a elucidation of the terms themselves, than with their relationship with desire.

                                             ii.     In Aristotle’s connaissance, desire and knowledge are “co-natural”, they are part of the same process.  Foucault’s savoir, by contrast, is the pulling of desire out from knowledge, showing that we have a will to produce knowledge.

b.     Question of Aristotle’s elision of instrumentality from knowledge.

                                               i.     Foucault seems to be arguing that, from Aristotle on, the notion that knowledge can be non-utilitarian – or sufficient unto itself – covers over some pre-existing will or desire to know, or to know in order to do or be something.

c.     To what extent are the observations Foucault outlines in this lecture needed and/or useful?

                                               i.     Are Foucault’s observations here merely preliminary notes on his later work on power/knowledge, or is he advancing something new and interesting here?

Winter Reading Schedule

Foucault's "Lectures on the Will to Know"

ORIGINAL/OLD
...
Wk 1 - Ch. 1
Wk 2 - Chs. 2 & 3
Wk 3 - Chs. 4 & 5
Wk 4 - Chs. 6 & 7
Wk 5 - Chs. 8 & 9
Wk 6 - Chs. 10 & 11
Wk 7 - Chs. 12 & 13
Wk 8 - "Oedipal Knowledge" (Mar 1972)

UPDATED/REVISED
...
Feb 6 (wk 5) - Lectures 8 & 9 (pp. 116-148)
Feb 13 (wk 6) - Lecture 11 end & Lecture 12 (pp. 175-201) + skim Lectures 10 & 11
Feb 20 (wk 7) - Oedipal Knowledge appendix (Mar 72 lecture; similar to Lecture 12)
Feb 27 (wk 8) - Lecture 13 (pp. 202-223) - April 1971 lecture at McGill
Mar 6 (wk 9) - no meeting but discuss (via email?) plans for next term -
suggestions include our own work?, further texts by Foucault from 1969
to 1973, secondary literature on archaeology and genealogy (Davidson,
Hacking, Bernauer, Gutting), current/recent attempts to make use of
Foucault's genealogies
Mar 13 (wk 10) - no meeting