D&P on 'Torture', pp. 3-31

 Following introductions and brief discussion of process, the year began, as per the custom in past years, with questions:

 

* Notion of a ‘criminal’ and rehabilitation vis-à-vis problematics of addiction – what are the conceptual connections to ‘guilt’ or ‘sickness’ in the context of addiction?  Is addiction more of a notion of disease, or more of a criminal notion?

* First methodological rule (p. 23) -- Positivity in effect – When tracing objects, is MF demanding that we find both positivity and negativity, or just positivity?  -- And how do we do this?

* Wrt MF’s methodological rules (“four general rules”) (p.23), where are these coming from, and what justifies them?  What is their applicability?  Are they applicable to just this specific object of study, or are they generalizable?  How do we figure that out?

* How is MF conceptualizing micro-physics and scale (p. 26)?

* Relationship of power to resistance (p. 27-8)?  How do we conceptualize their relation?  Is resistance a form or mode of power or opposed to power?

* How do we understand the power-knowledge relation (p. 27)?  Are there different modalities of knowledge?  Does power produce multiple knowledges?

* With respect to MF’s discussion of history (p. 27), how do we make sense of “localized episodes” inducing effects “on the entire network in which it is caught up”?

* Difference between history of present and history of past in terms of present (p. 31)?  Are there problems associated with this distinction?

The group then moved to discussion:

* Wrt ‘history of past’ versus ‘history of present’.  What is problematic in this distinction?  What does it (as a distinction) assume?  The revisionism in genealogy is geared toward the present, rather than being geared toward getting the past right/correct.  The focus is looking at the past to engage the present.  What conceptualization of ‘the present’ is implied here?  Is the present singular?  Or is it a complexity?  Is ‘the present’ a historical notion?  Is it already embedded in history? 

* Wrt ‘history of present’ is the project empirical or political? [A: both!]

* Wrt positivity & negativity (methodological rule #1, p. 23).  Is this rooted in MF’s cautions about Marxism?  Is he nervous about the repressive hypothesis?  By ‘positive’ does he mean ‘real’ in the sense of empirical positivism?  Or does he mean ‘productive’?  Or does he mean both?  There is the Hegel route (that leaves to Derrida), or there is the Foucault-Deleuze route?

* Wrt methodological scope, there was discussion of whether MF’s ‘rules’ are universally applicable?

* Wrt power and Foucault’s notion of power, there was discussion about how this notion functions methodologically.  If power is a relation, how does it contribute to a network (le résau) of which it is a part?

 

n.b. Wrt = “with respect to”