Draft Syllabus for an 8-week unit on Foucault with "Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling" at its center

Draft Syllabus for a class unit based on Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling (to be used in a course on Foucault, or on genealogy, or on truth & truthfulness, or on ...; envisioned audience is advanced undergraduates with significant experience in philosophy).

The draft syllabus below describes the basic focus of each lecture in Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling followed by a brief list of texts (mostly by Foucault) that we would propose to pair with these.

Inaugural Lecture
This lecture offers a statement of aims: to give an account of the practice of avowal, with a specific attention to juridical contexts; four-part definition of avowal as a kind of speech act.
 - Foucault interview with Dreyfus and Rabinow, "On the Genealogy of Ethics: Overview of a Work in Progress" (1983, in EW1)
 - passage(s) on speech act and énoncé in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969)
 - John Austin, "Performative Utterances" (1961)
 - Dreyfus and Rabinow, Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Ch. 3 (1982)

First Lecture
This lecture presents an episode of 'quasi-avowal' in antiquity drawn from an chariot race in Homer's Iliad; themes include differences between rituals of oath-taking and rituals in which truth is just demonstrated.
 - Lectures on the Will to Know, Jan. 27 lecture, Ch. 5 (1971)
 - The Punitive Society, Jan. 10 lecture, Ch. 2 (1973)

Second Lecture
This lecture focuses on Oedipus Rex to detail the following themes: sovereign right and power, procedure and the juridicial form, recognition of oneself as the author of a crime, characterization of a crime, trial.
 - History of Sexuality, Volume One: "Right of Death & Power Over Life" from HS1 (1976)
 - "Truth and Juridical Forms" Rio Lectures; second lecture, "Oedipus and Truth" (1973)
 - Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (429 BC)

Third Lecture
This lecture focuses on veridiction of self in pagan antiquity, with specific attention to Seneca's examination of conscience; as well as penance in early Christianity.
 - On the Government of the Living 12 Mar & 19 Mar lectures (1980)
 - "Technologies of Self" Vermont lectures in EW1 (1982); especially section 3 on Seneca and section 5 on exomologesis
 - "Self Writing" in EW1 on Seneca and hupomnemata (undated?; early 1980s)

Fourth Lecture
This lecture focused on monastic practices in 4th and 5th centuries and expansion of projects of the management of life and souls; themes of obedience, humility, and submission.
 - "What is Critique?" (1978); paired with Butler's "What Is Critique: An Essay on Foucault's Virtue" (2001), plus last two chapters of Giving an Account of Oneself (2003)
 - History of Sexuality, Volume One (1976); introductory pages
 - Discipline and Punish (1975); introductory pages

Fifth Lecture
This lecture considers connections for future research (including link between hermeneutics of the text and hermeneutics of the self in Christianity and the uptake of the hermeneutics of the self from the Christian tradition  by Schopenhauer and Freud); the main focus is then on the juridification of avowal within the ecclesastical tradition and institution.
 - Security, Territory, Population; 8 February lecture focused on pastoral power and governmentality (1978)
 - “Christianity and Confession” Dartmouth lecture (1980)
 - "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" on historigraphical categories of emergence, descent, and origins (1971)

Sixth Lecture
This lecture focuses on juridification in ecclesiastical, and especially political, institutions.  Intervention of human science of punishment; topics and concepts include punishment, torture, dramaturgy, examination, social defense, criminal subjectivity.
 - This lecture would pair well with a whole range of Foucault's writings from the early 1970s
 - "Truth and Juridical Forms" Rio lectures; especially the last lecture (1973)
 - Punitive Societey, 10 Jan. (lecture 2), 24 Jan. (lecture 2), 7 Feb (lecture 6);  14 Mar. (lecture 11) (1973)
 - Discipline and Punish, selections (1975)
 - Abnormal, 15 Jan.  (lecture 2), 5. Feb (lecture 5), 12 Feb (lecture 6) (1975)
 - History of Sexuality, Volume One, chapter on "scientia sexualis" (Part III) (1976)


General comparative texts: HSv2 and HSv3.
 
General informative texts: Foucault's interviews, especially "The Ethics of the Concern for Self as a Practice of Freedom," "On the Genealogy of Ethics," and "Structuralism and Post-Structuralism".

Four-part analysis of avowal in 'Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling'

Draft/In-Progress

Based on Foucault's description/definition of the "speech act" of avowal (on pp. 15-17).

Avowal (as a passage from unsaid to truly said)	Subject of Avowal	Subject to whom avowed (the other who recognizes)	Costly (cost not in the act, but in the content)	Freely-stated (such that the subj enters obligation)	Submission within a power relation (power-over)	Modifies or transforms the subject
	Subjects of Avowal		Four Qualities of Avowal
Lecture 1: Iliad	Antilochus	Menelaus, Achilles, etc.	Yes; costs him the race prize	Yes; by not taking the oath, A confirms the truth	Yes; b/w A and M; also between A and the Gods	Yes; as "restoring" (p. 40) truth; transforms A's relation to others
Lecture 2: Oedipus Rex	Shepherd of Cithareon (not Teresias/Apllo, nor Jocasta/Oedi)	Oedipus & Chorus	Yes; costs the slave	Yes; "despite the fact" that avowed under threat (79; cf. 16)	Yes; b/w shepherd and Oedipus	Not really; but it transforms Oedipus
Lecture 3: Stoics  Examination of Conscience   Exposure of Soul	Seneca Serenus	Seneca (98) Seneca	No No	Yes Yes	No Yes	No change in status of subject; gives subject tranquility  (97) and memory (99) No; Seneca says he already was cured (103)
Lecture 3 Christian Penance (exomologesis)	Sinner (becomes Penitent)	Church authority	Yes	Yes [Unclear]?	Yes	Yes (105): exomologesis
Lecture 4 Christian Monasticism (4th-5th c.) (exagoreusis)	Christian Monk	Director	Yes	Yes	Yes (126, 129)	Yes
Lecture 5 Fixed Penance (7th c.); "juridificaiton" -- p. 178ff. Sacrament of Penance (11th-13th c.) -- p. 184ff.	Sinner Sinner	Community Confessor	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes
Lecture 6 Judicial Avowal (16th c. - 18th c.) -- p. 201-11 Modern Examination (19c. -- ) -- p. 211ff.	Accused Accused (Dangerous Individual)	Judge (as sovereign) Examiner (see 211)	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes	Yes Yes

END

WDTT, Lecture 6

We began, per custom, with questions:

Foucault's use of the metaphor of "dramaturgy" (p. 210) in contrast to the "symbolic" and the "performative".   Where else in his writings or lectures does he use this metaphor?  And why specifically is the form of avowal in this lecture dramaturgical, but the other forms of avowal in other lectures were not dramaturgical?  How does dramaturgy differ from performativity on Foucault's account?  What is the concept of "dramaturgy" here?

Foucault's discussion of hermeneutics of self in this lecture.  He distinguishes between a Christian/ancient hermeneutics of the subject and a more modern kind of textual-analytical notion of the hermeneutics of the subject (225)?  Why does he choose the term "hermeneutics"?  Why does he think of psychoanalytical and psycho-clinical notions of the subject in terms of hermeneutics, when they do not display the kind of 'openness' to the text that hermeneutics in a philosophical sense does?  (See also p. 167).

We had questions on continuing to track Foucault's historiographical categories -- language of "new object" and "introduced" and "formed".  How to map to the distinction between "origin" and "emergence" (and "descent") in Foucault's 1971 essay?  What about Foucault's use of paradigmatic cases of psychology?  How is Foucault's historiography here different from Kuhn's?

Foucault ends up arguing in this lecture that the avowal is insufficient in cases of, say, crimes without reason.  Why is it considered insufficient here?  (See pp. 215-16).

Relatedly, when Foucault says that the avowal was deficient in the context of modern psychology and jurispreudence (p. 211) and was replaced by the examination (p. 211; cf. Discipline and Punish), how do we understand the long lectures preceding this on avowal?  Why is avowal important?  How did it do something other than drop out?

What is the position of these lectures from 1981 vis-a-vis Foucault's genealogies of ethics and genealogies of power?


Discussion ensued:

In terms of relationship between avowal and examination -- one useful source would be Foucault's discussion in History of Sexuality, Volume One on the link between the confession and the modern scientia sexualis.  The question is one of continuity; how is there continuity between confessional technologies of the self and modern sciences.

• Is the idea something like the following?  The practice/project of avowal set up a kind of functional technology of the self; but then this particular practice can (for various reasons [that remain unclear?]) no longer function in that way in 18th c. & 19th c. penal practice, so that then some other technology of the self had to come in to fulfill that function or play that role.  This other technology of the self is that of the examination (p. 211).
• So the idea is that avowal is important to our history not because of how we continue to practice avowal today, but rather because avowal created a function (a veridictional function) that we continue to need to fulfill.  "Avowal by the guilty party has become a fundamental need of the system" (209); such that later "the examination... filled the white or black spaces left by avowal" (211).

We discussed dramaturgy vs. performative vs. symbolic.

• Is MF's reference to "dramaturgy" here a silent reference to Goffman?
• Why is this avowal (modern avowal) of such dramaturgical import, but others earlier aren't?  Or is it that they're just not explicitly stated to be, or analyzed as, dramaturgical?

We discussed the methodology here as caught between genealogies of power and histories of ethics:

• MF's category of technologies of the self is here interesting.

November 9, 2018

After reading the fourth lecture of Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling, we posed and discussed the following questions:

-      Why did the virtues of humilitas, patientia and subditio (p.138-139) require necessary verbalization in monastic institutions? (p.140)

-      What is the difference between indefinite obedience and definite state of obedience that Foucault is suggesting as part of the monastic culture? (p.140)

-      The verbalization of avowal played a central role in monastic institutions. What is the relation of the one who is listening and who is speaking in this context? Is this an ethical or linear relationship? 

-      The contrast that Foucault emphasizes between the notion of self-mastery in antiquity and the constant obedience in monastic institutions seems similar to the distinction between enlightenment as maturity and immaturity that Kant made in What is enlightenment. Can we find here a parallel between Foucault’s work on antiquity and enlightenment and maybe discover one of the reasons of his engagement with antiquity?

-      What is the connection between art of living or aesthetics of existence that Foucault talks about and the relationship between master and student in antiquity? Does this relationship constitute a technology of the self?

-      It seems to be a paradox in monastic culture:  On the one hand, everybody is condemned to constant obedience and nobody is perfect. On the other hand, avowal needs to be directed to another subject. But is anybody the highest in this hierarchy or are the subjects in a circular relationship?

-      Foucault mentions technology and “technical problems” couple of times in this lecture. Why is it in this lecture that this notion is repeated? Is there anything in the monastic institutions that necessary includes or requires technology?

Beside discussing the above questions and completing and discussing the table, we also discussed the following points:

The role of God seems to have a marginal role in Foucault’s discussion. We can conclude that avowal isn’t in the first place directed to God.

Avowal needs to be free and that is true for avowal in monastic institutions as well. Although there is subjection and obedience involved, we know from Foucault’s work on the concept of freedom that freedom is not necessarily in contrast to power but is the very condition of it. Thus the subject is free despite being subjected to power relations and constant obedience. Free here is not meant in a metaphysical sense but what is “considered” free. An example of lack of freedom in the medieval context might be a demonized and deceived subject.

Socrates constitutes a figure who is on the edge of antiquity and Christianity. The techniques that are used in the student-master relationship in Socratic context are similar to Christianity: You have to discover the truth in yourself and that says something about who you are. The codes are here different, but the techniques are similar.

The distinction between moral code and technique that Foucault makes in the second volume of The history of sexuality is helpful here. It is the latter that is the central aspect of Foucault’s analysis.

The relation to the other is constitutive for the role of the master and for the student to become the master of himself. This is important because it shows the constitutive role of the other for gaining something that we might call autonomy or mastery over oneself.

October 26, 2018

Questions posed by the group on Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling second lecture of April 28, 1981

1 - Can we map Foucault's discussion of avowal in Oedipus Rex to the four-part analysis of speech acts of avowal from the inaugural lecture (pp. 15-17)?

2a - Does the slave have to avow and is this inconsistent with MF's earlier description of avowal as necessarily free?

2b - Does the obligation on the slave to avow come from outside the subject or within the subject

3 - With respect to Foucault's categories (or are these concepts?), do the terms "mani9festiation of truth," "production of truth," "alethurgy," "veridiction" all map to one another?

4 - Corrrespondence between the avowal by the other and my own recognition.

5 - Why is art a representation of social practice in these two lectures?  What is the relationship between art and social practice?  Why isn't art a social practice?  See p. 58, 81 for the language of "representation".

6 -  Question of the relationship between reconignition and excess. On p.81 Foucault writes that "Oedipus was necessary for the truth to appear. He was necessary for the creation of this well-regulated form of the judicial machine that is capable of producing the truth. But he was eliminated, as a kind of 'excess', now, by the very judicial machine he brought forth". I wonder here what is this excess and in what ways can it be characterized? Is it the result of a recognition that can never be fully completed?

Summary of discussion by the group.

See notes on table below, which we began during this session.

MF offering an analysis of avowal as one possible mode of veridiction (p. 19).

October 19, 2018

Questions: 

Pg 30 Foucault’s method: is it archaeological or genealogical? (Three moments, Greek, Christian, modern). 

Pg 28 What really constitutes the difference between formal-emp analysis and ethnological analysis?

General question regarding why Foucault’s readings of the Greeks always seem to look differently: is it a close reading? Different method of surveying? 

Pg 34: translation of dike —why can’t Mnls deliver a sentence? 

Pg 31: “kind of” or “equivalent to” juridical avowal? What’s the taxonomy of avowals?

Related:

Pg 32/28  : why is this structure of avowal only human? What about talking to the horses? 

Pg 28: ho power is functioning between veridiction and jurisdiction?

Pg 49: explanation of juridical changes—close to Econ analysis, but without reductive analysis—what are the relations? 

Pg 41: avowal not admission of fault, but youth leading astray

Pg 43: what is relation between truth and memory? 

Pg 43- reputations of truth and a Oakway

Pg 39- alethurgy 

Discussion: 

Starting with first question (archaeology and genealogy). 

- if he sets up these three moments distinctly, but not their connections, or the relations between these moments, that’s very archaeological. 

- plucking things across a vast historical expanse, is archaeological

- it’s in contrast to a genealogical movement, where one starts with two moments, and then tries to understand the continuity and difference between them, how we get from one to the other. 

But then in the content of the chapter, he seems to treat this genealogical suggestion that there’s a shift this moment. It’s a shift contained within a time slice. 

But he is really interested in power here. But it is clear that it’s genealogical in the sense that he is interested in the way that truthtelling is a technique of power. 

Why go back to the ancients? Maybe its practical, insofar as we need to go back to the Greeks because it’s only that far back that we get a sense of this relation between truth and justice being otherwise.

The introduction of a judge changes the type of judgement (pg 47). 

This emergence of an autonomous judicial system institutes new kinds of relations of power. 

Going back to the Greeks is one way of denaturalizing western philosophy. 

But is there some resonance with Heidegger—especially regarding truth as a disclosing—vs. how he ends, when he seems to say that truth is something fundamentally different. So is he agreeing or disagreeing with Heidegger? 

Moving from agonistic structure to something like rational judgement, being accepted by those who are being judged, etc. 

The shift: there used to be these relations of force mitigating these proceedings, but then a new sense of the judicial emerged that needed to present themselves as not permitted by force, so they need to present new relations of truth. 

- this is very Nietzschian, or also Hume arguing against Locke. 

Is the move—agonistic struggle to the rational account of justice— tied to the move to ground rationality in the world, rather than just seeing it as a human movement? (Or, what’s the relation between this shift to make the proceedings seem absent of power and based on truth, related to Foucault’s claim in subjectivity in truth that rationality was situated in the world in order to justify human use of it). 

What you’re looking for in Foucault are paradigmatic expressions of wider sets of practices (or this is what Foucault is often attending to). 

And these are just literature, not descriptions of practices. Which is also very different than most of his work. 

Horses—they talk to the horses, threatens them, and the oath he is supposed to take is directed at the horses. Maybe they were stand-ins for the gods? 

But at any rate, it’s strange he says truth-telling is all about humans. But that seems like it maybe undermines his position, insofar as he wants to say that truth-telling is not a pure transference of meaning/truth from one speaking subject to another. And it’s also strange because he then the very first story he tells includes horses as knowers, as hearers, and as subjects in the oath ritual. Plus, he talks about the race being itself a kind of truth-telling, one way of establishing the truth. Which is precisely not speech.