We began with questions
1. How convincing do we find his response to the continuity problem? (p. 230)
2. Let's look at the four objections to pragmatic genealogy listed on the first page. Where if at all do each of us jump off? Which objection do each of us if at all find the most compelling?
3. What does he mean by “more objective” (p. 224)? Is disinterested what he means by objective here? Is a disinterested genealogy even possible
4. How does he understand history (p. 214), and how does it fit into pragmatic genealogy?
5. Is pragmatic genealogy a middle way between historical genealogy and model based genealogy?
6. Can the need-satisfaction account secure normativity without teleology?
7. How is need meant to achieve objectivity? It seems he wants to assert some kind of causal necessity (as opposed to a hypothetical objectivity).
8. Shall we discuss his conception of the agent (p.238)? One of us has a hunch there is something valuable in the argument here, and it hinges on what he concludes about the agent. Maybe if we unpack this argument we might even have a route to understanding why Foucault himself came to return to a notion of subjectivation. Queloz and Foucault might be drawn to a similar conception of reasoning even if they have different meta conceptions of agent and subject.
Discussion
- The chapter is from a paper called “How pragmatic genealogies affect the space of reasons.”
- It is important that he addresses a conception of the subject (p.238) as opposed to "the subject."
- Pragmatic genealogy does not speculate on what has been. It is also not concerned with dynamic models (p. 213).
- The formation process bit is important (p. 218). So many practices depend on their own formation process for their justification!
- The point about needs being more objective seems to be a pretty innocuous one.
- It is strange how he uses very Lamarkian language (i.e. language of purpose) but ultimately holds to more Darwinian presuppositions regarding development (i.e. an account of needs in terms of functions).
- Pragmatic genealogies do not assume continuity in the practical demands we face precisely because they attempt to identify bases of continuity in those very demands. They are not arguments depending on continuity but arguments for it (p. 230).
- You can establish continuity without positing universal needs (p. 233). We are less inclined to miss continuity because we start with a model where needs are more readily attributable to local contexts.
- It was surprising to see him evoke the state of nature to describe the local (p. 233). Does this local state of nature introduce the risk of relativism?
- What criteria do you need in order to have actual models, and how close do these models have to be to actual history in order to formulate them?
- But to localize a model you need to go historical otherwise it does not have any force e.g. Rawls’ model only has force if there are historical examples where people have plural political disagreement.
- What Fricker and Williams are doing is not local. What Queloz does is recognizes the contingency of the "we."
- The history of the present; the history of the present. It matters where you place the emphasis.
