Questions
and areas to discuss:
1. If
we can specify, for ourselves, this practice/technology/form called “examination
(58-59); what does it look like? How does Foucault characterize it? Etc.
2. Examination
and the function of judicial power/the relationship between them
3. A
question of the person examining/the examiner
4. Four
functions of subjugation (82)
5. Infra-legal
(from last week) to infra-power (86)
6. “Network
of sequestration” and education/factory/hospitals – does that mean we need to
look at these other aspects to say something of education/what are the
implications of this concept for studying education? (80)
7. How
do people understand The subject of knowedge itself has a history; the relation
of the subject to the object; or, more clearly, truth itself has a history” (2)?
How can we make sense of that? Does anyone find this puzzling? If so, why?
Discussion:
-
Foucault and the distinction between
Kant/Descartes
-
Q. 7: In the true – whether it can be
considered true or false; Foucault says that in order for something to be deemed
true/false, it must be considered in the true, a legible discourse. This kind
of mechanism is what has the history.
o
In the context of him saying truth itself
has a history, he is trying to steer clear of “academic Marxism”: the
understanding of a universal, knowing subject on top of economic circumstances;
instead, we change. We are not something that has always existed under an
economic system.
§ How
does this then relate to the truth changing/in the true changing?
§ P.
4: there are two kinds of history of truth “internal vs. external”
· History
of science (internal)
· Other
places where truth is formed, where a certain number of games are defined-games
through which one sees certain forms of subjectivity, certain object domains,
certain types of knowledge come into being-and that, consequently, one can on
that basis construct an external, exterior history of truth.
o
What is it about truth itself that is the
puzzling thing (in regards to having a history)?
o
There’s a recurring tension in Foucault by
him taking what philosophers have done (by making the subject stable) and
showing that there is a history of subjectivity itself/what counts as a
subject/what counts as subjectivity and . Even in the former, there can be a skeptical
critic accusing Foucault of playing with semantics: why is taking about this
thing called subjectivity or this thing called truth instead of something else?
Instead, you are talking about different kind of epiphenomenon within
subjectivity changing.
§ It
seems like the genealogist must be able to hold something steady when
doing a history of subjectivity; this is not a history of random things or
phenomenon
o
These other forms of subjectivity/power
rest on truth
o
Critique of history truth as causing truth
to lose essential connection, leading it to be a discussion not on truth but
surrounding truth
o
Foucault claims to be writing a history of
truth, not “the things that people call true”
o
“Thus, I would especially like to show how
a certain knowledge of man was formed in the nineteenth century” (2)
-
(Q.6): If education is just one part of
the network (including the factory and the hospital), then how do we study
education as part of this network? Do we then have to study the connections
before we can study education in particular?
o
It seems like there’s a move away from the
notion of the sovereign; the network of seq. allows one to not think in terms
of a state apparatus.
o
We could talk about how seq. functions as
differently from exclusion. It seems like the idea is to attach people to a
particular apparatus as a way of sequestering them away from other parts of
society
o
“In the age we're concerned with, the aim of
all these institutions, factories, schools, psychiatric hospitals, hospitals, prisons
is not to exclude but, rather, to attach individuals. The factory doesn't
exclude individuals: it attaches them to a production apparatus. The school
doesn't exclude individuals, even in confming them: it fastens them to an
apparatus of knowledge transmission” (78).
§ If
we have these form of attachment, and they’re not excercized by the state… It’s
easy to study when it originates from the State because it is one place.
Whereas a seq. is more diffuse; it’s not clear what counts as a sufficient
study of a diffusion. It seems like the rules/measure of success would be
different for that method of inquiry
· A
shift of rules
o
It is not the State (shown through the
contrast between England and France) (p. 79); Then there is a network and not
purely state-based. Now we have three things in common to the factory, school
and hospital: controlling bodies, modes of power, binding to production
§ Do
we need to look at the network and then the node? Or can we focus on one, even
if all of the studies have looked at them together?
o
Examinations function across network so
how can you only study it in one mode
o
Perhaps there are multiple methods for
inquiring into the network
o
The network itself creating another mode
of inquiry, when thinking of inquiry as a technical term
§ When
you study them as a network of seq. it becomes a different mode of inquiry, the
intra-status
o
A term he’ll use for this problem is
disposatif – multilayered elements that hang together; inter-institutional
network
§ Different
institutions of school, state, law; there is a network where they all hang
together and study this network
o
He’s not doing an institutional history
§ So
then, where is the level of analysis? Where is it happening?
· Functions
o
Functions of controlling time (especially
rigidly); the functions of controlling subjectivity that come from the seq. network;
controlling time, controlling image of the body, through examination
· If
an institution has those formal qualities, they meet a certain criteria to be
in this network of seq. and we can study them because they have met this criteria;
being a part of a state is not a part of this functional criteria
· If
it meets certain functions it can be considered as a part of this network
§ If
you have an institution, that sometimes/in some ways functions disciplinarily,
but sometimes doesn’t (like the law or courts), then this is a way in which he
is not studying an institutional history
· Instead,
connections can be drawn by the functional segmentation
§ He’s
not holding this notion of institutional function (80)
· One
can distinguish between modern and feudal society through this method of inquiry
into functions; it allows one to track historically…
§ What
are other ways of what we’re calling functions? When we look forward to D&P
we should pay attention to this
· Some
people think of Foucault as a materialist; we can then ask what the material
expression of functions in Foucault?
§ 82:
“The fIrst function is to extract time,
by transforming people's time, their living time, into labor time. Its second
function consists in converting people's bodies into labor power. The function
of transforming the body into labor power corresponds to the function of
transforming time into labor time. The third function of these institutions of
subjugation consists in the creation of a new and peculiar type of power.”
o
How do we see Foucault/how could we see ourselves
studying these things materially/non-ideally?
§ How
does one study the rules, especially when they are not explicitly stated?
§ A
methodological issue in virtue of what can we cross institutions; in an
educational context, they might not state don’t drink alcohol, but the function
won’t show up in the same language as it would in some other institutional context
(such as a hospital); he's not tracking propositional synonyms, but he is
tracking connections between them.
· What
is the thing through which the functions occur?
§ The
panopticon as an example of a function; the diagram as a material object and
the ways in which it cuts across these institutions; the panopticon as a
diagram does that work
· Panopticism
(p. 58)
§ Empirical-transcendental
§ The
panopticon as not having been put into practice, but Foucault focuses on the
diagram itself; it doesn’t matter if it was put into practice but it can help
us track functions of the institutions and this network
o
We can distinguish between a transcendental
answer, a transcendental-empirical answer, and a radically empirical answer
§ To
connect these different cross-institutional functions; we can track this same
idea or rule (transcendental answer)
§ Diagram;
they gain expression in different institutional contexts and the expressions
look different but what’s spread across the network is the diagrammatic (empirical-transcendental
answer)
§ The
panopticon in action (radically empiricist) an empiricism of fact
o
Emergence through asking a question (p.
59)
§ Not
pre-emptive and going into the institution, but being guided by a question;
once a question has been asked, other similarities may start to emerge
· Occurring
in an archive (e.g., looking at the minutes of meetings in schools, schedules
of workers; esp. institutional archives)
o
Data-stream
o
What kinds of things does the historian
need to look at, if one took the empirical route, such that a function can show
up as capable of being networked/possibly as part of a network?
o
What function creates the network? Does it
produce it? Constitutes?
§ We’re
defining a network in functionalist terms; these functions define one another
o
There are multiple form of an empirical answer:
strict materialist form, archeologically, excavation,
o
F. as looking down though archives and
sets of rules set down for posterity (transcendental?)
o
Can you have truly empirical if looking
through it historically?
§ Data-stream
(timebooks, meeting minutes, etc.)
o
Foucault as happy positivist
§ Reconstructing
Foucault’s methodology as he practices it
· Where
is the dispositif
o
Not wholly abstract because it is part of
social reality/part of our present as it continues to influence us
o
Problem of history of the present and empiricism
o
Practices and techniques/technologies (empirical
historian)
§ As
possibly cross-institutional expressions; clock as functional expression of
time measure/segmentation; a clock is not transcendental (maybe empirical-transcendental/empirical)
o
Whatever methodology we ascribe onto Foucault,
how does he get this to show up within the thing he calls examination (that
shows up within Schools, hospitals, etc.)
§ Examination
as a form
o
But do we come to a different understanding
if we study them together vs. if we study them distinctly?
§ From
within vs. between
o
The functions are that which link the
institutions together, so how do we study that togetherness?
§ What
is the resemblance?
§ How
does this togetherness present itself and how can we make an argument for it? Especially
since not every institution is included within this study
· A
clear historicism
o
Technologies link the functions which link
the institutions
§ Example
of security cameras – function to maintain control over time and body
§ Gradebooks
(in other words, records of work, behaviour, and health in the factory, prison,
and psychiatric hospital)
