Tuomo Tiisala’s Power and Freedom in the Space of Reasons: Elaborating Foucault’s Pragmatism – Introduction and Chapter 1

Questions

1. P. 8, s. 1 – What does it mean to assert autonomy as an ethical autonomy in a Sellarsian-Brandomian framework? Why is it ethical?

2. Why is structural heteronomy a problem?

3. P. 8, s. 1.1. – Autonomy = rational control over implicit norms? If that is the case, what are the implications of that for Foucault?

4. P. 20ff. – Semantic self-consciousness as an ideal – what does this account presuppose about what/who can achieve it (issue of ableism)? Is this view implicitly hierarchical?

5. P. 19, s. 1.4 – Is there a commitment to a transcendental minimum that is actualizable through training? Transcendental anthropology?

6. P. 16, s. 1.1 – Conceptual coordination vs. non-conceptual coordination (language – conceptual – nonconceptual)

7. Possibilities for autonomy – do they entail inherent privilege?

8. P. 8, s. 1 – Autonomy/Rationality <–> Bedrock of a discursive practice

                   Individuality (I-Thou)                    Sociality (I-We)

Discussion

P. 2 – Tiisala’s discussion of archaeology vs. genealogy: does it imply archaeology as a non-historical methodology? For example, is his view of archaeology close to Agamben’s ontologizing reading of archaeology in The Signature of All Things: On Method? 

Historical A priori – it is formal but, doesn’t Foucault creates it as an explanatory element or methodological invention? Nonetheless, it seems Tiisala reads it in a more robust way (non-formal), especially considering the setting limits of intelligibility. 

Important: “The pivotal idea at the heart of this book is that discourse is a social practice whose conceptual rules are by default implicit and therefore unknown to the participating subjects whose discursive possibilities they nonetheless shape.” Role for philosophy: disclose rules to attain conceptual mastery (or, a weaker claim: reflexive rationality).

Rational self-control (epistemic) vs autonomy (ethical) – how are these related? 

Argument 1 – Autonomy is the ideal we want.

Argument 2 – This autonomy needs to be understood as an ethical ideal and not an epistemic one.

Tiisala – he claims that he wants to bring out the ethical (political?) underpinnings or entailments of an account of conceptual mastery and self-consciousness à la Sellars-Brandom. But if this is the case, then he would have to respond to political objections regarding what is is presupposed by this view (for example: ableism, colonialism and other supremacies).

Is critique itself expressive of rational self-control/autonomy or preparatory (does it help us to get there)? In this view it would have to be the first because autonomy is being defined as rational self-control but this is a good philosophical question…

Tiisala has limited his account to discursive practical autonomy but it appears that there is a more fundamental practical autonomy that is not being discussed. 

Is Foucault only interested in making explicit the discursive rules of statements? What about the non-discursive elements? Is Foucault going to map conceptual—non-conceptual distinctions in the same way?

Normativity                                                                                         Non-normative

Practical                                                                                               Non-practical

Conceptual                                  Conceptual/Nonconceptual??        Non-conceptual

(1) Speaking/Language   |      (2) Gesturing/Dancing/Throwing     |   (3) Breathing

                                                     Imprisonment/Dressage

For Brandom (and presumably Tiisala), (2) is not conceptual, but what about Foucault? Is it the case that (2) are also conceptual, even if not linguistic/semantic? Is there a form of self-consciousness that is not linguistic/semantic but conceptual/normative and, therefore, is not collapsed onto (3)?