Tiisala, PFSR, Chapter 2

 “Tiisala Chapter 2 Replacing the Sovereign Subject with savoir”

 

Questions:

1.    How is the notion of savoir (as explained by Tiisala) related to dispositif, another concept concerned with the limits of intelligibility, but perhaps more robust? Especially if dispositif encompasses and expands savoir and archeology? What about these new concepts that challenge the primacy of “savoir” as a guiding thread?

2.    2.2 Sentence on p. 39: “In a sense, the connection is plain to see: since concepts on Foucault’s account are constituted by rules of savoir, individuals must become concept-users by learning these rules.” Is this really plain to see? What is the connection?

3.    How do we get from the division between the true and the false to the claim about autonomy in 2.5? What are the steps that get us from the first to the second?

4.    P. 41, About discursive practices: What is the distinction between discursive and non-discursive social practices with respect to savoir for Tiisala?

5.    What does savoir mean?

6.    Why does Tiisala emphasize the Anglo-American influence on Foucault’s conception of language as opposed to another “preconceptual” treatment of language, like French phenomenology’s?

7.    Is the account of non-discursive action neutral in Brandom?

 

2. “Replacing the Sovereign Subject with savoir”

·  Connaissance (surface knowledge), while savoir would be depth knowledge (unstated presuppositions), the things needed for science or scientific fields to stabilize their inquiry and truth claims.

·   

 

2.1 Foucault’s rejection of the Sovereign Subject

·  Some confusion about the claim that the practice of critique doesn’t require an account of linguistic training. Here, it seems that Tiisala is endorsing his own view about dispositional understanding.

·  It is unclear, for one reader, where Tiisala is making a hermeneutical claim about Foucault’s view or account, and Tiisala’s own, which could be why the above is ambiguous.

·  Tiisala is writing on Foucault at a time when Foucault’s reception in North America is laden in a history that has tended to neglect Foucault’s engagement with Anglo-American philosophers like Austen and pragmatists. Aside from Arnold Davidson’s small nuggets of this influence or engagement, Foucault’s reception in the U.S., in an academic geography invested in a continental/analytic divide, has tended to position Foucault’s philosophy beside someone like Derrida. Yet, there is another, more complex lineage one could draw, at least sociologically, by tracing Foucault’s readings of Wittgenstein, Straussen, etc.

·  In reference to the final sentence of this section, to what extent does conceptual competence have to be transcendental of the content of discursive practices?

·  Perhaps, Foucault acknowledges that the problem of a transcendental operator, a “conceptual competence of conceptual competence” is a real philosophical limit that he doesn’t give a universal account of, since any account of conceptual competence as such is going to lead to the regress problem. 

 

2.2 Foucault’s inferentialism

·  Page 31, first paragraph. How do connect the following: concepts, concept-users, rules of savoir.

·  Individuals become concept-users (iff) they learn rules of savoir because concepts are constituted by rules of savoir.

·  Maybe Tiisala just wants to say that concept use is behavior that follows the rules of savoir.

 

/There are a couple of issues to flag when it comes to the discursive and non-discursive question. One set of worries is that there is a reductivism to focusing on discursive practices. Another worry is that we can’t trace the transformations in discursive without an account of the non-discursive. This is also a question about archaeology as a method, which does not seem to adequately track discursive transformations.

 

/Trying to sum up what we are understanding so far: What the critiques have been missing is a pragmatist conception of rules, which Foucault already has, and archaeology can be vindicated.

 

2.4 Archaeology and genealogy of savoir

·  Tiisala seems to want to suggest that we can study techniques of power in terms conceptual operations of power (savoir), which is different from a reading that suggests that genealogy studies the non-conceptual techniques of power, like assemblages, strategies, etc., i.e. thinks linked to the non-discursive. This is the question of why savoir, and dispositif.

 

Tiisala, PFSR, Chapter 1

Winter CGC Meetings - Week 1 - Tiisala, Chapter 1

We began, as per usual, with questions:

1) Relation between regress of rules and structural necessity (p. 20).  Endorsing or describing?

2) What is the normative attitude exhibited in (expressed by?) dispositional understanding (p. 20), i.e. that which corresponds to the normative attitude of endorsemenent exhibited in representational understanding.

3) The account of semantic self-consciousness (SSC) on pages 20-25. How should we understand this to work such that we can give a philosophically robust account of it?

• 3a) SSC enables concept-users to assess and revise concepts (p. 20).  How can we understand the revision of concepts without situating it within the revision of practices?  Do we revise practices in the course of revising practices?
• 3b) When a concept is defective (p. 25), how does an account of SSC explicate or consider the occurence of attachment to defective concepts?  Is the idea that SSC is a sufficient condition for rectification?  Or is it merely necessary?
• 3c) What are conditions of possibility of SSC? Does TT acknowledgment feasibility constraints? Does TT acknowledge constraints in terms of kinds of persons?
• 3d) Re: (3c): How can we model SSC such that it does not violate any important feasibility or kinds-of-persons constraints?
  

4) Sociality -- Tiisala's Brandomian social ontology.

• 4a) Sociality in the form of I-thou versus in the form of I-we (p. 15).
• 4b) Sociality in the form of you-we sociality (p. 17).
  

Discussion ensued:

Section 1.1: Problem of structural heteronomy.

• Understanding (SSC) comes first, then assessment second, then the possibility of rational control (or the possibility of changing concepts in the world).
  

 Section 1.2: Regress of rules argument

• "Understanding, in its basic form, conforms to standards of correctness neither intentionally nor accidentally" (11).
• Understanding is non-intentional (implicit, or "behind our backs") but also non-accidental.  This is dispositional understanding.
  
• We can then make the understanding something we are intentional about (explicit).
  

Section 1.3: I-thou, I-we, you-we

• You-we sociality is fundamental.  I.e., training is fundamental for understanding.

Section 1.4: from Training to Pattern-Governed Behavior

• "One can also conform to a rule because of the rule, thus non-accidentally, without knowing the rule" (18).
  
• "The goal of linguistic training is to produce pattern-governed linguistic behavior" (18).
• This is necessarily social (19), because of §1.3.

Section 1.5: SSC and conceptual control (CC)

• TT on SSC and CC:
• "Rational control over concepts" (20).
  
• Concepts can become objects of thinking as representations (20).
• "Enables concept-users to assess and revise the concepts they use" (20).
• SSC as sufficient as CC: how would this work?
  
• Assertions are speech acts.
• Understanding is essentially assertional.
• SSC means we know how our concepts are connected to each other.
  
• So the account must be that SSC is necessary (but not sufficient) for CC.
• So how does it fare as an account of SSC as necessary for CC?
• What do we have to assume about CC for the 'necessity interpretation of SSC (for CC)' to make sense?
• Is CC something that I can do by myself (wrt my own concepts) or is it something that must be essentially social?
  

 

Further Discussion Points:

Re: (2): Is it acknowledgment?

Re: (3b): Attachment to concepts needs explication.  Subjectivation.

Re: (4): TT's arg. is that you-we is fundamental for I-we and I-thou social relations.

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)?

Matthieu Queloz, "Revealing Social Functions through Pragmatic Genealogies"

Questions: 

1. How is pragmatic genealogy related to ideal theory? (p. 202)
2. How is pragmatic genealogy related to metaphysics? – Is it an anti-realist or realist project about the concepts under analysis? 
3. Deidealization of needs – how do we do this? (p. 202)
4. Pragmatic genealogies as the fulfillment of needs or self-preservation – Is this fulfilment adequately understood as problem solving? Is survival a problem to be solved? (p. 208)
5. Are pragmatic genealogies a fictional genealogy? 
6. What is pragmatic genealogy for? (p. 210) What is the point? To appreciate the function vis-à-vis self-effacing functionality? What’s the role of self-effacing functionality?
7. Is this the best use of genealogy? What do we gain? 
8. What conception of normativity is operating here? 
9. Worries about the eclecticism 
10. Needs as a route to packing necessity into genealogy (?)
11. What’s the concept of a function? 

Discussion: 

• Functionalist philosophy of social science – “functional approaches in the social sciences” (p. 206) [Q11]
• A function satisfies a problem: “creatures in the state of nature would need to solve a certain problem” (p. 207) [Q4]
• “[pragmatic genealogy] shows how this array of needs issues in the need to solve a particular practical problem” (p. 201)
•   Problems in pragmatism (logical – indeterminacy, semantic – vagueness) 
• Is problem the right way to articulate basic survival or fulfilment of needs? [Q4]
• Highly-inflated conception of need
• What about the non-fulfilment of needs? – suicide, dying for a cause, etc. 
• Rationality assumed in needs/function
• “It presents a particular bundle of dispositions, concepts, institutions, or conventions as a solution to this practical problem, thus indicating that given their needs, it would be rational for these creatures to move into a state in which this particular bundle was operative.” (p. 201)
• Instrumental rationality – means-ends (?)
• Do practical needs necessarily involve instrumental rationality?
• What is “particular sociohistorical configurations of society” (p. 201) 
• Inferring de-idealized needs that follow from initial starting assumption 
• De-idealization (p. 202) 
• “The model is then de-idealized towards our actual situation by successively factoring in further needs: needs entailed by the initial needs the model started out with, but also, as in Williams’s case, needs factored into the model based on what we know about the actual history, sociology, and psychology of human beings.” (p. 202)
• Williams' de-idealization involves taking-up historical cases (p. 204) 
• Unlike Foucault, Queloz is generating a transcendental ontology with certain essentialist components 
• Basic needs – move up to localities
• Why is the movement from an idealized model to deidealized rather than generalizing deidealized to find the model?
• Formulation of ideal a priori (?) 
• Why is pragmatic genealogy the better methodology for articulating needs?
• At least for concepts – such as Truthfulness, Accuracy, Sincerity
• Metaphysics – [Q3]
•   Transcendental function – a priori needs
• Have we used a modal metaphysics to generate the essential needs? – Yes
• Where can we fault this on pragmatic terms?
• Internal criticism of Queloz – does it do everything we would want? 
• Normative limits 
• This is an example of vindicatory genealogy (?) – how does pragmatic genealogy subvert?

What’s outside of Pragmatic Genealogy? 

• Non-needs (contingencies)

• Non-functional explanations

• Contingent psychological features of persons

• Subjective purposes

• Methodologically – how do we

Can he address the “further needs” and the contingencies within a pragmatic genealogy? 

Amy Allen, “Dripping with Blood and Dirt from Head to Toe: Marx’s Genealogy of Capitalism in Capital, Volume 1”

We began, as is our custom, with questions:

1.        Is there a role for nature (metabolic shift, environmental consequences) as an object of inquiry in the genealogy that Amy Allen is developing?  If so, would this impinge the vindicatory aspects of genealogy?

2.        Why is there not an aspect of subjectivation in Allen’s account of Marx’s genealogy?  What would adding it bring in or offer?

3.        How does a genealogical account of Marxism square with a historically materialist methodology?  Is Allen’s account able to understand social relations in terms of historically-specific material relations (yet not posited as transhistorical laws)?

4.        What work is done by the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘historical’ in this analysis (cf. 484)?  Can we read this in terms of the distinction between ‘necessary’ and ‘contingent’?

5.        Marx’s genealogy is presented as explaining capitalism as a bundle of practices—this appears to be subversive.  How do we get from an explanation of an object (capitalism) to a justification of a process (historical process)?

6.        Is the empirical style of genealogy compatible with a more teleological (though not ‘crude teleology’) account focused on ‘historical necessity’?

7.        What is the object of analysis for Marx in his genealogy?  A series of distinctions operative here includes unilinear-v-multilinear and necessary-v-contingent.  Is a mode of analysis that begins with an economic/materialist starting point consistent with multilinearity and contingency?

8.        How can we best make sense of the idea of genealogical necessity?

9.        What does genealogy get from a presentation of Marx as a genealogist that genealogy does not already have?  What does Marxism get from a presentation of Marx as a genealogy that Marxism does not already have?

 

We then turned to discussion:

Let’s begin by focusing on the object of inquiry.  Allen writes, “genealogical argument that takes capitalism as its object” (471).  We tend to see Marx’s analysis as taking capitalism not so much as the object of inquiry but as the concept that Marx’s analysis produces.

What kind of analysis does Allen present Marx as offering?  “This line of argument tends to conflate multilinearity with necessity” (483).  On Allen’s line multilinearity does not entail contingency, but is consistent with an “internal logic of necessity.”

This involves “a conception of necessity more restricted in scope” (483), one involving “multiple historical trajectories, [and that] nonetheless claims historical inevitability for the specific historical trajectory” (483).

§1: Allen reads Marx as saying that primitive accumulation is linked to the theory of surplus labor.  (Is this link one of necessity or of sufficiency?)

               Is this a Foucauldian emergence analysis?  Or an origins story?

 

We see two key moments/concepts:

Necessity:

“His ambivalent genealogy is embedded in a vindicatory historical arc.  In the arc, however, what is vindicated is not capitalism per se, but rather the historical process in which capitalism is embedded” (481).

               It’s not a universal historical trajectory, but

               the historical inevitability of a specific historical trajectory (483).

“Quoting Marx: Capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a natural process, its own negation” (483).

How does necessity or historical inevitability get established?

               Empirically?

               Functionally, as in practical necessity?

               Logically, or Metaphysically?

The answer to this question remains opaque to us.

 

Vindication:

The necessity itself is what vindicates, as a kind of redemption.