Foucault, On the Gov of the Living, Lecture 4

Questions

In what way is the argument here a reply to Anti-Oedipus? (see page 76, but also page 4).

What is the status of Foucault's refusal to dispense with "anarchism" as a viable modality of political critique? (p. 78).

How do we make use of the particularities of genealogical methodology with respect to its "refusal of universals" (p. 80)?

Discussion

On Foucault vis-a-vis D&G.  See page 76 on the "traditional, old, and furthermore perfectly respectable way of posing the philosophica-political question...: when the subject voluntarily submits to the bond of the truth, in a relationship of knowledge, that is to say, when, after providing himself with its foundations, instruments, and justification, the subject claims to deliver a discourse of truth, what can he say about, or for, ora gainst the power to which is involuntarily subject?"  This is ideologiekritik. 

Both Foucault and D&G want to reject this.  But they reject it differently.  The traditional question starts with Truth and moves to power:

    Truth (bond) -->  Power (subjection)

But Fouc as well as D&G want to flip the question.  So it seems.

    Power (conduct of conduct)  -->  Truth (bond)

Consider page 29 of Anti-Oedipus: "That is why the fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly, and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered: 'why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?'."
    Power (bond to power)  -->  Truth (and so the Q is: what are the effects?)


Foucault asks a similar question, but remodulates it this way: "What does the systematic, voluntary, theoretical, and practical questioning of power have to say about the subject of knowledge and about the bond with the truth by which, involuntarily, this subject is hold?" (77).  So Foucault starts with power, but specifically with breaking from power, rather than (as D&G) stubborn servitude to power.  He further writes, "given my desire, decision, and effort to break the bond that binds me to power, what then is the situation with regard to the subject of knowledge and the truth?" (77).

    Power (break from power)  -->  Truth (and so the Q is: what are the effects?)

In asking what are the effects on truth, Foucault turns to "anarchaeology" and (interestingly!) Feyeraband! (p. 79).


On genealogical particularity versus ideologiekritikisch universality, there is an issue of the status of the particularities central to genealogy as a modality of critique.  Particularities certainly can be used to undermine, or throw into doubt, meta-narratives in their reliance on universals.  Can they also be used for more, or for something else?  For what?  Here the question of the empirical status of particularity rears its head.


In Lecture 5, Foucault takes up the thought that assent to truth is itself a form of subjectivation.  This opens up the possibility of different truth regimes: these are not regimes which would endorse different sets of truths, but rather regimes which would differ over how to relate to the truth itself.  (This is Nietzsche's question: 'why value truth?').  This connects (but we couldn't quite specify how) to the overall focus in the lectures, going back to Lecture 1, of the connections between power and truth where truth is not simply efficient or useful for power.  He writes, in Lecture 4, of the core questions for this theme: "how have the relations between the government of men, the manifestation of the truth in the form of subjectivity, and the salvation of each and all been established in our civilization?" (p. 75).