Will to Know Lectures - 16 Dec. 1970 & 6 Jan. 1971

First we aired out our questions:

• 26 - Is the Kantian dilemma the same as the transcendental-empirical?
• 24-25 - How is truth different from knowledge?
• 27 - What does Foucault mean by Nietzsche's "positivism"?
• What is the relationship between the Kantian dilemma and sophism?
• 38 - What is Aristotle excluding in order to make philosophical knowledge possible?
• 31-32 - What does it mean to say that "truth...is in principle linked to knowledge, but both exist in a relation to each other of both support and exclusion"?
• 27 - Why does Foucault want to kill Spinoza?

Then worked through discussion:

• Spinoza seems to ground the quest for truth in the pursuit of happiness; for Aristotle, the quest for truth is simply the result of an innate desire.  Both, Foucault seems to be arguing, are idealists, and therefore must be surpassed.
• Foucault seems to be excavating from both Aristotle and Spinoza the notion that knowledge is worth pursuing because it makes us happy.
• For Nietzsche, the desire for knowledge is simply one configuration that desire might take.
• Foucault talking about positivism in terms of Comte, most likely.  Idea is that one can't assert anything without grounding it in empirics.  Nietzsche, in Human, All Too Human, appears to be a positivist - Foucault is suggesting that Nietzsche has a positivist theme (but it needn't be overcome).
• Foucault suggests that the Sophist is "outside," in the history of philosophy.  Meaning, possibly, that the Sophist rejects the identification of truth and knowledge.
• Aristotle accuses the sophists of excluding truth from debate, but Foucault is suggesting that Aristotle himself is attempting to exclude sophistical reasoning from debate.

Lectures on the Will to Know – 9 Dec. 1970

 We began by refreshing the material we covered last term, and offering some questions we had for the current reading:

I.               Refresher on The Order of Discourse

a.     Theme of exclusions

b.     Where are we picking up?

                                               i.     F’s turn to practices.

II.              Questions

a.     What is the significance of Foucault’s distinction between savoir and connaissance as he introduces these terms in these lectures?

b.     Is the will to know in modernity for an “animal”-kind of knowing, since it is concerned with means, and is ancient knowledge of a higher form, since it is concerned only with ends?

c.     How does the will to truth exercise itself “on other discourses” as well as “on…other practices” that are external to discourse?

d.     What does Foucault mean by his definitions of savoir and connaissance as given on pg. 17?

e.     Is Foucault setting up a causal relationship between desire and knowledge in his first lecture?

We then turned to further discussion:

 

III.            Discussion

a.     Distinction between savoir/connaissance

                                               i.     Definition her provides on pg. 17 seems less like a elucidation of the terms themselves, than with their relationship with desire.

                                             ii.     In Aristotle’s connaissance, desire and knowledge are “co-natural”, they are part of the same process.  Foucault’s savoir, by contrast, is the pulling of desire out from knowledge, showing that we have a will to produce knowledge.

b.     Question of Aristotle’s elision of instrumentality from knowledge.

                                               i.     Foucault seems to be arguing that, from Aristotle on, the notion that knowledge can be non-utilitarian – or sufficient unto itself – covers over some pre-existing will or desire to know, or to know in order to do or be something.

c.     To what extent are the observations Foucault outlines in this lecture needed and/or useful?

                                               i.     Are Foucault’s observations here merely preliminary notes on his later work on power/knowledge, or is he advancing something new and interesting here?

Winter Reading Schedule

Foucault's "Lectures on the Will to Know"

ORIGINAL/OLD
...
Wk 1 - Ch. 1
Wk 2 - Chs. 2 & 3
Wk 3 - Chs. 4 & 5
Wk 4 - Chs. 6 & 7
Wk 5 - Chs. 8 & 9
Wk 6 - Chs. 10 & 11
Wk 7 - Chs. 12 & 13
Wk 8 - "Oedipal Knowledge" (Mar 1972)

UPDATED/REVISED
...
Feb 6 (wk 5) - Lectures 8 & 9 (pp. 116-148)
Feb 13 (wk 6) - Lecture 11 end & Lecture 12 (pp. 175-201) + skim Lectures 10 & 11
Feb 20 (wk 7) - Oedipal Knowledge appendix (Mar 72 lecture; similar to Lecture 12)
Feb 27 (wk 8) - Lecture 13 (pp. 202-223) - April 1971 lecture at McGill
Mar 6 (wk 9) - no meeting but discuss (via email?) plans for next term -
suggestions include our own work?, further texts by Foucault from 1969
to 1973, secondary literature on archaeology and genealogy (Davidson,
Hacking, Bernauer, Gutting), current/recent attempts to make use of
Foucault's genealogies
Mar 13 (wk 10) - no meeting

Foucault, "N,G,H" (1971)

CGC's final meeting of Fall term began, as per usual, with questions...

* What is the value or gain of the focus on discontinuity?  Why is discontinuity important?  Why does Foucault want a history "without constants" (p. 380)?  Why does it matter?  Foucault throughout this piece writes in favor of breaking up continuities.  Why?

* If we read this work as a critique of history as a colonial science (narrative of progress, etc.), can we read Foucault's project as a decolonial project?

* Foucault writes of the body (p. 375) and health and physiology and of genealogy as a "curative science" (p. 382).

* For MF, genealogy seeks "not the anticipatory power of meaning, but the hazardous play of dominations" (p. 376).

* MF writes of interpretation and violence (p. 378), and this raises the question of the status of the idea of interpretation in MF's genealogy.

* Related to the last two, is the emphasis on dominations, conflicts, and subjugations a way of seeking an analytics of power that would not be entirely restricted to an analytics of discourse?

* What is MF's relation to FN here?

Discussion then ensued...

Foucault develops a contrast between "sens l'histoire" (history as an object of sense; distanced) and "sens historique" (sense as historically arising, variable, etc.).

Foucault's conception of history seems anti-essentialist throughout (cf. p. 371 on metaphysics and essence). But what is the justification for this?  Is this because essentialism is 'known to be false'?  Or is its motivation ethical and political?  If the latter, is Foucault "anti-essentialist" or is he just "non-essentialist"?  If he is "non-essentialist" how is this politically relevant?  Is the view that once power gets its grip on (and through the support of) constants, invariants, and universals it 'metaphysicalizes' itself and makes itself dogmatic?

Even if Foucault is not a decolonizing thinker explicitly, he develops a historical sense that works against the colonialist impulse.

Foucault/Derrida Exchange Continued

The reading for this week was Foucault's reply to Derrida, “My Body, This Paper, This Fire.” We begin by revisiting the basics of Derrida's critique, framed as a few key questions: Can one do a history of madness, using the discourse of reason? How can one hope to speak for madness? We also returned to some lingering questions from our discussion of Derrida's piece: What would it mean for Foucault if Derrida were right? What are the motivations or stakes for Derrida? Is his concern largely philosophical, political, historical? We answered tentatively that the stakes of Derrida's critique are primarily philosophical.


We then raised a general question about Foucault's response. Derrida accuses Foucault of misreading Descartes, and, through this, of a broader mistake in attempting a historical philosophy of madness. We notice that Foucault's piece focuses on the interpretation of Descartes, and wonder if, in doing this, he misses the second, broader point. In addressing this question, we ask if there is for Foucault a connection between the two aspects. We then point to a question Foucault poses near the end of the essay where he seems to address Derrida's larger point: “Could there be anything anterior or exterior to philosophical discourse?” (pg. 395). For him, the answer is yes. And the job of archeology/genealogy is to “get at the discursive determination” of such discourse.


The discussion keeps returning to the possibility that Foucault may have missed the force of Derrida's critique, and we make various attempts at formulating the latter's point in a succinct way. This was one attempt: We cannot speak about the “other” of philosophical discourse except by means of philosophical discourse. It would seem as though Foucault takes himself to be outside of the discourse of philosophy/reason—“pointing at things,” as we put it. For Derrida, there is no “getting outside” of such discourse. We venture this as one interpretation of Derrida's quotable “there is nothing outside of the text.”


Trying to understand what Foucault might say to all of this, we invoke the system/exercise distinction (i.e., “systematics” and “ascetics”) made by Foucault. He thinks that Derrida reads Descartes on the level of “system”—the reduction of discursive practices to textual traces is reading the Meditations as a set of propositions. Foucault sees Derrida as perpetuating a traditional, ahistorical model of philosophy. At this point, we hone in on what might be the key sticking point of the debate: the status of philosophical discourse. How can we keep doing this thing called philosophy, after it has been “historicized”? This seems to be more of a question for Foucault than it is for Derrida.


The group concludes with two questions, one concerning the debate between Foucault and Derrida and one concerning the trajectory of the former's work;

1. Is there an impasse between Foucault and Derrida on the question of textual analysis? With the rest of his work in mind, Derrida seems intent on “unreading,” while Foucault accuses him of a “misreading.”
   
2. Are Derrida's critique and the subsequent response instrumental in Foucault's shift from analyzing discourse to analyzing practices?
   

Foucault/Derrida exchange

The group begins with the context of Derrida’s paper and the break between the two philosophers. The discussion proceeds with (I) the analysis of Descartes’ passages quoted in Foucault, (II) Foucault’s reading of these passages, and (III) Derrida’s critique of Foucault.

I. Madness in Descartes:

The group has difficulty in dealing with Descartes, having not read him recently. The members identify, however, that the discussion of madness (in relation to doubt) precede cogito.

II. Foucault’s reading of Descartes

Foucault’s argument: the exclusion of madness from the discourse of reason – an act of silencing. This happens with the distinct way in which Descartes overcomes errors such as dreams. What differentiates madness from, say, dreams?

           

1. Body: in dreams I have a sense of body and a control of my body, albeit deranged or distended, whereas in madness the body doesn’t belong to me.

2. Recoverability: Dreams are subject to errors that can be corrected (confusion, illusion, etc.). When I wake up my deranged and distended body is corrected, whereas madness remains uncorrected. Errors outside reason can’t be corrected; therefore, madness is external to reason.

Then, one cannot suppose one is mad, for the condition of possibility of having the thought of madness is reason.

The group thinks that Foucault might be reading back cogito these passages, while Descartes is still developing the concept of doubt.

III. Derrida’s critique of Foucault

Derrida’s argument: one can’t do a historical/social analysis of madness as a concept or idea.

Madness as an absent present drives philosophical discourse. It is a motivating principle of the philosophical project as the essential other of discourse. It is in opposition to speech (65). It is before language and discourse; it is that which we do violence.

Thus, when we talk about it we’re putting the straightjacket to madness, incorporating it into discourse. This is what Foucault does, as he is speaking within discourse and thus reason. Therefore, by bracketing madness Descartes is more sincere than Foucault who takes it up, assuming that you can talk about it. Descartes in fact performs the reality of madness in the philosophical discourse.

The group acknowledges the deconstructionist tendencies that Derrida would later develop, agreeing with certain aspects of his critique. And yet, how Derrida’s intervention contributes to (or even relates to) the general discussion of the containment of the mad man or Foucault’s larger project is undetermined.

Foucault, "Discourse on Language" (1971)

We began the session with several questions, many of them relating to the concept of truth:

1.     Would it be useful to map out the text, basically?

2.     Foucault suggests that “it is always possible one could speak the truth in a void” (224).  Is this possible and/or consistent with his philosophical project?

3.     Does Foucault understand himself to be a “monster on the prowl,” in the sense that he is speaking the truth, but not within the discursive framework of his time (223-224)?

4.     How does Foucault himself fit within his own definition of “the author”?  Is he an author, or fictional, as he suggests “authors” in fact are?

5.     What is the relationship between the author-function and spoken language?  Is there a difference between the truth that can be found in written narratives, and truth that is spoken?

6.     What does it mean to say that “the theme of the founding subject permits us to elide the reality of discourse” (227)?

7.     Foucault talks about logophobia and logophilia (228-229), which is strange since he rarely speaks of affect.  How is this significant?

We then outlined a sketchy framework of Foucault’s method in the lecture:

1.     Three sets of procedures to regulate/control discourse:

a.     External Exclusions

                                               i.     Prohibitions:

1.     Objects

2.     Rituals

3.     Expertise

                                             ii.     Divisions/rejections

1.     Oppositions btw. reason/madness, e.g.

                                            iii.     Will to Truth

b.     Internal Rules

                                               i.     Commentary

                                             ii.     Author

                                            iii.     Disciplines

c.     Rarefaction among speaking subjects

                                               i.     Ritual

                                             ii.     Fellowships of discourse

                                            iii.     Doctrine

                                            iv.     Social appropriation of discourse

2.     Several reinforcements of these regulations within modern philosophy

a.     Indicts Cartesians, phenomenologists, and Hegelianism

3.     Methodological principles to counter discursive regulations:

a.     Eventually yields two analytic methods: critical and genealogical (critical here seems to mean archaeological)

4.     Ends with hagiography of Hyppolite.

We then opened up into a broader discussion of Foucault’s aims, especially concerning the phrase Will to Truth:

1.     What does Will to Truth mean?  Why is it a will to truth, not the production of truth?

a.     We then debated whether Foucault is lamenting the production of truth in our modern discourse, and nostalgic for its production in, for instance, ancient Greece.

2.     We asked, finally, what the “goal” is in unearthing and explaining our modern Will to Truth.

a.     Two central themes emerged: Foucault’s project could be seen as descriptive, but also (or either) as an act.  That is, he could be read as describing the rules and regulations of discourse, but also of trying to modify that discourse insofar as he describes it in his archaeological manner.