Reading Foucault is difficult; but one questions how it is that Foucault shall be read: for this question determines the latterly question: how shall Foucault be judged?
It is, despite my confidence about social theory, a whole minefield, of which I admit nothing interesting I can say about Foucault; comparatively however, the observations can be made:
1. It is strangely familiar to read Foucault, not in the writing style, nor even in the context; but in the conclusions made.
2. This is for a few reasons: Foucault’s terminology and work has been dispersed even if not by name unto many subjects: literary studies, social sciences, the humanities, (continental) philosophy..
3. There is a strange parallel to be made between Goffman (of whom I know a little bit more about) and Foucault:
i. Both seem to have interests in control mechanisms
ii. Both have ‘campaigning’ elements to them
iii. Both leer into the more morbid and dark and ‘outside’ (to use Goffmanian terminology) subjects of social relations and social structure; stigma, homosexuality, the ‘total institution’.
4. This parallel isvery unsubtle and there are many complexities to Foucault that I am not acknowledging.Very much, it is to say that Foucault’s work took place in the intellectually isolated environment of France, where little outside of it came through (except, of course, for the real ‘titans’ of the past – Freud, Marx, Hegel etc.)
5. It is interesting to read Foucault as a historian for two reasons:
i. If we understand Foucault as a historian, it sets a prospect for the kind of thing history can be: social commentary of the past to understand the present and future. I hold this wider perspective of our social and natural history to be ‘history par excellance’.
ii. Seeing Foucault as making a statement about our understanding as a result of, or in context of, past social beliefs/attitudes and institutional build makes Foucault look very favourable (much more so, than if we were to consider him a ’social theorist’, or ‘philosopher’).
1. Does it make sense to construe norms into the discourse of epistemology? 2. What are the status of the theoretical norms? 3. What theoretical norms are there?
We could have:
i. Ontological unity (naturalism – strong) ii. Methodological unity (naturalism – weak) iii. Conceptual unity (Transcendental) iv. Systematicity (Transcendental) v. A set of peacemeal norms, induction, parsimony etc.
4. Question-begging, how is induction set into a norm? This relates to the following question
5. If we assume inductive behaviour is inevitable (which, it kind of is), then there is a fact of the matter about the fact that we do use it; further, there is an inevitability about our use of it. Given its inevitability, is there an ought implies can consideration to be made? I see contrary tendencies as to the question of the rationality of questioning the epistemic practice that we deem inevitable (Cf. Stern 2000)
6. We may have epistemic norms of differing graces: strong norms like induction, or systematicity is stronger still, but we may have rules of thumb like parsimony; it may seem that the image is far from systematic, but Quinean-web-like
The transcendent is that which we cannot otherwise but believe, yet cannot prove; the a priori principles which, so fundamental, we may not prove, yet we must presuppose to legitimate all else of reality.
What makes something transcendental, if there is anything to be transcendental at all?
A Transcendental Deduction must be found; whereby we prove that an enthymeme is in place in our everyday epistemic practices and metaphysical construals, however; we must not, as a contingent matter, not have proved this relata in any other way.
What kind of things are transcendent? Belief in the external world, possibly induction and the place of other epistemic norms, or other metaphysical beliefs like the endurance of particulars, which, even in the face of rational doubt, we must otherwise assume.
If we are to construe philosophy as having the highest degree of generality insofar as it legitimates and accounts for all intellectual practices, we may be justified in our belief of it as a queen of the sciences.
Kant proposed, I argue, that there are foundations to our thought, principles that regulate our thinking insofar as we are rational at all; these assumptions underpin the whole enterprise of exploration and thought itself. These reflective principles of judgment are; systematicity, unity, among others. Let us consider unity for now.
Unity is the ideal of knowledge being in a full continuum. That mathematics may be on the same par as aesthetics; that engineering with medicine; that metaphysics be on par with logic. What are the underlying regulative principles upon which they consist? It is such a construal of the question, if it can ever be answered, that may demonstrate the fundamental unity of knoweldge.
Does philosophy have a common base? This seems a most ridiculous suggestion, at least, prima facie. Given the law of a philosopher always having an equal yet opposite opponent; given that there are many who give strong arguments for theses so vastly distinct, and often, so vastly opposite; from atheism to realism, nominalism to realism.
Philosophers, if they are genuine of heritage from the tradition of Socrates; have the fundamental desire to understand, and express this by their fundamental of explaining. This is very vague, indeed. But to explain, one may, as a legitimate normative principle, must have something explainable. It is here, that we may input the desiderata of the principle of suffiicient reason; that every ‘why’ question has an answer.
We are but the immature child, who asks the parent why; the question of why in this child consists of a continuous enquiry, further and further they go, asking deeper truths of an explanation; why did x?why is this answer adequate?what constitutes an answer? why should I accept it?
Knowledge, and reality, we must conceive of the former insofar as we can understand the limits of the latter. Such is the transcendental project of philosophy.
In the year 1789 (I think), Archibald Allison published a work on aesthetics, on the same year as Immanuel Kant; it was a directly opposed theory with deeply empiricist flavourings. Kant’s aesthetic account, by contrast, is more nuanced of a rationalist account, but Allison assert what Kant denies, but in doing so, I think Allison hit the nail right on the head on some issues.
One particular conception that I considered prima facie true, and my mind really hasn’t changed on this, is the significant empirical component in our aesthetic behaviour. When I see an object, I associate it with past memories in which I have seen it, and with past times in which I saw it; and those past times evoke memories of the feeling I had when I saw it.
For me, a summer’s day reminds me of those days in the collegium with S*; it reminds me of a few other summers which were particularly bad, but it also, through the culmination of these memories, synthesises to a new experience: it is no longer the past, it is now; this year can be different. A chain of reasoning comes through the cognizance of our recollection, a determinate set of facts, and an indeterminate process of feeling.
Granted, there is a very complex and relative chain of thought to our associations, and it would be interesting to formalise the process we have in such cases; we could have a formal logic of aesthetics, or a formal logic of memory, or even a formal logic of emotional reasoning/emotional conditionalisation.
But what I think is the lasting platitude here, is the undeniable empirical aspect of aesthetics (aesthetics, after all, is experience)…
Let us say, that I am in love. Is this in virtue of my own desire to want to love? Or my genuine non-self-referential care for another?
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both? Okay, maybe we could concede something like that, however, I think there is a genuine problem where these come apart.
Imagine that there is a person, who cares for his dying wife. This person tends to her, worries about her when she is not around, would do anything for her comfort, and constantly assuring her, and considering her wants, needs, and their importance of a shared bond,
I’m going to throw a thought here now. What if there were two kinds of mindsets realised in the same activity:
The self-interested – where one tends to care about another, they do so to fulfill their own desire; to be the kind of person who is caring or heroic, daring and compassionate.
The genuine lover – where one cares about another and their feelings of wellbeing depend on the other. It is imperative that it is realised that caring for another, and the other’s wellbeing is a necessary condition for one’s happiness and consolation. The dependence relation is not clearly egoistic, however, but is a recognition of their inherent worth (this is purposely undefined and question-begging).
Michael tells me that I am cutting the situation in a way that shouldn’t be cut (Michael say that we are all trivially egoist about everything, but this isn’t a bad thing…). I am, as a ceteris paribus point, am not going to address this.
What is my point here? As the experience itself; when I love another, how is it that I can tell that I am acting out of duty and the inherent worth of another, or acting out of the ends of pursuing my own self-satisfaction through another? How can we tell if we are genuinely acting from love? Away from selfish automatons…
Sinistre
p.s. I consider this thought in compliment to paper I once ready by Michael Smith (A Humean Theory of Motivation): where he poses this thought: fhow is it phenomenologically secure that we are not confabulating about the reasons for our motivation? – the example given was a counterfactual case where a man bought a newspaper from a certain stand only because a mirror was there; if the mirror were not there, the man would eventually go to another stand…I don’t think this thought applies to the situation I presented.
This was a very moving song when I saw it live. Nightwish certainly have changed of late; and here is one of the ways: Marco getting more creatively involved…just imagine, he’s in Tarot, too!
