[lit-ideas] Re: What, then, is wanting to know?

On 2/27/07, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


Finally: the trouble with commentators on Foucault who look to
Aristotle for support is that too often theirs is a fictional Aristotle.



While we are being obsessive, in the bit I quoted Macey (Foucault's
biographer) is not looking to Aristotle for support. He is summarizing
what Foucault is supposed to have said. What he is reported to have
said seems to me consistent with the quotes from Aristotle provided by
Professor Paul. Macey describes Foucault as saying,

"For Aristotle, there was direct relationship between pleasure and
sensation, and therefore between the intensity of pleasure and the
quantitity of knowledge supplied by sense perception. The desire for
knowledge was a variant on the natural search for happiness and 'the
good'."

How is this inconsistent with

'All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the
delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness
they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of
sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not
going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything
else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know
and brings to light many differences between things.'

especially when the topic is not knowledge itself but, instead, our
desire to know.

The objection that Aristotle did not equate pleasure and sensation
does not, in and of itself, contradict the proposition that Aristotle
saw a direct relationship between pleasure and sensation. A direct
relationship does not imply an identity.

I'm not saying either that Macey's report of Foucault's words is
accurate or that, if it is, Foucault's account of Aristotle's position
is accurate. How would I know? But to me the question as raised,
regardless of whether "Aristotle" and "Nietzsche" are anything but
tags to identify the positions, remains an interesting one.

Professor Paul is, I believe, a fortunate man to have spent his career
teaching at an institution where the fundamental value of knowledge
was never questioned. One could argue over what knowledge is and how
to obtain and demonstrate it without having to address the elephant in
the room, Why bother at all?

For a fictional take on a somewhat different take to the alternatives
that Macey reporting on Foucault offers, allow me to recommend Bruce
Sterling's short story "The Swarm." In it a human being, artificially
enhanced to maximize his intelligence, is sent as an ambassador to
what at first appears to be an only barely sentient but large and
potentially dangerous alien that is entering the solar system. The
Swarm is a hivelike creature which appears to awaken as the ambassador
approaches. The longer he spends with it the smarter it appears to
become. Finally, this is the kicker, the part of The Swarm to which he
is talking reveals that it is only a specialized organ that emerges
when The Swarm encounters one of those smart-ass races that don't
realize that intelligence is a grossly inefficient use of energy. It
will gradually get smart enough to eliminate the threat the smart-ass
race poses. Once the job is done, it will wither and leave The Swarm
to go on living in the highly efficient way that allows it to live
indefinitely, drifting between the stars.

John

--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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