[lit-ideas] Re: Madness, Foucault, Nietzsche & Emerson

  • From: Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 10:52:43 +0000 (GMT)

I didn't discuss Foucault's writings as a whole, Walter. My claim -- qualified 
by a comment about the intellectual climate when I first read him -- is that 
Madness and Civilization and The Birth of the Clinic are not postmodernist.  At 
least, I claimed that they were "(not postmodernist) as Eric seems to be using 
the term".


I'd add, I think, "and as Donal is".  

My main aim in posting was to encourage people who might be deterred by attacks 
on postmodernism and allegations of relativism à l'outrance to ignore them, 
and, well, read Madness and Civilization. 

I do though stand by my claims. 


Judy Evans, Cardiff.
 
--- On Wed, 7/12/11, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Madness, Foucault, Nietzsche & Emerson
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, cblists@xxxxxxxx
> Date: Wednesday, 7 December, 2011, 18:05
> 
> Quoting cblists@xxxxxxxx:
> 
> > 
> > On 6-Dec-11, at 11:27 PM, Judith Evans wrote:
> > 
> > > Madness and Civilization is not a postmodernist
> work, Eric.
> > 
> > Thanks for this, Judy - it awoke me from my 'dogmatic
> slumber'  
> > regarding Foucault.
> > 
> > Wikipedia is (unsurprisingly) somewhat incoherent
> about Foucault and  
> > postmodernism.  In the entry under
> 'Postmodernism' one finds Foucault  
> > listed as one of the 'major players' (my terminology,
> not Wikipedia's).
> > 
> > Yet under the entry for Michael Foucault himself one
> reads:
> > 
> > "Foucault ... rejected the poststructuralist and
> postmodernist labels  
> > later attributed to him, preferring to classify his
> thought as a  
> > critical history of modernity rooted in Immanuel
> Kant."
> > 
> > Now this sentence is itself ambiguous: is Foucault's
> thought ('a  
> > critical history of modernity') rooted in Immanuel
> Kant, or is it  
> > 'modernity rooted in Immanuel Kant' which is the focus
> of Foucault's  
> > critical history?
> 
> Gadamer has it right in his considered hermeneutics: an
> author's intentions,
> denials, sexual orientation (if any), religious affiliation
> (if any) or
> subsequent commentaries on her own published work possess
> no privileged
> authority in the game of interpretation of her texts'
> meaning and truth. "... a
> critical history of modernity rooted in ... Kant"?? Like
> Hello?? What can
> "rooted" possibly mean here? Is not an "empirical apriori"
> a
> self-contradiction? Enlightenment appreciated.
> 
> I don't get the distinction Chris is making. Chris, what
> are you trying to say?
> 
> Judy, why are Foucault's writings not accurately identified
> as postmodern?
> Surely he is one of the Holy Trinity of postmodern patron
> saints along with
> Lyotard and Rorty. Gospodsi, Gospodsi, pomolimsya.
> 
> Walter O
> MUN
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Chris Bruce,
> > post-post-modernist, in
> > Kiel, Germany
> > --
> >
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