Foucault is - _really_ - one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. This is not an audience for "critical theory" or "continental philosophy" or what-have-you, but everyone owes it to themselves to learn about Foucault's work, just as much as they owe it to themselves to learn about the work of say Ludwig Wittgenstein or Claude Shannon. There are continental philosophers who are not very impressive in my opinion (Louis Althusser comes to mind), but Foucault is not one of them.
Foucault's work is usually focused on trying to discern what things we take as natural, known, and unquestionable are actually constructed claims which can be questioned. I think Discipline & Punish is his most accessible writing; it is a history of judicial systems from the 17th century to the 20th century.
This article is not a great introduction to Foucault, and assumes a familiarity. I do not know why it is on Hacker News except that the author has recently passed.
There are some interesting ideas buried in his writing (panopticon) but Foucault's ideas aren't consistent and it isn't even clear that he takes them seriously himself. Discipline & Punish is also pretty elevated nonsense.
The book makes sense as a history of penal reform, and Foucault is right to point out that changes often served to better punish prisoners rather than reform them as the rhetoric of the day demanded. But pointing out public hypocrisy is hardly a sophisticated observation for a historian to make. And it is a weak base from which to launch the sweeping attack Foucault attempts on the idea that morality matters, or to insist that man's "soul" is nothing more than his position in power networks or that "power" itself is "knowledge" (not vice versa).
In order to support these points, Foucault is dishonest on so many basic historical points that it calls the honesty of his actual historical research into question. I have a ton of underlined passages in my copy of D&P which I made with increasing frequency as his claims started to contradict each other. In the interest of just picking one, look at Foucault's insistence that democratization had absolutely nothing to do with efforts to remove the death penalty. Really? And Foucault "proves" his opinion not by citing a single document but rather by simply stating his opinion that "executions did not, in fact, frighten the people."
Well which is it? Are we truly to believe that the horrific demonstrations of torture which Foucault spends entire chapters chronicling (salaciously, like pornography) did not frighten anyone? Why if so does he describe them in such detailed fashion? And doesn't his own claim about the ineffectiveness of the punishment now contradict his earlier statements about the nature of knowledge, to say nothing of his earlier chapters which actually documented how people were, in practice, quite terrorized.
A lot of the dishonesty slides by in the sheer minutiae of death. And it all gives the impression that Foucault must be right, if only because he is able to a picture of humanity that would repulse most honest people and do so unflinchingly (the virtue of facing unpleasant truths!). But at a certain point, the discerning reader recognizes his sophistry for what it is and stops trying to make sense of it all. I'd encourage anyone on HN to go directly to Plato if they want real philosophy, or at least jump back to Nietzsche (Schopenhauer as Educator) if they want an entertaining and tongue-in-cheek iconoclast whose ideas merit real thought.
How does this differ from Karl Popper's Critical Rationalism (or the later variants of Pan Critical Rationalism)? Seems to me that the idea that there are no unquestionable authorities or axioms that can be used to justify truth and everything can be held up to critique is a much saner, and clearer version than some of the gobble-dy-gook in post modernism.
As much as I am sure the availability of this translation is interesting for english speaking Foucault scholars, I am not sure I buy the 'demolish the caricatures' angle. There was enough material to demolish those caricatures before this was available and, even if there was no published transcript of those lectures, there was no mystery about them and their content was known at least to those who attended those lectures.
Yes, I work as a programmer and bits of Foucault that I've read have been transformative for me. Most of my programmer friends are also at least aware of him.
The portion of his work that I'm familiar with was concerned with the insight that societies are organized by "technologies" of discipline and the "genealogy"[1] of these technologies in different institutional contexts i.e. hospitals, prisons, schools.
When I first encountered Foucault's work as an undergraduate, I wished I'd read it much earlier as it would have helped me decode the prison-like experience of school. The contradiction between imposed ideologies of "freedom" (via studying US history, the news, conversation with adults, etc.) and the total control exerted by the state over where I could go, what I could say, and what I was to do nearly every minute of my life resulted in a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. If only I'd learned earlier what "ideology" meant and that it was well-known that "freedom" is not an ethical, political, or ontological given. Foucault's work reveals that we always exist within power structures and illuminates much of how these structures operate.
This article is not that good, nor is the intended audience those unfamiliar with Foucault's work.
Foucault wrote about many different things. Mostly he was interested in the evolution of power and politics through western civilization. If you're interested in Foucault there are much better places to start than this article.
Postmodern philosophy is to progressive social politics as Marxism is to left wing economics. Both are theories that would be easily dismissed if they weren't written in highly obfuscatory language. Both serve the purpose of giving a political agenda the veneer of being based on solid theory.
That is why right wing writers sometimes refer to postmodernism as "Cultural Marxism". I don't like the term cultural marxism because it sounds conspiratorial, when really all that is going on is people using big words and the fear of appearing stupid to cow other people into submission.
I flagged it because I have no idea, and the linked to article gives no context (Foucault who?) and apparently has nothing to do with the topics usually on HN.
Whenever I've read a particularly dense section of Foucault (or anything originally written in a language other than English) I am always struck by the fact that translating things from one language to another is incredibly hard. I remember taking German during the summer to get my language requirement out of the way for my phd and my translations of German newspaper or magazine articles would be so disjointed and far away from the meaning that other people in the class had gotten from them. Translating something written for a much higher reading level must be very difficult.
Hey, sorry for this offtopic comment but I saw an older comment of yours that I would love to talk about. Could you mail me? I added an mail address in rot13 to my profile. Should be obvious once you see the domain. ;) Thanks!
[+] [-] tatterdemalion|11 years ago|reply
Foucault's work is usually focused on trying to discern what things we take as natural, known, and unquestionable are actually constructed claims which can be questioned. I think Discipline & Punish is his most accessible writing; it is a history of judicial systems from the 17th century to the 20th century.
This article is not a great introduction to Foucault, and assumes a familiarity. I do not know why it is on Hacker News except that the author has recently passed.
[+] [-] trevelyan|11 years ago|reply
The book makes sense as a history of penal reform, and Foucault is right to point out that changes often served to better punish prisoners rather than reform them as the rhetoric of the day demanded. But pointing out public hypocrisy is hardly a sophisticated observation for a historian to make. And it is a weak base from which to launch the sweeping attack Foucault attempts on the idea that morality matters, or to insist that man's "soul" is nothing more than his position in power networks or that "power" itself is "knowledge" (not vice versa).
In order to support these points, Foucault is dishonest on so many basic historical points that it calls the honesty of his actual historical research into question. I have a ton of underlined passages in my copy of D&P which I made with increasing frequency as his claims started to contradict each other. In the interest of just picking one, look at Foucault's insistence that democratization had absolutely nothing to do with efforts to remove the death penalty. Really? And Foucault "proves" his opinion not by citing a single document but rather by simply stating his opinion that "executions did not, in fact, frighten the people."
Well which is it? Are we truly to believe that the horrific demonstrations of torture which Foucault spends entire chapters chronicling (salaciously, like pornography) did not frighten anyone? Why if so does he describe them in such detailed fashion? And doesn't his own claim about the ineffectiveness of the punishment now contradict his earlier statements about the nature of knowledge, to say nothing of his earlier chapters which actually documented how people were, in practice, quite terrorized.
A lot of the dishonesty slides by in the sheer minutiae of death. And it all gives the impression that Foucault must be right, if only because he is able to a picture of humanity that would repulse most honest people and do so unflinchingly (the virtue of facing unpleasant truths!). But at a certain point, the discerning reader recognizes his sophistry for what it is and stops trying to make sense of it all. I'd encourage anyone on HN to go directly to Plato if they want real philosophy, or at least jump back to Nietzsche (Schopenhauer as Educator) if they want an entertaining and tongue-in-cheek iconoclast whose ideas merit real thought.
[+] [-] steveklabnik|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cromwellian|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tome|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] laurentoget|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstanley|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msutherl|11 years ago|reply
The portion of his work that I'm familiar with was concerned with the insight that societies are organized by "technologies" of discipline and the "genealogy"[1] of these technologies in different institutional contexts i.e. hospitals, prisons, schools.
When I first encountered Foucault's work as an undergraduate, I wished I'd read it much earlier as it would have helped me decode the prison-like experience of school. The contradiction between imposed ideologies of "freedom" (via studying US history, the news, conversation with adults, etc.) and the total control exerted by the state over where I could go, what I could say, and what I was to do nearly every minute of my life resulted in a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. If only I'd learned earlier what "ideology" meant and that it was well-known that "freedom" is not an ethical, political, or ontological given. Foucault's work reveals that we always exist within power structures and illuminates much of how these structures operate.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_(philosophy)
[+] [-] JimmyM|11 years ago|reply
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v7n2/gerrie.html
[+] [-] smutticus|11 years ago|reply
Foucault wrote about many different things. Mostly he was interested in the evolution of power and politics through western civilization. If you're interested in Foucault there are much better places to start than this article.
[+] [-] formulaT|11 years ago|reply
That is why right wing writers sometimes refer to postmodernism as "Cultural Marxism". I don't like the term cultural marxism because it sounds conspiratorial, when really all that is going on is people using big words and the fear of appearing stupid to cow other people into submission.
[+] [-] pjonesdotca|11 years ago|reply
Everyone else should get up to speed.
[+] [-] jlarocco|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vixen99|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oniratea|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jccalhoun|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aw3c2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|11 years ago|reply
Did anyone see the Focault-Chomsky debate?
[+] [-] msutherl|11 years ago|reply