Reading Foucault as a Pragmatist. Critical Considerations on the Archaeological and Genealogical Methodology of a Foucauldian Pragmatism and on Its Normative Constitution (original) (raw)
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SYSTEMS OF FORMATION IN FOUCAULT'S ARCHAEOLOGY: INCURSION TO THE SUB-LEVELS OF DISCOURSE (Atena Editora), 2021
Figurando entre as obras fundacionais sobre as quais a escola francesa da análise do discurso pôde se erguer, A Arqueologia do Saber, de Michel Foucault, constitui seu lugar teórico de modo positivamente afastado da análise linguística e da dimensão textual do discurso. Para aproximar dos linguistas os desenvolvimentos teóricos que o autor realiza no texto, talvez seja conveniente que sejam recuperadas algumas das discussões que parecem ter servido como condição para que a obra viesse a público na forma como hoje a conhecemos. Neste artigo, analisamos o grau e o modo de aproveitamento na teoria discursiva foucaultiana do método de análise estrutural tal como Lévi-Strauss o imaginou para a ciência etnológica em meados do século passado, considerando ainda os efeitos que a noção de estrutura por ele recomendada acabou por produzir no modo como os historiadores pensavam a duração social. Do ponto de vista da aproximação metodológica, utilizamos um conjunto de textos referentes ao debate estabelecido entre história e antropologia na França do século passado que supomos terem servido como condição de possibilidade à produção da Arqueologia do Saber. Confrontando-os com a obra de Foucault, exploramos as relações intertextuais existentes entre a Arqueologia e esses trabalhos cuja existência prévia parece ter viabilizado seu aparecimento. Nessa direção, ajustamos a condição de possibilidade a qual nos referimos, reduzindo seu alcance ao que decidimos tomar estritamente como condição (textual) de possibilidade – categoria que admitimos como ponto de apoio em nosso trabalho de análise. Os resultados nos mostram que certos traços da razão estruturalista parecem ter sido transferidos para um aspecto teórico da Arqueologia definido como sistema de formação – uma camada na qual os mais diversos elementos da realidade social estabelecem entre si relações cuja complexa sistematicidade serve como condição de existência aos elementos do discurso.
Understanding Foucault: The Shift from Archaeology to Genealogy
The whole oeuvre of Michel Foucault is concerned with many shifts and turns. He sways between madness and sexuality, between Marquis de Sade and Hellenistic philosophers, from criminality to philosophy. Despite all these shifts, a decisive methodological shift is evident from archaeological to a genealogical one. This shift is often considered by critics as distinctive and apart. But while reading Foucault's own works, interviews and lectures one realizes that the two are in harmony. This paper tries to read the important works by Foucault to understand this methodological shift which enables one to understand his larger concerns about Power and Subjectivity.
Archaeological Methodology: Foucault and the History of Systems of Thought POSTPRINT
Theory, Culture & Society, 2021
Existing accounts of Foucault's archaeological methodology have not (a) contextualized the concept properly within the intellectual field of its emergence and (b) explained why it is called 'archaeology' and not simply 'history'. Foucault contributed to the field of 'history of systems of thought' in France around 1960 by broadening its scope from the study of scientific and philosophical systems into systems of 'knowledge' in a wider sense. For Foucault, the term 'archaeology' provided a response to new methodological questions arising from this initiative. Archaeological methodology had already been developed into a distinct comparative approach for the study of linguistic and cultural systems, notably by Dumézil. Foucault redevised archaeological methodology for the post-Hegelian tradition of studying 'problems' prevalent in the history of systems of thought. The article thus furnishes the groundwork for a 'sociological archaeology' or 'problem analysis' that is not particularly dependent on Foucault as a social theorist of power.
The Episteme and the Historical A Priori: On Foucault's Archaeological Method
Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy (JFFP), 2021
Interpreters of Michel Foucault's 1966 Les mots et les choses have often conflated the terms 'episteme' and 'historical a priori'. This article suggests that the two terms are entirely separate: while 'episteme' refers to the configuration of thought in a given historical period, 'historical a priori' refers to the conditions of unity for a certain field of science within a given period. In his use of the term 'historical a priori', Foucault is thus much closer to Husserl than has hitherto been appreciated. Keeping the two terms separated also sheds new light on the archaeological method that Foucault uses, showing that there is a procedure to get from an archive of texts to the reconstruction of an episteme.
Archaeological Methodology: Foucault and the History of Systems of Thought
Theory, Culture & Society, 2021
Existing accounts of Foucault’s archaeological methodology have not (a) contextualized the concept properly within the intellectual field of its emergence and (b) explained why it is called ‘archaeology’ and not simply ‘history’. Foucault contributed to the field of ‘history of systems of thought’ in France around 1960 by broadening its scope from the study of scientific and philosophical systems into systems of ‘knowledge’ in a wider sense. For Foucault, the term ‘archaeology’ provided a response to new methodological questions arising from this initiative. Archaeological methodology had already been developed into a distinct comparative approach for the study of linguistic and cultural systems, notably by Dumézil. Foucault redevised archaeological methodology for the post-Hegelian tradition of studying ‘problems’ prevalent in the history of systems of thought. The article thus furnishes the groundwork for a ‘sociological archaeology’ or ‘problem analysis’ that is not particularly ...
What is a “history of the present”? On Foucault’s genealogies and their critical preconditions
Punishment & Society, 2014
In this article Michel Foucault’s method of writing a “history of the present” is explained, together with its critical objectives and its difference from conventional historiography. Foucault’s shift from a style of historical research and analysis conceived as “archaeology” to one understood as “genealogy” is also discussed, showing how the history of the present deploys genealogical inquiry and the uncovering of hidden conflicts and contexts as a means of re-valuing the value of contemporary phenomena. The article highlights the critical observations of present-day phenomena from which a history of the present begins, paying particular attention to Foucault’s concept of “ dispositif” and his method of problematization. Foucault’s analyses of Bentham’s Panopticon, of the disciplinary sources of the modern prison, and of the technology of confession are discussed by way of illustration.
Cognitio Revista De Filosofia Issn 1518 7187 2316 5278, 2012
In Part I, I focused on the pragmatic facets of Foucault's genealogies. In particular, I highlighted the extent to which experience in a sense very close to the way Dewey used this term was central to Foucault's project. In Part II, I focus on the genealogical aspects of Dewey's pragmatism. This however entails also turning our attention from "practices of freedom" (to use Foucault's expression) to the efforts of Dewey and Foucault to map the historical terrain of human practices, especially the discursive practices of traditional philosophers, for the sake of pointing out unexplored possibilities. The patient, imaginative exploration of such possibilities is connected to the practices of freedom. Moreover, emancipating our practices often requires us to redraw the maps in which these practices might be both reconfigured in their relationship to one another and liberated from some of their inherited goals. For example, the practice of philosophy (precisely as an instance of a practice of freedom) might be weaned from not only the quest for certainty but also any aspiration to transcend the contingencies of history. Put positively, philosophy might transform itself into, first and last, a critical engagement with the historical present, for the sake of transforming or transfiguring that present. Insofar as it can do this, philosophizing effectively transforms itself into a practice of freedom.
Foucault, Archaeology, Transgression
In this paper, I examine Rabinow and Dreyfus' critique of Foucalt's archaeology. I argue that their stance on his archeological methodology is insightful, but overlooks that if archaeology is, as they hold, indeed 'but' a modern human science in the Foucaldian sense, then its doubling, an "archaeology of archaeology" must (be able to) exist, too. This however I argue not to be impossible. Thus I bring forward a different understanding of the archaeological enterprise: One of a fundamentally transgressive undertaking, accounting for its unique insights through, or in spite of, all its vaguenesses and epistemological precarities.