Analytic philosophy is largely blind to the workings of power, it is mostly conducted in an imagined world of equals engaging in unrhetorical dialectic. — mcdoodle

What about the world of mathematics and the hard sciences? The dialectic may be rhetorical but the physical world does what it wants.

Yeah, but the people who study the physical world usually get funding to do so by catering to social interests -- as the hard sciences go that usually means catering to either war or medicine in some fashion.

Not always. Nor does this necessarily effect the truth-value of scientific knowledge. It just points out that said knowledge is often fueled by more than pure, objective interest -- but is directed by the workings of power. (When surely the physical world doesn't care for these things)

as the hard sciences go that usually means catering to either war or medicine in some fashion. — Moliere

What war funded Maxwell's research that got us his equations on electromagnetism?

It's not specific wars which fund research programs, but states, universities, and corporations.

Anyone who has had a go at grant money knows where the money is at. As I said, not all science is this way, but it's just a fact that these are the interests which have more funding.

If you need me to reiterate -- this does not effect the truth of said theories. Things are true or not true, regardless of interests.

It's just the wider focus.

f you need me to reiterate -- this does not effect the truth of said theories. Things are true or not true, regardless of interests. — Moliere

Thank you.

Sure.

It doesn't change my point, though -- that hard sciences are influenced by the workings of power.

Suppose a world with 10 true statements in it. If 3 of those statements relate to a specific interests, and 7 statements relate individually to there own interests, then focusing on the first interest may yeild more true statements than any other one interest, but it won't be some kind of totality of truth, even if one's methodology is the same.

It beggars belief that this sort of thing is worth so much ink poured. People do what they do. Nature is the way it is. They have to intersect. Duh,,,,

What about the world of mathematics and the hard sciences? The dialectic may be rhetorical but the physical world does what it wants. — Frederick KOH

You juxtaposed this to my remark that analytic philosophy is largely blind to the workings of power. I'm not clear what point you're making. Philosophers aren't scientists and obviously shouldn't be mistaken for them. Scientists explore the (physical) world following their own interests and those of their peers and their funders. Philosophers ask questions of them that seem to them appropriate. It's the appropriateness of the philosophers' questions that seems to me at issue.

This last term, for instance, I went to a very well-delivered course of lectures by a leading bioethicist. For him, however, all the ethical questions were individual, a weighing of personal potential choices. I think that is being somewhat blind to the workings of power, which deeply influences ethical choices through our social and political institutions. The ethics of hospitals, hospices, pharmaceutical companies and governments, sugar-purveyors and word-of-mouth custom all matter in the bioethical mix. But that's how the analytic approach sometimes works: these social implications are to do with sociology, across the campus, whom some analytics then sneer at because they're supposedly overrun by postmodernists.

Not that everyone's like that of course or I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. I'm a fan of Nancy Cartwright, for instance, who has largely moved over from the philosophy of physics to study how social scientists use causation. She nonplussed me last year by her views on the grave weaknesses of 'gold standard' random controlled trials, which just hadn't occurred to me before listening to her speak.

You juxtaposed this to my remark that analytic philosophy is largely blind to the workings of power. I'm not clear what point you're making. Philosophers aren't scientists and obviously shouldn't be mistaken for them. — mcdoodle

What sort of powers was Frege blind to in his work?

following their own interests and those of their peers and their funders. — mcdoodle

This is true even of Mother Teresa. That scientists get special attention for this from post-modernists is very interesting.

You juxtaposed this to my remark that analytic philosophy is largely blind to the workings of power. I'm not clear what point you're making. — mcdoodle

How would works like "The Two Dogmas of Empiricism" or "Naming and Necessity" be rewritten if their authors weren't blind in the way that you say?

How would works like "The Two Dogmas of Empiricism" or "Naming and Necessity" be rewritten if their authors weren't blind in the way that you say? — Frederick KOH

To recap. I'm against vague blanket criticism of some body of work called 'postmodernism'. I've stood up for Foucault and partly justified that by remarking that analytic philosophy is largely blind to the workings of power. I've made a mild critique of current analytic practice about bioethics that it disregards the socio-political, and therefore exemplifies my charge.

I don't want to rewrite the brilliant work of Frege, Quine or Kripke. Just as I defend some of the work of Heidegger despite his Nazism, I don't for instance think Frege's appalling behaviour towards his academic fellows or his anti-semitic beliefs count against his philosophical work in the slightest.

I'm practising analytic philosophy, in a low-level grad student fashion, albeit in my sixties, so it's not as if I think it's a foolhardy exercise. I'm really only arguing for reasonable precision in argument - e.g. be wary of criticising authors you haven't read - and open minds towards the strange. There is some coming together between analytics and Continentals these days and it seems only positive to me.

It seems as if people still remember mild culture wars of the 90's, when Quine was among those who opposed Derrida's honorary philosophy degree. Here's an interesting recent retrospective blog post by Eric Schliesser: the below the line comments are interesting too, including one of the signatories of the original anti-Derrida letter.

I'm against vague blanket criticism of some body of work called 'postmodernism'. — mcdoodle

What about vague blanket criticism of analytic philosophy?

It seems as if people still remember mild culture wars of the 90's, when Quine was among those who opposed Derrida's honorary philosophy degree. — mcdoodle

You want to read accounts where the balance of power is reversed. Bouveresse has written accounts of what it was like to be an analytic philosopher in France.

What about vague blanket criticism of analytic philosophy? — Frederick KOH

Yes, I'm against that too. You keep asking rhetorical questions as if they were somehow responses to what I write. I'm very happy to have a debate, but you need to put some cards on the table as I have. Do you think I'm wrong about 'power' for instance, and that analytic philosophy mostly isn't blind to the workings of power? If so perhaps you could explain why you think so. I have given the example of current bioethics.

My personal interest, rarely mentioned in this forum, is in philosophy of language, for instance. I'm interested in how speech act theory does not address the relationship of speaker and hearer in both an emotional sense and a power/status sense, and I hope eventually to do some work on that; I think coming to terms with 'power' would enhance that area of philosophy, and in doing so, we can usefully learn from several Continental strands of thinking, one associated with Jurgen Habermas, and one stretching back to Mikhail Bakhtin which on some vague criteria might be called 'post-modernist'.

You keep asking rhetorical questions as if they were somehow responses to what I write. — mcdoodle

There's a name for that sort of thing.

You want to read accounts where the balance of power is reversed. Bouveresse has written accounts of what it was like to be an analytic philosopher in France. — Frederick KOH

Well I am hoping to read some Bouveresse anyway, about language, though not in the near future as I have a reading list a mile long. What people have said to me though is that analytic philosophy is on the rise in France. Bouveresse himself was not without honours, albeit he may well have found himself paddling a lone canoe for some time. But I haven't read anything by him directly, only of him.

Not only are they against postmodernism, they do indeed have some sort of disdain even to read the people they believe they will disagree with profoundly. More than one told me it was sufficient reason not to read Heidegger that he was a Nazi, for instance, — mcdoodle

Heidegger's obscurity makes him more of a guru than a philosopher, which might be sufficient reason for students or teachers of philosophy to skip some of his work. Being a Nazi is also part of his obscurity.

Obscurity might intrigue us, but we shouldn't take for granted that something with an assumed meaning has a meaning. Meanings can be absent, and obscure jargon can make trivial meanings appear more significant than they are. To skip obfuscatory literature does not mean that we lack curiosity, an open mind, nor ability to comprehend the language. Bullshit wastes lives.

Furthermore, a writer and a reader share a responsibility to maximise comprehensibility. To simply expect one to "qualify as a reader of Foucault" puts all responsibility on the reader, whereby the writer (or his fan) becomes a self-appointed authority on how to interpret the assumed meanings; anything else can be dismissed as a "misreading". But we don't get constructive debates without a shared responsibility or respect for the truth of words.

I think his method is tremendously powerful and is firmly in the philosophical tradition. He reaches back to Plato and Aristotle — mcdoodle

I get that Foucault was a true intellectual, but I think the premise of his method is effectively anti-intellectual, It is arguably related to today's "alternative truths".

This is nonsense though, for author's like Foucault are hardly that obscure.

Reading Foucault, it's not hard to understand, for example, that he's not just reducing knowledge to discourse or power.

Indeed, one of his major points is how there's is much to know outside of a discourse and expression of power-- those in power act to suppress this knowledge such that no-one is able to think it. Such argument is not of a man who thinks there is no truth. Nor is this hard to understand reading his work.

A lot of the "obscurity" charge thrown at post-modernism is more about the politics of the reader than what a post-modernist is saying. Much post-modernist argument is dedicated to unravelling world defining narratives of power. (e.g. Foucault's challenges to the structures of power, rejection of Western superiority, challenges to gender and sexuality identity, etc.). A lot of people charge it with obscurity not because it's that hard to understand, but rather because they are desperate postion it as meaningless.

And I would say that's what you are doing here. You find it unacceptable that post-modernism would dare challenge the narrative of Reason's superiority and benifit, so you want grant it can be saying anything at all.

No, all this is just a thin excuse for not having made any earnest attempt to understand the work in question. I dismissed you as a reader of Foucault because its pretty clear from your comments that you've either never read him, or that what little you have read have has given you an incredibly superficial understanding of his work. You're a hypocrite who insists on truth while thinking that you can exempt yourself from it's standard when it come to your unstudied dismissal.

Moreover, the charge of obscurity in Foucault's case that you're making is similarly vastly overstated. Foucault is challenging, but hardly obscure in the way you're making him out to be. I've seen legions of first year students come away from class with better understandings of the man's work after an hour of class than your poor 'let me wiki it'-attempt that has characterised your engagement with him so far. It's telling that when challenged on actual, substantial point, you and your ilk continue to fall back on 'well it's so hard to read anyway so who cares if I'm wrong about it'. 'Postmodernism' has nothing on the intellectual dishonesty that you've so far peddled in this thread.

This is nonsense though, for author's like Foucault are hardly that obscure. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Authors like Foucault ain't that clear either. The context of my previous post was that obscurity of expression might be sufficient reason to skip reading a writer, such as Heidegger or the postmodern writers mentioned by McDoodle.

Reading Foucault, it's not hard to understand, for example, that he's not just reducing knowledge to discourse or power. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I never said that he would just reduce knowledge to discourse.

You're a hypocrite who insists on truth while thinking that you can exempt yourself from it's standard when it come to your unstudied dismissal. — StreetlightX

Again you attempt to merely diagnose my criticism from a superior vantage point, and assert that I'm ignorant of details in Foucault's work. What's the benefit of that?

If you know better, then why don't you engage with that premise of Foucault's method which I found problematic. I explained why I find it problematic.

Moreover, isn't Foucault and his own claims susceptible to the alleged powers beneath our consciousness and beyond logic? Can we not discuss this on the ground, without superior vantage points, intimidation, and so on? I mean, that sort of behaviour also a good reason to not read a writer.

Can we not discuss this on the ground, without superior vantage points, intimidation, and so on? — jkop

I did, and you didn't engage with anything I had to say at all. You simply reasserted your original point without addressing anything I said. So you can stop pretending like you're in any way sincere about this.

My personal interest, rarely mentioned in this forum, is in philosophy of language, for instance. I'm interested in how speech act theory does not address the relationship of speaker and hearer in both an emotional sense and a power/status sense, and I hope eventually to do some work on that; I think coming to terms with 'power' would enhance that area of philosophy, and in doing so, we can usefully learn from several Continental strands of thinking, one associated with Jurgen Habermas, and one stretching back to Mikhail Bakhtin which on some vague criteria might be called 'post-modernist'. — mcdoodle

There is so much amazing work on this out there actually, especially in the sphere of political theory (where Habermas especially is routinely called out for ignoring questions of power). Chantal Mouffe's The Democratic Paradox is vital reading on the question of power with respect to that relationship of speaker and hearer, and you can find some amazing stuff in Wendy Brown (her States of Injury), Bonnie Honig (Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics), Judith Butler (Giving an Account of Oneself/The Psychic Life of Power) and Denise Riley (Impersonal Passion). All address this nexus between power and language, and the ways in which power has been undertheorized in approaches to speech acts, especially in the liberal tradition of thinkers like John Rawls and Selya Benhabib. 'Tis one of my favourite topics.

No, you circumvented my inference by saying that Foucault's focus on power would entail "a widening of what an argument is". That's effectively a dilution of the significance of argument, hence my reply:

The explanatory power of the argument is thus made less significant. . . . Hence Foucault sneaks in his own version of "argument": discourse. — jkop

Furthermore, you obsess about how critics tend to misread Foucault, but I never said that he opposes truth with power, nor argument with discourse: it is trivially true and uncontroversial that we are exposed to many different kinds of power.

What I think is controversial, however, is the belief that powers beyond or beneath an argument would somehow compromise the argument or its outcome, and thus render the truth of words insignificant... simply put: anything goes, and its deplorable effects.

Foucault's focus on power would entail "a widening of what an argument is". That's effectively a dilution of the significance of argument, — jkop

Can you provide a reason for this so-far unwarranted inference? Why would a widening of what we understand to be argument 'dilute it's significance' rather than amplify it? You're missing a line of argument and I'd like to see you provide it. As far as the literature goes, it's commonly acknowledged that such attention doesn't grant any sort of 'dilution' or 'amplification' either way, and that the whole point is that one must pay attention to the specificities of an argument in order to see, empirically, as it were, how power functions any one concrete situation. That's the entire point of Foucault's 'archaeological' method, which you seem to want to critique without even grasping the most basic of it's workings. So as it stands, your argument is both unsubstantiated and eccentric to received readings.

What I think is controversial, however, is the belief that powers beyond or beneath an argument would somehow compromise the argument or its outcome — jkop

Again, this is not an argument made by Foucault, and the fact that you keep bringing it up is only more evidence of your unfamiliarity with the position you're ostensibly critiquing. The 'controvesy' here remains one wholly of your own making, existing nowhere but in your head at this point. I mean, you know its OK to admit that you've simply never read a word of Foucault in your life?

That's why I say your opposition is political. You literally don't know what's being argued. You haven't read it. You don't engage with the concepts being talked about. In you opposition, you use the charge of "obscurity", and you own unwillingness to engage with their argument, as an excuse to say their arguments or wrong and meaningless. I mean what the fuck even is that?

Does one go to a doctor, rocket scientist or quantum physicists and say: "Unless, you can give my a full account of how everything works in simple terms where I don't have to do any study, everything you say about your field is untrue or meaningless"? It's anti-intellectualism of the highest order.

I never said that he would just reduce knowledge to discourse. — jkop

You did. That's why you've been asserting he is so terrible. All along you have been accusing Foucault of taking aways the relevance of truth, as if his arguments turned knowledge into just a matter of who was talking and who as power, such truths were no longer relevant to reasoning or thinking.

Why would a widening of what we understabd to be argument 'dilute it's significance' rather than amplify it? — StreetlightX

Well, you neither amplify nor widen the explanatory power of an argument by adding the power of physical violence, for instance. We might be exposed to many different powers. But violence won't change the truth of words, their conclusion, nor the explanatory power which arises from a conscious use of grammar and logic.

Now suppose Foucault's premise is correct, that an argument consists not only of its explanatory conscious use of grammar logic, but also other powers beyond them, such as violence. Then we are not only exposed to many different powers, but we are helplessly infuenced by them, as well as our conscious use of grammar, logic. That's how the power or significance of the truth of words is reduced or diluted to a point of homeopatic nothingness. In effect a sneaky covert way to replace true argument with his own version: discourse.

Again, this is not an argument made by Foucault — StreetlightX

And again, it is inferred from the premise of his method.

More than half of your posts attempt to intimidate and diagnose my alleged ignorance. That's low quality argumentation. Someone who is confident about a subject does not usually behave like that. I think we're done.

All along you have been accusing Foucault of taking aways the relevance of truth — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, but I never said that he was terrible, nor that he was just reducing argument to discourse. He did many things, and perhaps he was a great guy. I'm neither attacking the person, nor all of his work, only that premise of his method, from which it seems possible to infer something that to me looks like a philosophical disaster. I hope I'm wrong..