Re: Materialism and Spirituality

	I won't tackle the question about Foucault and spirituality, but 
the one about Foucault and materialism -- in what sense is FOucault not 
materialist? -- should be answerable. In The Archaeology of Knowledge, 
Foucault says that he is not examining experiences, realities, or events 
which are extra or non-discursive. This restriction of his work to the 
discursive is troubling to a materialist, who wants to claim that 
realities independent of the mind are what really matter and that those 
who consider experience or realities dependent on the mind are idealists. 
On this traditional view, Foucault is condemned as an idealist, as are 
many other postmodern thinkers. Since idealist and spiritualist are not 
the same, I would not want to pursue the spiritualist angle, but the 
materialist or non-materialist perspective clearly hinges on the issue of 
extra or non-discursive realities. Traditional Marxists who think of the 
base as influencing the superstructure despite the superstructure's 
illusions will not appreciate Foucault's rejecting the non-discursive. 
Non-traditional, poststructuralist, or postmodern Marxists, or just 
postmarxists, accept this restriction. They don't accept the 
science/ideology division, and they consider materialism the 
investigation of the institutional grounds of discourse. From this 
perspective, Foucault is a materialist. 

Philip Goldstein