Re: Foucault and Dewey

On Sat, 29 Jan 2000, Clare O'Farrell wrote:

> Richard Rorty has done some work comparing Foucault and Dewey which may be
> of interest to you. Anybody out there know specific titles of Rorty's work
> in this regard?

Well, there's his most recent book, _Achieving Our Country_, the basic
thesis of which may be summed up as "Foucault bad, Dewey good". I don't
think he actually says much, if anything, about Foucault in there, though;
he just uses the phrase "Foucauldian left" to refer to what is usually
called the "cultural left" or whatever. He spends a few pages slandering
Foucault--with Dewey always at least lurking in the background--in each of
_Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity_, _Essays on Heidegger and Others_,
and _Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth_ (in the latter he ascribes a
"longing for total revolution", which Dewey lacks, to Foucault and
Lyotard).

Rorty's lack of charity toward, not to say deliberate misreading of,
Foucault, is, to put it mildly, very aggravating.

Matthew

 ---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
                         dear readers, my apologies.
                      I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
 ---------------------------------(R.E.M.)----------------------------------