Foucault-L mail-list

Aaron (and Stuart and Asher)

    I understand what you're saying. I just don't think the reference to
pragmatism is particularly a propos. Rorty's public/private dichotomy
doesn't really establish a spatial ontology (I mean, it effectively does)
but at it's root it's just a political distinction: don't let Martin
Heidegger influence your public values. I just think that what you're
referring to is Arendt's dichotomy :) That's all.

    Perhaps this will only be of interest to Stuart and Asher, but I think
Spanos provides an interesting defense of Heidegger from Rorty: the idea
that Dasein's technological relationship to the world saturates Western
culture in a lateral continuum. Rorty's public/private distinction then
seems rather arbitrary and reactionary.

Nate


TekUtopia@xxxxxxx:

<< I'm not referring so much to Arendt as the notion that there there are
mutually exclusive spaces in one's life (i.e. the pragmatic idea of living
one way in your private life and differently in the public sphere). Can we
separate Foucault's private sexual values from the values that he writes
about. It seems naive to say that Foucault's sexuality is automatically
separated from his public discourse. I'm certainly not sure what connection
there is, but I can't automatically rule it out. F's experience with
psychiatry helped to shape his attitude towards "madness" and their
"treatment."  >>