Foucault-L mail-list

On the Relavance of the Order of Things:
 
1/ I agree that the book may have been dismissed on grounds of difficulty.
 
2/ I see it as Foucault's most birlliant contribution along with some of his shorter essays like 'What is Critique?'.
 
3/ 'Thanks God' Foucault posits the 'death of man'! For one thing, he paves the ground for his ulterior times, where ecological thinking is a prominent strand and Gaia comes in the place of the King, and for that matter, of man. For another, it is a call on the practioners of critique to take the lead on dissolving the metaphysical entity called 'man'. The confusion lies in the fact that in this work --unlike in other essays-- Foucault lumps together in the same modern episteme critical thinking with 'mainstream science'. By contrast, I restate, the (call for the) death of man is more of a matter of active practice in critical theory/thinking than a teleology that shall be fulfilled by, say, post-post-modern sciences.
 
Ruth Thomas-Pellicer

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "After Nietzsche's devastating criticism of those 'last men' who 'invented happiness,' I may leave aside altogether the naïve optimism in which science -that is, the technique of mastering life which rests upon science- has been celebrated as the way to happiness. Who believes in this? -aside from a few big children in university chairs or editorial offices." -Max Weber 

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