Foucault-L mail-list

Thanks Chathan for your further insights, to which I would like to add: 




1/ The role of language or discourse in Foucault is , as I understand it, much broader than his own link to 20th-century (or modern episteme, to be more precise) critical theory. In Foucault, language is co-extensive with the plane of immanence. 




2/ To illustrate 1/ and the point made earlier that Foucault -perhaps with good god reason- fails

to discriminate between 'problem-solving' vs. critical theory, I shall say that Smith Malthus, Ricardo and Marx all belong to the labour analytical of finitude -indeed cause of enough controversy among Marxists.




3/ Is it not suspicious that Foucault singles out Nietzsche (his favourite master) to sustain his suspicion of the 'death of man', while throughout his book he is working at a fully-fledged archaeological level? Namely, is it not more of a legitimate desire on the part of Foucault, a call for those who wish to heed it, the disappearance of man, than an upcoming archaeological discontitnuity?




4/ What is more, why should Foucault adopt a detached approach to the issues that concerned the age where he belonged?




Ruth Thomas-Pellicer




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"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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