Between theory and history: On the interdisciplinary practice in Michel Foucault's work

MLN - Modern Language Notes

Volumn 119, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 869-884

  Takács, Ádám ^a  

^a EÖTVÖS LORÁND UNIVERSITY   (Hungary)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149607281     PISSN: 00267910     EISSN: 10806598     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/mln.2004.0137     Document Type: Review

References (31)

1. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Routledge, 1997) 11
2. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 17
3. Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987) 270; see also, 273-74
4. Foucault, "Questions of Method," trans. Colin Gordon, The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. Graham Burchnell et al. (London: Harwester, 1991) 74
5. Foucault, "La vérité et les formes juridiques," Dits et écrits (Paris: Gallimard, 1994)2: 643. (all translations are mine unless otherwise indicated)
6. M. Foucault, "La poussière et le nuage," Dits et écrits (Paris: Gallimard, 1994)4: 19
7. Some aspects of Foucault's "history of the present" as problematization, its claims and possible perils, have been analysed in Robert Castel's article, "'Problematization' as a Mode of Reading History," trans. Paula Wissing, Foucault and the Writing of History, ed. Jan Goldstein, (Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994) 237-52
8. Foucault, "Foucault répond à Sartre," Dits et écrits (Paris: Gallimard, 1994)2: 665
9. M. Foucault, "The Art of Telling the Truth," trans. Alan Sheridan, Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman (London: Routledge, 1988) 88
10. In this sense, it doesn't seem to me quite right to suggest that Foucault's notion of the "present" can be a survival of a certain "epochal thinking" that may end up echoing even a metaphysical concept of History. (Cf. Jocelyn Benoist, "Rompre avec l'idéalisme historique: ré-spatialiser nos concepts," in Jocelyn Benoist, Fabio Merlini eds., Historicité et spatialité. Le problème de l'espace dans la pensée contemporaine [Paris: Vrin, 2001] 98-99.). The present for Foucault in no way defines a collective form of experience situated at the endpoint of a universal course of history. It is certainly a segment of collective experience, but one of which the limits and properties can be given only in fragments by an epistemological intervention which seeks to disengage us from its natural experimental characters and turns it into a field of historical problems. The givens of the present serve then as guiding threads in the attempt to transform our actuality into a certain space of thinking in favor of a problematization of history that wants to avoid any direct involvement with the questions of temporal experience or that of historicity
11. Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?" The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon, 1984) 46 (the italics are mine)
12. Foucault uses this expression in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon, 1977) 31
13. It is true that Foucault's use of the notions "archaeology" and "genealogy" is heterogeneous. These notions designate a general methodological strategy being applied differently in various concrete researches. In this sense, they are more like a "Swiss army knife" than components of a single function tool. For a general account of their inter-relation see for example, "What is Enlightenment?" 46
14. Foucault, "La poussière et le nuage," 13-14
15. Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?" 46
16. Foucault, "A propos des faiseurs d'histoire," Dits et écrits 4: 413
17. Foucault, "Questions of Method," 76
18. See for example "What is Enlightenment?" 47
19. And the text "Introduction to Transgressions," in Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, ed. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980)
20. Foucault, "On Power," trans. Alan Sheridan, Foucault, Politics, Philosophy and Culture, 101
21. Foucault, Remarks on Marx, trans. James Goldstein and James Cascaito (New York: Semiotex(e), 1991) 36
22. Foucault, "A propos des faiseurs d'histoire," 414
23. Foucault, Remarks on Marx, 38
24. (translation modified; for the original, see Dits et écrits 4: 46.)
25. See some of Foucault's own remarks on these "effects" in the "Questions of method," 82-86
26. Foucault, "What is Enlightenment?" 47
27. Cf. René Thom, Prédire, ce n'est pas expliquer (Paris: Flammarion, 1993) 29-30
28. On this topic see also Jean Petitot, "Nature et enjeux de la modélisation en sciences sociales," Le Genre Humaine, "Interdisciplinarités" (1998 hiver): 75-102
29. Foucault: "A propos des faiseurs d'histoire," 413
30. Foucault: "La vérité et les formes juridiques," 644
31. The original version of this paper was presented at the "Interdisciplinarity, Today" conference, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, February 28, 2004. I would like to thank Professor Fernando Gil for giving me the opportunity to present my ideas on Foucault. Also I would like to thank Tamás Bényei (Anglo-American Institute, University of Debrecen, Hungary) for checking my English. His suggestions have helped me to find the proper articulation of my thoughts in many points