Citation:
Foucault, M. (1972). The discourse on language (A.M. S. Smith, Trans.). In M. Foucault (Author) & A.M. S. Smith (Trans.), The archaeology of knowledge (pp. 215-237). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Summary:
Focoult was considered one of the most post-modern thinks, though he actively commbatted this reputation. Similar to Horkheimer and Adorno, Focoult wanted to understand how people continue to be influenced by te enlightenment period. For Focoult, production of discourse is controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by institutional structure that desire to specialize and maintain sub-disciplinization. When we aren't able to coneptuailze what we're doing because of our enframement as participators within our set institutional strutures, we become incapable of meaningfully contributing to the advancement of the institution (224). In this way, the creation of a discipline necessarily limits the creation of knowledge (223).
Response:
Focoult's theory proposes that truth and knowledge are relative to the power structures that determines what the truth and knowledge are. He agreed with the Sophists in that the ability to move between truths makes one able to comprehend the context of the truth as part of the truth. All truth is relative and we learn best by navigating systems of relative truth. Thus, knowledge is not what is true, but what is called true. Additionally, the power structures that govern what is "true" condition our "will" or desire to determine the truth. This is what Focoult means when he says "Will to Truth." We reinforce our own systems of wanting and finding forms of "truth" that are institutionally produce. Focoult links power to language. Language is the institution that reinforces power since all discourse assumes premises that are relative. If this is "true," what's the role of agency? Is the use of language where we lose our agency or where we reassert agency by learning the way power is produced and reinforced and "putting our ore in the stream?"
Questions/Connections:
Foucalt explains that particaptors with an institutional system learn the expectations of the system through "play," or pretending to identify with the system. Yet, while trying to indentify within the system, the learner recognizes the boundaries. By changing the rules within the discipline, other techniques, decisions of the play are modified. This would imply that while participators attempt to identify with the system they also end up reinventing the system. I'm reminded of David Bartholomae's "Inventing the University" (As I review "Inventing the University," I notice that Bartholomae quotes Focoult at the beginning of his essay). According to Bartholomae's argument, students have such a difficult time entering into the "voice" of the university because they are unable to establish the particular ethos they need to be part of the institution. I see where this idea is developed through a Foucalting lens. Students must try to participate in a system by "playing" or pretending to identify with the system, and all the while they are acutely aware of this pretending. Yet Bartholomae points out, and I have seen as well, that while students "pretend" to speak in the voice of the academy, their pretending is never quite on target. Bits of their personal voices slip through, bringing in personal experience, and personal points of view that sometimes change the focus of the lesson they may have been meant to learn, or even the focus of what the class learns. Focoult doesn't completely discount the individual's role in changing the dynamics of power within the institution, but perhaps he agknowldges the roll of the individual a little less than he should. As Bartholomae says, "we invent [our institutions] by assembling and mimicking its language while finding some compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, on the one hand, and the requirements of convention, the history of a discipline, on the other hand."
Foucault, M. (1972). The discourse on language (A.M. S. Smith, Trans.). In M. Foucault (Author) & A.M. S. Smith (Trans.), The archaeology of knowledge (pp. 215-237). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Summary:
Focoult was considered one of the most post-modern thinks, though he actively commbatted this reputation. Similar to Horkheimer and Adorno, Focoult wanted to understand how people continue to be influenced by te enlightenment period. For Focoult, production of discourse is controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by institutional structure that desire to specialize and maintain sub-disciplinization. When we aren't able to coneptuailze what we're doing because of our enframement as participators within our set institutional strutures, we become incapable of meaningfully contributing to the advancement of the institution (224). In this way, the creation of a discipline necessarily limits the creation of knowledge (223).
Response:
Focoult's theory proposes that truth and knowledge are relative to the power structures that determines what the truth and knowledge are. He agreed with the Sophists in that the ability to move between truths makes one able to comprehend the context of the truth as part of the truth. All truth is relative and we learn best by navigating systems of relative truth. Thus, knowledge is not what is true, but what is called true. Additionally, the power structures that govern what is "true" condition our "will" or desire to determine the truth. This is what Focoult means when he says "Will to Truth." We reinforce our own systems of wanting and finding forms of "truth" that are institutionally produce. Focoult links power to language. Language is the institution that reinforces power since all discourse assumes premises that are relative. If this is "true," what's the role of agency? Is the use of language where we lose our agency or where we reassert agency by learning the way power is produced and reinforced and "putting our ore in the stream?"
Questions/Connections:
Foucalt explains that particaptors with an institutional system learn the expectations of the system through "play," or pretending to identify with the system. Yet, while trying to indentify within the system, the learner recognizes the boundaries. By changing the rules within the discipline, other techniques, decisions of the play are modified. This would imply that while participators attempt to identify with the system they also end up reinventing the system. I'm reminded of David Bartholomae's "Inventing the University" (As I review "Inventing the University," I notice that Bartholomae quotes Focoult at the beginning of his essay). According to Bartholomae's argument, students have such a difficult time entering into the "voice" of the university because they are unable to establish the particular ethos they need to be part of the institution. I see where this idea is developed through a Foucalting lens. Students must try to participate in a system by "playing" or pretending to identify with the system, and all the while they are acutely aware of this pretending. Yet Bartholomae points out, and I have seen as well, that while students "pretend" to speak in the voice of the academy, their pretending is never quite on target. Bits of their personal voices slip through, bringing in personal experience, and personal points of view that sometimes change the focus of the lesson they may have been meant to learn, or even the focus of what the class learns. Focoult doesn't completely discount the individual's role in changing the dynamics of power within the institution, but perhaps he agknowldges the roll of the individual a little less than he should. As Bartholomae says, "we invent [our institutions] by assembling and mimicking its language while finding some compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, on the one hand, and the requirements of convention, the history of a discipline, on the other hand."
