[atreestump]

Foucault asks ‘how do we know there is a real essence’? All we see is someone who doesn’t fit into their prescribed role, then we postulate this must be because their essence is contrary to that role, but we do not really know this, we just postulate a cause.

All Foucault is saying is that we can’t know the nature of the essence if it exists or if it does not exist, or if the cause is something else, all we can know is the exterior ramifications through social interactions and maybe we should start there more, rather than from these essences.

If we do think about these essences, we must base it on the nature of someones relations and their changing identities, which implies that the essences or drives or whatever we want to call them, may not be as fixed as our previous notions of the self implies.

Perhaps it is harmful to have a fixed notion of someone’s essences?

[thetrizzard]

It’s all relational

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[atreestump]

Do you think there is a notion of essences that is Christian that is still affecting our interactions now?

[thetrizzard]

I suppose Christianity merely inherited and embellished the ontological ideas of form and substance from Aristotle and Plato and the merging of Judeo-Greek ideas culminated in the metaphysics of the scholastics, and yes I’m sure the weight of this tradition continues to shape minds…..I think with regards to Foucault he is suspicious of those that claim there is a fixed human nature, for him this knowledge claim is inextricably linked to the exercise of power, they cannot be separated, so for Foucault its always about the function of the claim in terms of power and it’s the dominance of the institutions that make the claim to be ‘true’ (the human sciences)…..Foucault turns the old idea of Christianity / Platonism on its head, instead of the soul being trapped in the body, the body is actually trapped by ideas of the self imposed on it by society….Foucault famously said the ‘soul is the prison of the body’

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[atreestump]

yes I’m sure the weight of this tradition continues to shape minds…..

I didn’t want to send this thread into a rant about Christianity as all inherently bad, I hope you understand, I like Robert Solomon’s take on Nietzsches’ view of Christianity (or rather Heidegger’s take on Nietzsche on the subject) where he points out aside from the moral issues, Christianity did a great job of spiritualising our experience.

for Foucault its always about the function of the claim in terms of power and it’s the dominance of the institutions that make the claim to be ‘true’ (the human sciences)…..

Thanks for pointing out it’s the human sciences, some times I get confused there.

Foucault seems to point out how necessities can’t be known through discourses, as he believes power itself may be another discourse that is just too deeply engrained to get under. Force is the key point here, definitely. Authors have authority.

[Author]

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