EPT
genealogy of morals and michel foucault
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zulu_nation8
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Nitrogen
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FragKrag
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cgrinker
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zulu_nation8
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FuDDx
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Sorry I wanted to say that and i have nothing to really contribute so bye.Good luck with your query. | ||
Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21243 Posts
As for whether or not Nietzsche was the first to do it, I'm tempted to say yes. However, that is very tentative. | ||
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Osmoses
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Carnivorous Sheep
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Aesop
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First piece of advice: Do not try to find any full-fleshed metaphysical system in Nietzsche. One of the main mistake when trying to interpret him is to look for a "hidden" system behind it all that he is advocating. This is about as wrong as constantly looking for "true teaching" and "mere rhetoric" in Plato. What Nietzsche does is not formulating a theoretical system but rather showing how a certain view on the world works out. It is rather the illustration of method, as pragmatical guidance, a sort of therapeutic philosophy. The final step would be to emancipate yourself from the system and be critical according to your own standard. If you try interpreting "'the doer' is merely a fiction added to the deed - the deed is everything.", what implications would it have for your behaviour? First, do not try to look "behind" the deeds of other people. Take what they do at face value (you can see a kind of early behaviourism here, if you want). The benefit will be to remove a lot of "second guessing" ('what could he *really* mean by that?'), thus facilitating everyday life. In case you want to look into conscience being superadded to action, read §354 of the gay science. (unless the quote is from there) As for Foucault, start with "The Order of Things". In my opinion, the "Archaeology of Knowledge" is an insufficient attempt of explaining his whole system after he has put it into practice - and thus falls short of it. Rather read one of "applicatory" works. | ||
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Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21243 Posts
Even though even Nietzsche himself argues against a emphasis on relating his works to each other in Beyond Good and Evil, you can still glimpse ideas that he advocates throughout all of his works. Just because you shouldn't constantly search for such a system doesn't mean that one doesn't exist, and that you shouldn't take note of it. The Archaeology of Knowledge is, in my opinion, a better summary of all of Foucault's ideas than the Order of Things, for the simple reason that it covers more. The Order of Things explains certain aspects of Foucault's thought very specifically and thoroughly, but you have to keep in mind that Foucault wrote the Archaeology of Knowledge after the Order of Things, in response to the responses that he got regarding it. I would say that this means that the later work would represent a more complete and concise overview of his ideas, as opposed to the highly specific earlier work. | ||
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d34gl3r
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Aesop
Hungary11291 Posts
On February 05 2009 15:07 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: I disagree with completely disregarding any systemic approach to Nietzsche. After all, there are ideas formulated by Nietzsche that he holds and refers to throughout his works, such as the famous will to power and Superman theories, his view on morality, and his view on religion. Even though even Nietzsche himself argues against a emphasis on relating his works to each other in Beyond Good and Evil, you can still glimpse ideas that he advocates throughout all of his works. Just because you shouldn't constantly search for such a system doesn't mean that one doesn't exist, and that you shouldn't take note of it. As you might see, I did not discard any systematic approach. I discarded an approach looking for a "theoretical" or a "metaphysical" system. That there are repeating motives and ongoing tendencies in his works is obvious, notable, yet trivial to diagnose. The Archaeology of Knowledge is, in my opinion, a better summary of all of Foucault's ideas than the Order of Things, for the simple reason that it covers more. The Order of Things explains certain aspects of Foucault's thought very specifically and thoroughly, but you have to keep in mind that Foucault wrote the Archaeology of Knowledge after the Order of Things, in response to the responses that he got regarding it. I would say that this means that the later work would represent a more complete and concise overview of his ideas, as opposed to the highly specific earlier work. The specifity of the earlier work is, again in my humble opinion, its strength. An author (who is mostly dead, as we know) can be at pains to describe what exactly he is doing, while the work where he does it surpasses his own theory about it. In short: There might be more truth to the "applied" works than he can express in his theory about them. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
On February 05 2009 14:51 Aesop wrote: Yikes, I started writing a reply, but accidently closed the browser window. Here it goes again. First piece of advice: Do not try to find any full-fleshed metaphysical system in Nietzsche. One of the main mistake when trying to interpret him is to look for a "hidden" system behind it all that he is advocating. This is about as wrong as constantly looking for "true teaching" and "mere rhetoric" in Plato. I am not trying to perform some kind of exegesis, nor structuralist hermeneutic ("'hidden' systems") of Nietzsche since I don't know how to do either. I think concepts such as the Will to Power, etc create a very clear and original ontology which can definitely be described as a Nietzschean metaphysics. I despise the term "hidden systems" as much as you do. On February 05 2009 14:51 Aesop wrote: What Nietzsche does is not formulating a theoretical system but rather showing how a certain view on the world works out. It is rather the illustration of method, as pragmatical guidance, a sort of therapeutic philosophy. The final step would be to emancipate yourself from the system and be critical according to your own standard. My understanding of Nietzsche is very limited. From what I have read I would agree and disagree with you. His method of genealogy is certainly one of the most original contributions to continental philosophy, and have been practiced and re-applied by many later thinkers in particular Michel Foucault. However it seems to me that Nietzsche has also provided many answers in his writing to ontology and ethics, unlike Foucault; the will to power as a new ontological concept, the ubermensch a solution to nihilism. Your description actually fits Foucault very well in that he was the one who regarded his own work as fiction and whose most important contributions were his demonstrations of the geneology/archaelogy methods. | ||
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Aesop
Hungary11291 Posts
On February 06 2009 04:33 zulu_nation8 wrote: My understanding of Nietzsche is very limited. From what I have read I would agree and disagree with you. His method of genealogy is certainly one of the most original contributions to continental philosophy, and have been practiced and re-applied by many later thinkers in particular Michel Foucault. However it seems to me that Nietzsche has also provided many answers in his writing to ontology and ethics, unlike Foucault; the will to power as a new ontological concept, the ubermensch a solution to nihilism. Your description actually fits Foucault very well in that he was the one who regarded his own work as fiction and whose most important contributions were his demonstrations of the geneology/archaelogy methods. I think we agree on the first point, so I will only answer the second. One of the main features about Nietzsche's writing that makes me come to my point of view - that he is giving methodological aid and example - is the form of his books. They are mostly aphoristic (apart from Zarathustra, which is more like a philosophical novel). The paragraphs cover a wide array of topics, sometimes circulating around a central feature, but always diverging, sometimes contradicting themselves. This alone is sufficient evidence for that there is no real doctrine stated. As for the solution to Nihilism, if I recall it correctly, it is to become "strong enough to sustain it". Again, this means adopting a certain view of life, not the realization of some futurous state, as some real teleology would have it. But maybe lets come back to your quote in question? I hope you understand why I tend to disagree with your way of interpreting it? | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
The immediate context of the "doer" quote contains Nietzsche's using linguistic evidence, specifically the subject predicate relation to make the argument that the concept of the subject is an illusion of language. Not gonna quote here cuz it's long. Thus Nietzsche describes the herd, the priestly caste, the plebians as having created a subject of the nobles, the noble subject, to which they assigned the moral quality of "evil". My original interpretation, or rather word I used, "subjective will," assumes that, from the passages I presented, Nietzsche disregards the concept of the subject entirely not in the sense that the plebian notion of the "noble subject" is a false image of the real nobles, but in a much more fundamental way; it is a causal error stemming from the "seduction of language" (GM 45). So, rethinking what I wrote, I should've left off "will" and just said "subject," since the negation of a societal subject does not necessarily restrict individual freedom, the freedom to make decisions on a personal basis. However Nietzsche does infer that whenever people step outside of their social/class boundary, their most primal instinct, the will to power takes over and, at least in history, no greater force, drive, instinct, has been of greater influence. Another interesting point is that Nietzsche describes class as the organizing agent of discursive morality, and most likely knowledge, values, and so on as well. The organizer of class is of course power. I don't know if Nietzsche ever maps out the relation between power and discourse, Foucault obviously tried, but this clearly ontological philosophy of power seems original and Nietzschean. I have never read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but from Genealogy of Morals I read Nietzsche as both introducing the genealogical method and utilizing it to create his own metaphysics. | ||
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zulu_nation8
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I hope I can actually come up with a good paper topic from this blog | ||
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zulu_nation8
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On February 05 2009 14:35 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: And regarding Foucault, if you're looking for a single work, I'd say focus on The Archaeology of Knowledge, since it deals with the issues of knowledge and truth, very similar to most of Nietzsche's work. Steer away from Foucault's stuff about prisons and sex though, those were full of crap IMO =P what didnt you like about prisons and sex  | ||
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zulu_nation8
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
this is mostly the impression i got from hilary putnam's comments on nietzsche. being from the anlaytic approach, you can see that nietzsche is being used to address our core metaphilosophical concerns, whereas continental people would probably want to place nietzsche by his metaphysics. | ||
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