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actually the foucault book is not about the liar paradox or any other related paradox.
it's just some reflections on the painting and drawing above by rene magritte (both titled "this is not a pipe"). the issue has something to do with whether in the title of the second image, the drawing, the expression 'this' is referring to either (1) the pipe figure on the canvas drawing, (2) the pipe figure hovering above the canvas figure, (3) a real pipe (something you can smoke with). similarly there is a question as to whether the expression 'pipe' is being used to talk about (1) the property of being a pipe (the property of being something you can smoke from etc.) or (2) the property of being a pipe drawing. a speaker of english (or french) can use the expressions in these different ways to mean something different in each case. the sentence is false if one uses it to mean that the pipe figure on the canvas is a pipe (it isn't, you can't smoke with it). but the sentence is true if one refers to a pipe and says of it that it is a figure drawn on the canvas. but this is not a contradiction, as different things are meant in these two cases. a contradiction is (or can be reduced to) the conjunction of sentence and its negation (such as 'My name is Deniz and my name is not Deniz') where every occurance of an expression in one conjuncts refers to the same thing as the other occurances (so in both conjuncts, 'my name' refers to the same person's name.)
on no stretch of the imagination is there a contradiction anywhere. foucault's reasoning is irremediably muddled here.
of course, when you put things that way nothing flashy like "A day will come when, by means of similitude relayed indefinitely along the length of a series, the image itself, along with the name it bears, will lose its identity" follows from an explanation of what someone can mean by using the sentence in the title. it is one of foucault's poorest writings, i am afraid.
madness and civilization and the birth of the clinic include some interesting information and reflections. much better books i think.
it's just some reflections on the painting and drawing above by rene magritte (both titled "this is not a pipe"). the issue has something to do with whether in the title of the second image, the drawing, the expression 'this' is referring to either (1) the pipe figure on the canvas drawing, (2) the pipe figure hovering above the canvas figure, (3) a real pipe (something you can smoke with). similarly there is a question as to whether the expression 'pipe' is being used to talk about (1) the property of being a pipe (the property of being something you can smoke from etc.) or (2) the property of being a pipe drawing. a speaker of english (or french) can use the expressions in these different ways to mean something different in each case. the sentence is false if one uses it to mean that the pipe figure on the canvas is a pipe (it isn't, you can't smoke with it). but the sentence is true if one refers to a pipe and says of it that it is a figure drawn on the canvas. but this is not a contradiction, as different things are meant in these two cases. a contradiction is (or can be reduced to) the conjunction of sentence and its negation (such as 'My name is Deniz and my name is not Deniz') where every occurance of an expression in one conjuncts refers to the same thing as the other occurances (so in both conjuncts, 'my name' refers to the same person's name.)
on no stretch of the imagination is there a contradiction anywhere. foucault's reasoning is irremediably muddled here.
of course, when you put things that way nothing flashy like "A day will come when, by means of similitude relayed indefinitely along the length of a series, the image itself, along with the name it bears, will lose its identity" follows from an explanation of what someone can mean by using the sentence in the title. it is one of foucault's poorest writings, i am afraid.
madness and civilization and the birth of the clinic include some interesting information and reflections. much better books i think.
actually the foucault book is not about the liar paradox or any other related paradox.
it's just some reflections on the painting and drawing above by rene magritte (both titled "this is not a pipe"). the issue has something to do with whether in the title of the second image, the drawing, the expression 'this' is referring to either (1) the pipe figure on the canvas drawing, (2) the pipe figure hovering above the canvas figure, (3) a real pipe (something you can smoke with). similarly there is a question as to whether the expression 'pipe' is being used to talk about (1) the property of being a pipe (the property of being something you can smoke from etc.) or (2) the property of being a pipe drawing. a speaker of english (or french) can use the expressions in these different ways to mean something different in each case. the sentence is false if one uses it to mean that the pipe figure on the canvas is a pipe (it isn't, you can't smoke with it). but the sentence is true if one refers to a pipe and says of it that it is a figure drawn on the canvas. but this is not a contradiction, as different things are meant in these two cases. a contradiction is (or can be reduced to) the conjunction of sentence and its negation (such as 'My name is Deniz and my name is not Deniz') where every occurance of an expression in one conjuncts refers to the same thing as the other occurances (so in both conjuncts, 'my name' refers to the same person's name.)
on no stretch of the imagination is there a contradiction anywhere. foucault's reasoning is irremediably muddled here.
of course, when you put things that way nothing flashy like "A day will come when, by means of similitude relayed indefinitely along the length of a series, the image itself, along with the name it bears, will lose its identity" follows from an explanation of what someone can mean by using the sentence in the title. it is one of foucault's poorest writings, i am afraid.
madness and civilization and the birth of the clinic include some interesting information and reflections. much better books i think.
Interesting. Foucault is one of the few philosophers however, who contradicted himself in his ideas and philosophy, and didnt seem to mind. I think that wonderful.
Thank you as well derberder for some excellent posts on this thread. I have learned something.
JColtrane
Member
Of course it's not a contradiction, just an apparent contradiction; i.e., something that at first appears to be a contradiction, but on closer inspection proves not to be, as Foucault's book explicates.
Huh, I thought it was pretty good. I'm no Foucault scholar though.
Huh, I thought it was pretty good. I'm no Foucault scholar though.
I'm actually not reading any books, but I do hope to get "An Infidel Manifesto: Why Sincere Believers Lose Faith" by Gary Lenaire. Seems interresting.
But a lot of the books people are reading seem very good.
But a lot of the books people are reading seem very good.
Nile577
Member
- Jun 26, 2003
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I've been trying to temper my criticism of others literary taste. But Ayn Rand is one big exception. Toss that trash in the fire quick young man!
*young woman
Eh, I really like the book. Can't help it.
Now, as for my other tastes.... Surely you don't think Anna Karenina by Tolstoy is trash!
*young woman
Eh, I really like the book. Can't help it.
Now, as for my other tastes.... Surely you don't think Anna Karenina by Tolstoy is trash!
Pardon me young lady. I had no idea. Good to see some ladies on the board.
I have two problems with Ayn Rand: 1) Her writing; 2) her philosophy. Both I find to be among the worst possible writing and thought in recorded human history. And Im not kidding. So please reconsider becoming an objectivist. Please. Save yourself! But its her philosophy that really gets me. I can get over the writing, but the philosophy. I can see how it developed in her--the total antithesis to her Soviet homeland--but such bile. Even William Buckely, the foremost American Conservative writer of the last 50 years, found Ayn Rand to be hateful, and her writing and ideas to be "mean-spirited and horrific" (his words).
Oh from Clive James in his recent book of cultural essays: "if those ["The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged"] were not two of the worst books ever written -- the worst books ever written don't even get published -- they were certainly among the worst books ever to be taken seriously."
No, no, Tolstoy is Tolstoy (which I think is russian for genius).
Nile577
Member
- Jun 26, 2003
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I agree that Madness and Civilisation and The Birth of the Clinic are two of his best offerings. I would add to them Discipline and Punish and the excellent essay/lecture 'Technologies of the Self'. I do think, however, that Foucault's authorial position remains very opaque in these texts. The Archeology of Knowledge is important if we are to understand Foucault's methodology. Reading Madness and Civilization, for example, without having a grasp of the principles of TAoK might lead to one interpreting it as a 'simple' work of history or structuralist analysis (Foucault always avowed that he was not a structuralist). The three books of interviews and essays published by Penguin are also helpful (with caution that we do not treat his thought 'disposively') in interpreting his work, as Foucault is often much more direct in his interviews.
Interestingly he acknowledged, on his death bed, that all he wrote he owed to Heidegger. I am interested to know what you think of their relation. It would seem, for example, that in highlighting the oppressive discourses of 'power' that 'dispose' our being-in-the-world, Foucault examines the 'machinery' of what Heidegger might call the technological gestalt. I wonder if the 'episteme' is the fruit of a thought process Heidegger saw as leading to a mediocre understanding of Being. In any case, Foucault's reading of Heidegger seems to suggest that in-authentic Being is massively prevalent in a 'they-self' comprised of discourses of epistemic power. It can be argued that, for Foucault, 'individual man' barely existed at all - I wonder if the same can be said for 'authentic dasein.'
Έρεβος;6024415 said:
It's good for a sick laugh.
Liberalism is not a coherent philosophy, but a reaction to a status quo in revolutionary mindset. As such, it self-destructs when implemented, because it needs an enemy.
That's how you get absolutism... born of relativism. It defines itself by an opposite, but cannot accept compromise or it becomes wholly irrelevant.
Pure psychology, and no ideology.
Foucault's relation to Heidegger is difficult to estimate. He has rarely referred to Heidegger in print, though in his final interview he has said "For me Heidegger has always been the essential philosopher... My entire philosophical development was determined by my reading of Heidegger." But I am not aware of what he has read by Heidegger and at what time to trace any of his ideas back to something in Heidegger's work. For instance, did he read Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche? These were published in 1961 in German, and the first and third volumes contain material that have some affinities to some ideas in Foucault. But even if he has read these, he may have read them too late to be really influenced by the ideas there. There are some studies of Foucault that may address these questions - in fact, I just started reading Dreyfus and Rabinow's book (see below) which I believe will touch upon it.
So I am presently rereading parts of
The interviews and short pieces here provide a very good entry point to Foucault's thought. As he says himself, Foucault is not really a philosopher and his discussion is usually less rigorous than one may hope for. But there are many important insights here and these insights make Foucault's work more important than many carefully written philosophical writings on the topics discussed. This book is not dense and hard to penetrate, and is actually a very pleasurable read.
I also finally got my hands on
This book is great so far. I haven't been reading any Foucault for the last 5 years or so and picking this up got me pretty excited.
I think Foucault is a philosopher (if not more a philosopher than almost all other philosophers), and whats wonderful is that he never pigeonholed himself into academic philosophy, or any one set philosophical theory or field. If philosophy means lover of wisdom in Greek, and Foucault was smart and dynamic enough to cover multiple areas of philosophy (like the greats, Aristotle, Plato, etc), and areas directly related to life, society, and practical matters, as much as logic and other purely theoretical matters, then how is he not a true philosopher? But of course, I come to this conclusion from a purely non-academic perspective.
Well, I remember him saying in an interview that he is not a philosopher. I don't recall the reference, though - I'll try to dig it. There is also no point in arguing over this - labels of this sort are just labels. It doesn't make any difference to understanding or evaluating anything he's written if one calls him a "philosopher", "social thinker" or something else. Let's also not forget that he is also very much an academic in his more theoretical writing in The Order of Things and The Archeology of Knowledge.
I agree, he covers all spectrums.
Derbeder, I am frankly a bit confused about First Order Logic. I know my Aristotle, but my knowledge of logic hits a dead end after him. I imagine this is what you specialize in, and thus, I was hoping one day, you could possibly explain it in plain english, or in relation to classical syllogisms.
Sure, I will write up a short introduction to elementary logic. I tend to introduce this material to people in a way rather different than what I have seen in typical logic textbooks. This may be of some use to me later on as well.
But this may take a little time, since I am ridiculously busy right now.
Just to make sure I cover all your questions: have you looked at a textbook or are you just going over someone's notes? and what exactly have you had a problem with in what you have read?
But this may take a little time, since I am ridiculously busy right now.
Just to make sure I cover all your questions: have you looked at a textbook or are you just going over someone's notes? and what exactly have you had a problem with in what you have read?
Justin S.
Member
I'm interested to see your approach derbeder, as I had the displeasure of very formal instruction in sentential and predicate logic.
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