Foucault's Pen:

An Analysis of Foucault's Self-Appointed Task. .

Jonah Bossewitch

PHI 333

Professor Beatrice Longuenesse

Preceptor Emily Wittman

January 14, 1997

"Most isms are wasms."

Gerald Vision

In the opening paragraphs of his essay "What is Enlightenment?" Foucault uncharacteristically comes straight out and succinctly defines his conception of modern philosophy. "What is modern philosophy? Perhaps we should respond with an echo: modern philosophy is the philosophy that is attempting to answer the question raised so imprudently two centuries ago: Was ist Aufklärung?" Of course, in typical Foucault fashion, his "definition" poses more questions than it answers, and we are left struggling to make sense of a circular dialectic that leaves the reader with the feeling of being victimized by a snide comment. As we attempt to unpack the meaning behind the endless references, and the impetus behind his project, it is impossible to feel watched by the piercing gaze of the man in the photograph on the cover of The Foucault Reader.

Like many great philosophers before him, Foucault demonstrates an unquestionable sincerity and dedication, and he believes himself to be engaged in, what he considers to be, the most important task of all—"the critical task." We should not expect Foucault to simply spell out the precise nature of this task, as its nature an ever evolving function of the moment. Furthermore, no concise definition could ever do justice to the nature of the task, as Foucault would consider his entire body of work, or more accurately his entire life, to be a set of instances from which the essence of the task may be distilled. Any explicit mention of the task within his work is like an embedded mirror which reflects infinite shades of meaning off of the mirrors of the reader's soul (their eyes). However, such landmarks provide us with a suitable starting point from which to begin our investigation of what ultimately must become our own critical tasks, which will power and steer our own life works.

The term 'Enlightenment' is not very enlightening, considering the multiple slippery meanings that are associated with it. Its generic usage involves the acquisition of spiritual or intellectual understanding, and some might consider the members of the "age of Enlightenment" to have been a bit haughty and arrogant to proclaim that their epoch was just that—the age of coming of age, marked by the achievement of spiritual and intellectual maturity. It is important to distinguish between the actual accomplishments during this period and the way that those same accomplishments were perceived by the participants in the discourse. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy begins its entry on Enlightenment as follows: "The period of European thought characterized by the emphasis on experience and reason, mistrust of religious and traditional authority, and a gradual emergence of the ideals of liberal, secular, democratic societies." However, the Enlightenment is more than just the name for a group of years fenced in by an opening and closing date. When Foucault asks "What is Enlightenment?" he does not expect these dates as an answer, rather he is searching for a critique of what it is that the members of the Enlightenment thought they had found—an orientation, on the communal and individual levels, which dictates, or at least endorses, a particular direction and focus, which define mankind's critical task. As we might have expected, our answer, and Foucault's, may not agree with the conceptions of the past, however we are still seeking Enlightenment, in one of it's guises.

From a certain perspective, there is one overriding question which pervades every living beings existence: What should I do next? The actual answer to the question is far less interesting than the method used to arrive at the answer, as the process of determining what to do next will involve an examination of future goals in light of past accomplishments and achievements. Successful organisms must learn from their personal history in order to plan future events, and it is this process of learning, an analysis and critique based on the priorities and dispositions of the agent, that varies from person to person. Members of the historical Enlightenment advocated a particular approach to this problem, based on an accumulation of factual knowledge, and a strict employment of the rational faculties. Foucault claims that post Enlightenment thought, (pre-, ___, and post-) Modernism, encouraged a more heroic outlook, which places the individual on a surfboard, riding the fluid waves of existence, rather than on the side of a frozen cliff, scaling the peaks of Mt. Existence. "The critical ontology of ourselves has to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctrine, nor even a permanent body of knowledge that is accumulating; it has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them."1 Attitude—a direction and a magnitude, existing in mindspace, but not fixed to a unitary point, or even a single coordinate system.

I remember when people used to ask me what kind of music I liked. I responded that I only listened to hard core, but would explain that hard core was not a certain type of sound, set of chords, or particular tempo. What I meant when I categorized music as hard core was that it embodied a certain attitude that transcended the particulars of the musical form. I listened for aesthetic honesty, aggressive integrity, and believable intensity, and found these qualities in musical forms ranging from rock and rap, to folk and jazz. The static form of the musical class, the type of instruments employed, the standard progressions of the genre, or even the radio station format, were not the primary factors which informed my taste. What I heard when I listened to the variety of songs that many others would classify separately, was the abstract quality of attitude, an attitude which I labeled "hard core" that reflected the amount which a particular song resonated with me. Attitude answered the question of whether or not I believed a musician, which consequently allowed me to relate to a song or dismiss it as a pop sell out. This example demonstrates the difference between a fixed hierarchical outlook, embodied by the Enlightenment, as opposed to a Foucultian attitude or ethos, which morphs in color and form like a mythological changeling, with the ability to supervene an abstract quality on whatever activity is currently underway.

Foucault's frequent usage of painters as examples, clearly indicates that his fondness for this artistic craft extends beyond the aesthetic appreciation of a beautiful painting. The techniques embodied by the practitioners of this art can also serve a metaphorical model representing the modernist attitudes that Foucault values so highly. We should not be surprised to find that Foucault's writing style and thinking style both echo the ideals with which Foucault paints the modern painter. Postulating this substitution, Foucault's description of Las Meninas reads as follows: "The [philosopher] is standing a little back from his [project]. He is glancing at his model, perhaps he is considering whether to add some finishing touch, though it is possible that the first [point] has not yet been made... But not without a subtle system of feints... taking a step towards it again, he returns to his task... Now he can be seen, caught in a moment of stillness, at the neutral centre of this oscillation... He rules at the threshold of those two incompatible visibilities... this dotted line reaches out to us ineluctably, and links us to the representation of the [world]."2

Foucault's paper is his canvas, and he presents his ideas as an interplay analogous to the brush strokes of painter. He does not subscribe to the Enlightenment view of reality as a static collection of ideas, firmly rooted in the foundation stone of earlier thought. "Resemblance never remains stable within itself; it can be fixed only when if it refers back to another simultude, which then in turn refers to others... It is therefore a knowledge which can, and must proceed by an infinite accumulations of confirmations all dependant on one another. And for this reason, from its very foundations, knowledge will be a thing of sand."3 This fluidity is not a problem for Foucault, on the contrary, it is what makes our lives interesting, as we flirt with an infinite network of interlocking associations. With the proper attitude toward the ever shifting sands of our foundational beliefs, we embark on the endless, ever recursive, journey towards enlightenment—the ephemeral enlightenment of the present moment, that constantly requires renewal from the philosophical waters of criticism and insight.

With this perspective on epistemology, it is easy to understand why Foucault would be skeptical towards the notion of a progress which leads to maturity. He does not embrace the analogy between physical development and psychological development from which this notion of psychological maturity is derived. Foucault implies the possibility that psychological development follows an alternative model, such as John Conway's Game of Life4 (as opposed to biological life), growing and shrinking in chaotic spurts of progression and regression. Psychological development, the formulation of an ontology of self, does not progress like a pyramid scheme, building on a solid body of knowledge, and aiming towards an attainable endpoint. Foucault tries to impress upon us, through content and style, that while our personal inner journeys may traverse a convoluted path through the past and the future, they must always begin and end in the present.

This model of Enlightenment sharply contrasts the traditional model proposed by Enlightenment thinkers. Foucault does not rely on our ability to extract the technique from his writings, he explicitly spells out his conception, with the ever present disclaimer that "mirrors play a duplicating role: they [repeat] the original contents of the picture, only inside an unreal, modified, contracted, concave space."5 Foucault's snapshot summary of his strategies and methodologies reflects his ideas in quicksilver, shimmering and squirming in a valiant resistance to duplication:

"This philosophical attitude has to be translated into the labor of diverse inquiries. These inquiries have their methodological coherence in the at once archeological and genealogical study of practices envisioned simultaneously as a technological type of rationality and as strategic games of liberties; they have their theoretical coherence in the definition of the historically unique forms in which the generalities of our relations to things, to others, to ourselves, have been problemitized. They have their practical coherence in the care brought to the process of bringing historio-critical reflection to the test of concrete practices. I do not know whether it must be said today that the critical task still entails faith in Enlightenment; I continue to think that this task requires work on our limits, that is, a patient labor giving form to our impatience for liberty."6

Michel Foucault's body of work certainly represents the labor of diverse inquiries. Madness, sexuality, medicine, and punishment, all figured prominently into his socio-historical analysis of the relations of power, between individuals and themselves, others, society, and objects. The thread that spins these diverse tales together is the methodology of "archeological and genealogical" philosophy, a methodology that frowns upon universal formulations and metaphysical investigations. Foucault's approach to philosophy echoes the approach of a natural scientist employing the scientific method to interrogate nature. For Foucault, philosophical theories need to be tested against the backdrop of history, and confirmed by the data historical analysis provides. This process does not rely upon a priori assumptions, or use them to derive its conclusions. History provides the information that allows Foucault to attempt to transform philosophy into an empirical science—the crucial difference being the fact that history is constantly being created, and hence is constantly in flux, unlike, presumably, the fixed laws of nature that natural scientists pursue according to an Enlightenment-flavored paradigm.

Foucault's Madness and Civilization provides an excellent example of this methodology in action. Instead of exploring the limits of rationality on a priori metaphysical grounds, as Kant attempts in the Critique of Pure Reason, Foucault presents a rationality defined by its limiting boundary, namely madness, and shows how civilization's conception of madness/rationality, has shifted over time. Foucault's work is not prescriptive, as he coldly recounts the various horrors that the insane have been subjected too by their sane counterparts. He never proposes a solution to the problem, although one cannot help but feel that the subtext suggests that Foucault has more opinions than he lets on. "We are observing ourselves being observed by the [writer], and made visible to his eyes by the same light that enables us to see him."7 Foucault does not spoon feed us philosophical conclusions, for in many respects he does not believe that such definite conclusions exist. He does believe that he has found the critical methodology which will produce the particular solutions for the individual at the moment of inquiry, and that the relentless pursuit of this ever changing reality is what Foucault considers to be his, if not the, critical task.

The very phrasing of his perspective on the role of Enlightenment, as he understands the movement, betrays the answer to his own rhetorical question. Foucault is not sure whether "the critical task still entails a faith in Enlightenment," however, it is doubtful that most members of the Enlightenment would have felt that the doctrine of the Enlightenment was subject to faith as opposed to being established on firm rational grounds. For people sold on the idea of linear progress, the dogma does not appear as a dogma, but as an a priori truth. The only valid question left to answer was the limits of Enlightenment, not its possibility. To speak of Enlightenment as something which requires faith, in effect eliminates the possibility of belief in the doctrine. You either believe in the principles of the Enlightenment or the grounds of rationality, or you acknowledge that the dogma of the Enlightenment requires faith just like any other dogma, at which point belief in the pure system has been irretrievably tainted—it is impossible to have faith in the Enlightenment, because to acknowledge that it requires faith violates an essential doctrine of the movement.

In place of the Enlightenment, we have seen that Foucault encourages a heroic existence in the present, which will lead to the gratification of our "impatience for liberty." It is confusing to meet the phrase 'liberty' without so much as a sentence of elaboration, considering how much in common 'liberty' has with 'Enlightenment.' In its generic sense, liberty can be understood as a liberation from all the constraints that confine us, physically, emotionally, psychologically, and culturally. Without providing us with a clear, well defined idea of what this grand task is about, Foucault demonstrates by example, how we ought to go about pursuing it. Meticulously, methodological, and with painstaking patience, Foucault advocates the dissection of history with the precision of a neurosurgeon. He accomplishes this by choosing a very specific theme whose examination inevitably yields a microcosm of society in opposition to liberty. While most would agree that this type of work has a rightful place in academia, we must wonder whether it ought to be the critical task of philosophy, at the exclusion of many of traditional paradigms.

There is no doubt that Foucault style philosophy contributes to the philosophical project, however, it is hard to accept his insistence that his method is the only game worth playing. Foucault seems to be forgetting that today's metaphysics is tomorrow's physics, and that the natural sciences would never have advanced as far as they have without the dialectic that exists between philosophy and science. In this vein, it could be argued that Kant was the grandfather of modern psychology, with his introduction of the synthesis of apperception and the distinction between the manifold of apperception and things in themselves. These theoretical hypotheses have helped shape the paradigmatic foundations of psychology, especially cognitive science. History is not always the ideal domain in which to search for answers, as some visionary thinkers might be thwarted by looking back and learning about the failed methodologies. For example, modern day physicists in training struggle for years to understand outdated theories, and yet, some might argue that they are wasting their time learning how to do things the wrong way, when they should be engaging their imaginations trying to acquire non-intuitive intuitions in the relativistic, quantum mechanical realm of modern day physics.

Perhaps this argument also applies to some branches of philosophy (although it is more difficult to assert that a philosophical theory is outdated) where some thinkers would benefit more from engaging an idea head on, rather than sifting through the convoluted sands of its history. The philosophy department here at Princeton endorses various approaches to philosophy by offering "Philosophy of X" where X is sometimes a historical figure (i.e. Aristotle) , and sometimes a particular theme (i.e. Mind). While they clearly place a value on archaeological philosophy, as any Philosophy of Science course will demonstrate, Foucault's extremism does not dictate the curriculum.

Beyond the argument that some would be better off looking forward, rather than backward, Foucault seems to be suggesting that the best way to find out about ourselves is by looking outward, to the external world. Some traditions have postulated the equivalence between the inner and their outer worlds, suggesting that any investigations that can be conducted in the external world, can also be conducted in the internal world, obtaining the same results. Others maintain that there exists a divide between the type and extent of knowledge that can be obtained through introspection versus investigation. In a world of uncertainties, it seems as if philosophy has a responsibility to honestly explore various methods of investigation, and not limit itself to a particular outlook. The strategy that Foucault promotes certainly has a rightful place in the exploration of our world and our selves, however it is presumptuous for him to forcefully insist that we do things his way and no other. Of course, unless someone believes that they are engaged in the most critical task of all, they should not be wasting their time on that task. Foucault grandly accomplishes the task he sets out for himself, but I can not say that I am convinced that this task is mankind's ultimate, and even if it is, I am not sure of the best way to accomplish this task. I doubt that any systematic archeological or genealogical investigation would convince me otherwise.

I pledge my honor that the critical task of writing this paper entailed faith in the honor code, which I have not violated.

Jonah Bossewitch