First of all, I'd like to take a brief sentence to point out that I usually mix ideas, so that I don't really paraphrase any philosopher on any particular subject -- my personal writings have of course minimal relation as to what Foucault really wishes to say. I'm sure 75% of that is beyond my current grasp, to begin with!
I certainly agree that mine is the easy reading of why such a thing as religion exists. Many more factors are most likely involved. What I was trying to point out was that, like the human sciences, religion ended up serving those with the strongest means. So, as you might suggest, religion may have started off being quite innocent, or as a cultural defense mechanism, etc, but in our days, it is clearly something which is propelled by those who have the best means of propelling it forward to begin with. As such, in a kind of Marxist reading perhaps, everything becomes slave to an overarching paradigm; psychology, sociology, religion, etc, become hopelessly corrupted by economic forces. Here, I think, is where the contingent becomes transparent: rather than having a certain pure fixed 'essence', if you will, the human sciences are modified by the subject that uses them to study himself, which causes the uncertainty that is meant by contingency. I'd say our current understanding of the human psyche only holds true under capitalism (or whatever you wish to call our current economic paradigm); it breaks down after this. So, the contingent then becomes the unpredictable aspect of where the human sciences eventually end up going, since the future itself is radically uncertain, and we cannot know whatever economic principle will rule the future (Unless you're one of those people who claim history has ended and 'this is it').A) I don't think this is a good understanding of why religion formed. A bit of a strawman actually. In fact, depending on how you look at it, it could be convincingly argued I think, putting divine revelations aside, that almost all the Abrahamic religions began as systems to prevent subordinate groups from being dominated--a cultural defense mechanism if you will.
This is a good correction; indeed, with Foucault, there would be no basis to build on. Domination, then, is the result of religion, not its prime drive. It just so happens to be that as time passes religion becomes a means of control... but it didn't start out as such.B) Even more importantly than point A, I think this fails to capture what Foucault is really driving at. When he says what is apparently necessary is really contingent, well, he means almost everything in our reality is in fact contingent; history, our intellectual disciplines, our relationships to our body, our sexuality, our relationships to others. No structure in society has to be the way it has to be. In other words, I think Foucault would say there is no natural NEED to dominate since there is no underlying human nature.
Indeed.The very belief in a particular human nature whether as inherently good, bad, needing to dominate, altruistic, inherently selfish, etc., is all a contingent illusion based off your historical circumstances and what the current episteme would have you believe.
Most certainly; without adding this, Foucault would undermine his own thesis.I also should use the word, "illusion" hesitantly. Foucault is not denying that human beings act a certain way once historical circumstances create and formed that human being as a subject through power-knowledge.
This is because I treat Foucault as a reaction to other philosophers of his time. Foucault can only talk about our modern age, since he is hopelessly trapped within it -- there can never be any transgression to another age. Our current understanding of previous ages is inevitably tainted by present trends in thinking - exactly Foucault's point. If I hint at underlying human nature, then it is perhaps because human nature cannot be eradicated once one treats it as merely an illusion. It is a vital illusion.I think your metaphor of a factory is apropros. It is a factory of the social-historical-power system that pumps out new human beings as subjects of their individual society.
I think where you seem to be misunderstanding Foucault is in your commencts that still seem to hint at an underlying human nature, which for Foucault doesn't exist. And your comments that seem to suggest Foucault specifically is only talking about our modern age and when the episteme shifted onto the soul rather than the body.
I'd have to agree, of course, and perhaps point out that here we might stumble over something we might call human nature, but of course, the representation of such a thing as human nature cannot possibly match with its raw actuality. Neither can defining all things in terms of power-relations. Foucault here merely stumbles over what any philosopher has done before him and which Nietzsche (and Im sure someone before Nietzsche) would define as 'every x is actually y'-kind of thinking. The ultimate irony of the French philosophers that tried to 'fight' off capitalist ideology's tightening grasp on our society is that they are ultimately serving it. This holds true for Foucault's ideas as well... And shatters any hopes for a truly contingent state of affairs, I'd say. Perhaps this is part of your 'minor exceptions'?Foucault in the later part of his writing goes all the way back to the Greeks and puts his analysis to them. There is NO such thing according to Foucault as a society outside of power with particular power relations. There is no such thing as a non-contingent subject for Foucault (with some minor exceptions). You are always the product of power-knowledge whether you are an Ancient Greek, a modern person in the episteme of the soul, or even the pre-modern man who lived under the episteme of the body. The only difference is in the techniques and the formation of the power relations.
Typical French existentialist optimism.Foucault later offers an ethics that he takes from the Ancient Greeks as a way of working within, not escaping, power relations so that you have room for a certain amount of self-formation and experimentation.
Death is transformative; power-knowledge doesn't just create; it replaces the obsolete.Also, the episteme of the soul does NOT want to exterminate the soul. Foucault is very clear in his belief that power is productive. It doesn't just say no; it's not just "thou shalt not." Power-knowledge CREATES the soul.
And my soul shall never be the same; my older soul's state has perished in favour of the new one. The extermination of the soul in our modern world I wish to point out: by hammering individuals with heaps of one-sided information, the soul is extinguished and instead the serial number that once merely differentiated between souls now becomes pure essence itself. You ARE a number, rather than you just having one. Eduction, the factory, etc, all serve to induce monism, in the sense that they attempt to create doubles of a certain model.It forms individuals. Every urge, desire, and thought you could possibly have was formed by your society's current power-knowledge relations, not just big things, but even the tiny little things like the conversation we are having right now.
But of course; it is merely a word. But I'd say the why of the word is not merely contingency, but necessity. The word is a tool of power, a means to get what one wants. This conversation, too, revolves around this, even though we attempt to remain 'civilized'. It's not that we actually want to dominate each other, but rather, that a certain fantasy drives us to have this discussion; it's all about self-fulfillment, no?The very idea of a "soul" is contingent.
And I agree with him on that.Foucault most likely thought that no such real entity called a soul with a true metaphysical existence whether you believe in it or not, actually exists. In many ways it functions more as a metaphor for the psyche.
What our society produces is corpses... Not even these, it creates undead, that is to say, negative 'life'... I'd say the power of the internet is, for example, to gain a soul to begin with. Our society's institutions these days seem to produce only the opposite of what they originally were created for... The church creates atheists, schools create the silent masses, factories the consumers, etc. It is meaningless to talk about my individuality when I'm in a traffic jam together with others stuck in our iron cells on wheels!Therefore, I'm not sure your society-wide Auschwitz metaphor works because power-knowledge is doing the complete opposite; it isn't trying to crush the soul, but in fact create it. The implication of course is that your entire individuality is a product of your society that helps serve a particular function within your society and maintain the status quo of power-knowledge.
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Originally Posted by ~Sado
