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Course module: UCHUMPHI33
UCHUMPHI33
Senior Philosophy Seminar - Foucault
Course info
Course codeUCHUMPHI33
EC7.5
Course goals
After completing this course students are able to:
  • discern and critically assess philosophical assumptions about knowledge as a practice, and the place of philosophical discourse within the latter;
  • analyse and critically assess primary philosophical sources with the help of secondary sources;
  • provide sound and consistent arguments and counter-arguments about the use and abuse of Foucault’s philosophical project in the so-called social sciences.
Content
Intended for students with a specific interest in advanced research and an eye towards post-graduate studies in philosophy, the Senior Philosophy Seminar is designed to meet the needs of students who wish to reach a greater depth in philosophical studies. The Seminar relies on the expertise of a rotating variety of teachers at University College. It is organized thematically, and requires students to follow three seminars of five weeks each treating main categories of philosophical investigation, from metaphysics and ontology to epistemology, from aesthetics to ethics, from philosophy of mind to philosophy of language, from religion to science.
 

Topic for Fall 2016: The philosophy of anti-philosophy of Michel Foucault
 
The multifaceted character of the thought of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) appeals to a vast array of readers who could easily search in it what they needed to think and act with. The ‘afterlives’ of Foucault’s critical project are experienced in a variety of directions and domains of research. Some of his readers argue that his philosophical programme helps finding unprecedented ways of constructing new forms of thinking as well as of demolishing old certainties and comfortable illusions. At the heart of it they find a will that restlessly questions the ingrained social order whilst holding on to a fragile commitment to freedom. Others, more prosaically, argue that the reading of Foucault’s works does not so much teach us new ways of knowing. Rather it invites us to share in a radical calling into question of the ways in which knowledge itself operates. Towards the end of his life Foucault himself drew attention to the three most important shifts in his thought. The first shift was determined by the necessity to analyse the discursive practices through which the human sciences developed. The second shift was determined by the necessity to examine the manifold relations, strategies, and techniques through which power is exercised. The third shift was determined by the necessity to focus on the forms and modalities of the relation to the self by which the individual constitutes and recognizes himself as a subject. The thesis that all forms of knowledge, and the discourses which the latter have given rise to, are historically determined and contingent upon the workings of power is the thread which connects the different phases of his thought. Yet, philosophy readers must not fail to recognize and critically examine what social scientists appealing to Foucault’s legacy often fail to see, and consequently fail to take into proper consideration, namely the anti-philosophical dialectic constituting the core of that thesis. Through the analysis of the ways in which power relations have been constructed, conceptualized, justified and codified in ethical and social terms, Foucault wished to bring all philosophizing about power to an end. Rather than looking for the single universal substance from which all forms of power derive, he encouraged an apprehension of power relations in their multiplicity, differences, specificity and reversibility. What was Foucault doing philosophically when he attacked the philosophy of power? Arguably he was bringing philosophical practice as such into question. Not for nothing he has been called ‘the prince of contemporary anti-philosophy’. The label ‘anti-philosophy’ generally refers to the work of thinkers who have the same relationship to philosophy as the ‘anti-art’ of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) has to art. Yet ‘anti-philosophy’ is a genuinely philosophical practice. As Étienne Gilson (1884-1978) once put it, “philosophy always buries its undertakers”, suggesting that a proclamation of the end of philosophy itself constitutes a recurring moment not only within the history of philosophy but within philosophy itself. Is this warning valid in respect of Foucault? The seminar primarily offers the chance to address this question, and to possibly answer it. Throughout the examination and critical discussion of a number of relevant texts, the seminar provides a meta-critical analysis of Foucault’s deconstruction of philosophy. Its main purpose is generating a critical apprehension of the quintessentially philosophical character of Foucault’s anti-philosophical understanding of philosophy.  
 
 
Format

At the beginning of the Seminar we will gain a general picture of the most important features of Foucault’ sources of inspiration and intellectual purposes through the insightful guidance of Paul Veyne’s account of Foucault’s life and thought. Subsequently, we will read and critically discuss a fairly large number of texts, produced at different moments in time, which are relevant in the perspective of epistemology, aesthetics, ethics and politics. During the course we will watch and discuss the Foucault-Chomsky debate (Human Nature: Justice vs. Power), which took place in November 1971 at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The debate was moderated by the Dutch philosopher Fons Elders, and was recorded and broadcasted by the Dutch National Television. During the course the teacher will made available materials that are part of his own research activity for the purpose of possibly shedding light on the presuppositions and intentions of Foucault’s philosophical project. Classes are expected to be highly interactive. In order to achieve this goal students will be encouraged to immediately establish a relation of familiarity with Foucault’s relevant texts. Every week, the first session constitutes an introduction to the topics to be discussed during the second session.
 
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