steiny@idsvax.UUCP (Don Steiny) (05/31/85)
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Are there any other netlanders that are interested in Michael Foucault?
In the "Order of Things" he says that our concept of "man" was
born in the "scientific revolution" and is right now changing
as we leave that epistime and move into a new one. He proposes
that the whole way we order the world has changed dramatically in
the past and is in the process of changing again. He says that
all human sciences are becoming a single science, linguistics.
It is an exciting suggestion. If we are in the middle of
a change, or at the beginning of a new epistime, we forget
the old way or are unable to see it because we are the subjects
and not observers.
Does anyone understand his examples well enough to point
to differences and say, "this belongs to the old epistime and
that to the new?" The one thing I can suggest is in linguistics.
The basic assumptions of linguistics have changed dramatically
since the 20's. Before, there was an assumption that only
emperical data could be the object of scientific inquiry. Skinner
went so far as to say that language does not exist, that there
was no emperical "thing" in the universe that we can point to
and say "that there is language." For us to say today that there
is a "science" of linguististics, we must mean something different
by "science" than the majority of people meant early in this
century.
Another thread that seems relevant is "mental illness."
According to Foucault (and others, notably Thomas Szaz), the idea
that "minds" are somehow like bodies and that they can get "sick"
and be "cured" by doctors is a recent concept. It is an idea
that does not seem to work at all. Today many people do not
believe that it is possible to isolate "individual pathologies"
and realize that what behavior constitutes "normal behavior" and
what behavior is "abnormal behavior" must be determined in the
larger social context. Just this might give a before/after
description.
before - mind is mostly individual
after - mind is mostly social
Is anyone else out there interested in developing an attempt
to understand Foucault?
pesnta!idsvax!steiny
twg!idsvax!steiny
Don Steiny - Computational Linguistics
109 Torrey Pine Terr. Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0832