Welcome to Phil 305

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to Phil 305's blog. Here you will post your blog entries as well as contribute comments for the participatory component of the module. I will also post anything of interest to Contemporary French Philosophy such as links, conferences and videos which might be relevant to the course.

Cheers,
Patrick

Results

Your results for your blog entry are almost ready. I won't be able to get back to you until tomorrow, but from then on feel free to send me an email to see how you got on.

Best,
P

Madness and Creativity

Thought I'd see what everyone thinks about this. Really brings some ideas people have been throwing around down to Earth...

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13191495

Some terrifying sci-fi beat poetry from Charlie Sheen.

As much as this is really gripping because it's both pretty funny in a dumb sort of way (can't resist any poetry made by a man who has a magic daquiri) and also a man in the middle of a manic breakdown, I think he has to be helped for his own health.

Any Foucauldian reflections?

Blog Marking

Hi everybody,

Just to let you know that I will comment and mark all your blogs as soon as is humanly possible. The advantage of the blog is that I should be able to get your results back to you relatively quickly. Hopefully, by next week. I will put a note on here to let you know.

Best,
P

Henri Bergson: Covert Mechanisation of Time

One of Henri Bergson's most prominent discussions focuses on time, how it is quantified and thus, how the creativity and richness of human experience can be diminished.

Life is creative and progressive for Bergson.  The concept of vitalism drives life, not merely biological determinism.  The rise of industrial society implemented the proliferation of numeric arrangements.  Such hyper organisation began voiding the world of human value. 

Fragmentation of time on quantitative criteria threatens to mechanise society.  For Bergson, time is qualitative, and must be so, for diversity of life to occur.  The spatial division of time undermines the constant flow of life. 

Separating time and space imposes a linear sequence to experience.  Difference of experience becomes systematically categorised, thus mechanising life.  The artificial practice of quantification, long implemented over time, conditions us to subconsciously separate our own experiences, distorting natural duration. 

Bergson details the social distortion of time by distinguishing between spacial and real time.  Spacial time incorporates the mechanisation of life through quantitative organisational structures, while real time is indivisible, a qualitative intensity that reflects conscious flow.  The social segmentation of this conscious flow, known as 'la duree', potentially leads to control of life through quantitative restrictions.

Existence cannot be pre determined through extensive legislation based on quantification.  Each event if completely new for Bergson.  The dogmatic nature of organised religion perhaps opposes the newness of time Bergson discusses.  Subscribing to an unknown deity implies predetermination of life, focused on finality in the world.  The future would be known, time's creativity would be completely redundant. 

The vitalism present in all life transcends such mechanistic ideology.  Bergson promotes an understanding based on observing life in terms of it's transitive nature.  The creativity resident in all life is realised in such varying degrees of intensity.

Sean Jones N0204187

Foucault and prison's place in society

For Foucault, the role of prison in the modern world is not just to punish criminals but to maintain power over them. This is done by using a divide and rule method, keeping each "prisoner" or civilian separate so there can be no revolts or revolutions. An individual is in the minority if they are kept as an individual, isolated and removed from society rather than left to gain support.

Individuals are also constantly being monitored by a higher power who remains invisible to them. This is represented by Jeremy Bentham's panopticon, where prisoners can be seen at all times but do not know if they are being watched. Foucault points out how this mirrors other parts of society; "Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?" All of these every day establishments use a divide and rule method in the same way that prisons do.

This 'carceral system' began as a reaction to the plague. Authorities created a situation with "everyone locked in his cage ... answering his name and showing himself when asked." This was all in the name of "safety", but in reality it was to maintain control over people, with guards left "to observe all disorder, theft and extortion." This is a direct example of how "panopticism" can be used bu something other than a prison to keep order amoungst masses of civilians.

Everyone within this system is "disciplined" as an individual. Prisoners are monitored by timetable and ranks controlling the time and space of their movement, strongly reflecting the way things work in present day schools. After reading "Discipline and Punish", it is possible to see how the image of the prison and particualrly the panopticon, have been applied within society to control the general public.

Foucault M. Discipline and Punish (1975)

James Rogan
N0221750

Foucault- Sexuality and Power

Foucault believes that sex has been hidden, it has been made into such a taboo subject that we have to be ashamed to talk about it. In his writing in The History of sexuality, Volume 1, he expresses that sex used to be liberated and celebrated in earlier centuries but in the Victorian era it was taken from the streets to inside the home. This disappearing act of the subject of sex was the work from the bourgeoisie, they believed it was a distraction from work and now was a vital time for the concentration on the industrial revolution. Therefore, this created the repressive hypothesis, hidden, non-existent and silenced. Sex was banished to the majority, to only a few there where certain outlets for confession, where this release could be monitored and liberated safely. Foucault identifies these as prostitution and psychiatry, these then became known as the ‘other Victorians’ as Steven Marcus labels them. These ‘other Victorians’ created a space where they could be freed from the power of the social normality and express their sexual nature behind closed doors.

Foucault ultimately wants to know not about sexuality itself, but in our drive for a certain kind of knowledge, and the kind of power we find in the knowledge. With sex being under such power that we cannot talk about it means that we are being controlled and whoever is controlling us is determining who we are and what we think.

This repressive hypothesis can be brought into our modern society for example, with bio-power, the power over the population for example the use of birth control. We are being controlled to have fewer children and therefore, creating a more selected population. Can we ever fight against this system? Will we ever have the knowledge we expire for? Or will we always be controlled by an unbeatable higher power?

Reference

Foucault. M, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, An introduction (Penguin Group: 1990)

Cloe Ambrose N0214511

Structuralism.

Structuralism started with Russian formalism in the 1920's. Russian formalism states that we should ignore that a piece of text has been written by someone and that all that matters is the text that is in front of us when reading. This is because the text has unified structures and meanings that go beyond what the text actually says.

These structures and meanings are evident within the writers work and the reader's response. Structuralism takes this further by saying that these structures and meanings transcend the reader and writer across different writers, works and even different culture. These structures are outside of the writer's intentions and the reader's inclinations, shaping and determining all the acts of creation and reading.

The aim of structuralism is to analyse language as a whole rather that in specific instances. Take the idea that there are seven different plots for which a story can be categorised into. These are the quest, the voyage and return, rebirth, comedy, tragedy, overcoming the monster, rags to riches. Regardless of the characters, the setting or even some events within the story one of these plots will apply to a story and it is this categorisation which is shown in structuralism, encompassing many sotries rather than one individual story.

Structuralism is about finding out how languages and texts have universal structures.

Andrew Fitton. (N0207317)

How far can it be claimed that Foucault’s ‘Folie et déraison' (Madness and Civilisation) has affected modern interpretations of madness?

The intention of this blog entry is to consider the importance that Foucault’s philosophy has had upon modern interpretations of madness. Of course the main literature to be considered is Foucault’s Madness and Civilisation.

For Foucault the separation of madness and reason is not an obvious truth but a variable construct, built through historical context. To truly understand madness we must study its history, and through doing so Foucault claims that madness is intimately linked to the society of the age.

Madness thus appears to be a tool of separation for those deemed not to be normal, in respect to the beliefs and practices of the day. As the rules and beliefs change, so too does the idea of madness. It separates that which is considered to be ‘other’; however it can be agreed that society creates structures where outsiders, or ‘other’, are created by those inside.

In Madness and Civilization Foucault explores this shift in how madness is perceived and also how it is to be dealt with. We can see the shift from expulsion to containment and indeed the criminalization of madness. However Foucault argues that as we have progressed, so has our understanding of what we can claim madness to be. It is claimed that the passions can be deemed irrational and therefore mad, even that love can be claimed as a ‘divine madness’.

It is my opinion that Foucault greatly shaped the way in which we understand madness and its variation and evolution throughout the history of society. I also strongly agree with his thoughts that madness and reason cannot be clearly separated as madness can be viewed as a form of unreasonable genius. It certainly appears as though there is a fine line between madness and genius. Therefore we should not mistreat those perceived as mad and contain them within inhumane asylums.

References:

Foucault, M. Madness and Civilisation (New York: Vintage Books, 2006)

Harry Kidby N0225838

Bergson: Morality and Heroes

Bergson believes that morality is biological and evolutionary in its nature. He presents it as a system that is both open and closed at the same time, he shows the two sides of morality as moral obligation and moral aspiration. Moral obligation is grounded in our current identity and is thus closed whereas moral aspiration shows the potential for growth and is therefore open. For Bergson one cannot exist without the other, closed morality is obedience to the law and open morality is reliant upon the call and attraction of heroes which Bergson sometimes calls Mystics.
Bergson describes heroes as ‘persons who represent the best there is in humanity’ (Bergson,H, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion) they can be living or dead but they serve the purpose of acting as role models to help draw out societies potential and help it move forward. For Bergson Heroes are creative figures, who are able to push at the boundaries of life and social morality inspiring change through their actions. Bergson states that to be in touch with creation we have to be creative and by following the examples of heroic figures we are able to become creative ourselves allowing society to evolve.

Reference
Bergson, H, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, University of Notre Dame Press, 1977.

David Howarth (N0227425)

Blanchot - Literature, she has made a pact with him; Death.

‘The author sees other people taking an interest in his work, but the interest they take in it is different from the interest that made it a pure expression of himself,’ (Blanchot 2004 p.306)

Whilst reading ‘Literature and the right to death’ this quotation both amazed and startled me because of how I relate to it, as a reader, in ‘consuming’ the different works of authors, and therefore I wanted to analyze it.

The author’s interest lies in the pleasure that the work has ‘made him’ an author (Blanchot 2004), (it has shown that he has talent), because of what it confers. Here there has been a reversal because the work’s existence has made him an author; he is dependent on the work for the title. ‘He has made it and it makes him’ (Blanchot 2004 p.305), however as it passes into the public eye it loses this special essence that Blanchot states the writer needed. This special essence seems to be a kind of finally fulfilled longed for dream to ‘be’ in the world that comes via expression.

The public are not interested in the work as an expression of the author but rather they are interested in the work because it is alien to them; ‘an alien work in which he can discover something unknown’ (Blanchot 2004 p.306-307).

It seems the writer’s need to be comes in the shape of a work that becomes a book, a book which is then passed to the mob, who read it, see it in their imagination but, above all, change it and adapt it to their own ideas. The work eventually is nothing for the author because it ceases to express himself, but everything for the reader due to their interpretations. ‘The work itself is disappearing’ (Blanchot 2004 p.306).

References

BLANCHOT, M. (2004). The Work Of Fire. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

N0224503

Bergson and Creative Evolution

Bergson’s Creative Evolution theory was created to help tackle the major dilemmas of Darwinism. What Bergson tried to do here was to enlighten us to the fact that Darwinism gave us no proper explanation for the source of new genetic information from which natural selection could select. Bergson’s theory projected an idea that used a non – Darwinian mechanism to produce new genetic information that allowed well documented mechanisms, like natural selection to function. (Bothamley, Jennifer. 2002. Dictionary of theories. Canton, MI: Visible Ink Press) In effect what Bergson is doing is trying to make a philosophy that combines an explanation for both the connection of all living beings and the discontinuity of the quality of evolutionary process.

Bergson had many problems with Darwin’s theory of evolution particularly that of irreducible complexity. That is, a multi cellular organ is a functional thing, a whole, made up of coordinated parts and if one or any of these parts varied, the functioning of this whole would be impaired. (Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, page 98) From this Bergson concluded that due to this irreducible complexity, every single stage of any animals development, all of its parts must have varied ‘contemporaneously’ for effective functioning to be preserved. (Goudge, T. A. 1967. Henri Bergson in Encyclopedia of philosophy. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan) However for Bergson it was completely implausible to suggest, as Darwin did, that such functions could have been random, He thought that some higher power, as it were, other than the mechanism of natural selection must have been at work, in order to preserve stability of functioning through consecutive alterations of form.

Darwinism for Bergson had failed to show why life evolved in the specific direction of greater complexity. Bergson viewed that, “The animate forms that first appeared were therefore of extreme simplicity. They were probably tiny masses of scarcely differentiated protoplasm, outwardly resembling the amoeba observable to-day,” (Henri Bergson. "The Divergent Directions of the Evolution of Life -- Torpor, Intelligence, Instinct", Chapter 2 in Creative Evolution, Page 98, they were simple in character and adapted to their environments, why did the evolution process not stop here? But instead life continued to complicate itself. For Bergson in Creative Evolution, the mechanism of Natural selection did not answer the problem that something must have driven the evolutionary process on to higher and more complex levels, that driving force for Bergson was his élan vital.

The significance of Foucault's panopticism

"Just as the ability to read and write and freely communicate gives power to citizens that protects them from the powers of the state, the ability to surveil, to invade the citizens' privacy, gives the state the power to confuse, coerce and control citizens. Uneducated populations cannot rule themselves, but tyrannies can control even educated populations, given sophisticated means of surveillance" - Foucault (Discipline and Punish)


The awareness that a panoptic mechanism is at work in all aspects of society was only birthed in the advent of Foucault's 'Discipline and Punish'. Here, Foucault takes Bentham's original panoptic design of prison cells (pan, meaning "prisoners", and opticon, "to observe"), wherein prisoners are observed with or without their knowledge, and applies it to the state.

Foucault asserts that the reason the panoptic model is so effective, is because "visibility is a trap"[Discipline and Punish]. Accordingly, he points out that one of the essential characteristics of a panopticon is that it creates in the individual a sense that an observer's eye is forever present, watching one's actions and behaviour.

Foucault goes on to say that this idea of a "controlling system of power"[Discipline and Punish] is effectively adapted in the modern day, affecting many aspects of our everyday lives. In a panoptic setting, each of us are ultimately instilled with the powerful notion that we are being monitored by controlling institutions of power; whether we be in government properties such as the city hall, public settings such as streets and shops, or even within the family home.

This is exactly that makes panopticism such a useful mechanism of power- we are all but subjects to observation, at times to the point of breaching personal privacy. Buildings such as banks, supermarkets and airports take advantage of panopticism in their design and maintenance. Many public parks across the country are littered with CCTV cameras; an example of a technology that brings the gaze of a superior into the daily lives of the populace.

The moral responses to panopticism are vast. For me, the two most important questions are:

1. Ultimately, does the concept work? How can we measure the success of applied panopticism?

2. Britain's panoptic society; is it used to prevent and address issues of crime and national security, or rather as a form of intelligence and control over the general populace?


Panopticism's most valuable function is that it suppresses the idea of doing a malevolent act, even before it gets the chance to be actualised. In other words, an all-seeing state puts its citizens in a situation of vulnerability, one in which the feeling of fear precedes the feeling of safety.


Ashley Pishdar (N0208574)

Lyotard: Postmodernism, performativity and the problem of legitimation.

In The Postmodern Condition: A report on knowledge Jean-Francoise Lyotard generates for us a definition of postmodernity. This definition is based on the way that highly technologised, post-industrial societies produce knowledge. He marks clearly, first the difference between narrative and scientific forms of knowledge and second how different societies have responded to these forms of knowledge. 

The difference, he says, is that narrative forms of knowledge are self legitimating because of their structure and so can maintain integrity. Scientific knowledge on the other hand, questions the legitimacy of statements within it’s own structure. For this reason scientific knowledge must turn to narrative knowledge for legitimation.

Postmodern societies, Lyotard says, are those that hold an “incredulity towards metanarratives” ^[1]. What this means is that these societies typically posses a more subjective view of knowledge than a modern metanarrative can support. For example the story of the liberation of the people through the acquisition of knowledge, or the enlightenment ideal of knowledge for its own sake. These ideas no longer hold up.

In place of this we now legitimate knowledge through its performativity. This is perhaps better explained by the efficiency or economy of its utility. Knowledge becomes simple data, only valued by what use can be made of it. This can be seen embodied in the internet, which contains an enormous amount of free information and so has a high performativity value and has permeated every sinew of contemporary society.

References

1. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge Jean-Françoise Lyotard (Manchester 1984)

N0219429

Henri Bergson and the Time Distinction.

Shane Russell:N0242275

The foundation of Henri Bergson’s philosophy is built upon his conception of Time. Henri Bergson categorises time into two distinct forms: pure time (la durée) and numerical or mathematical time. Pure time is real duration, which is ‘synonymous with existence[1]’. Mathematical time is merely measurable duration, a mechanistic unit. As a predicate of the classification of time into distinct forms, the result is concepts with different properties. Pure time is continuous and indivisible; which is in direct contrast with numerical time, which is divisible into representable units. However, representable units do not reflect the flow of real experienced time.

The ordinary conception of numerical time born out of science is, for Bergson, a false model; it ‘is strictly conceived by human intelligence’[2]. The problem with this notion of time for Bergson is that it is being viewed by way of our reflective consciousness as space, and space is homogenous. To use Space and Time interchangeably is to apply the same transposable characteristics. Therefore, like space, time would be viewed as a homogenous medium without limits. The quandary this notion proposes is that homogeneity consists of being without qualities, and therefore it becomes complex in distinguishing one homogeneity from another.

Real time is heterogeneous in character and is therefore fundamentally different from space. For Bergson we are aware of pure time in relation to ourselves, as it has a non-spatial relationship to multiplicity; this is because real time’s affiliation is to conscious states and not corporeal entities. Real time –la durée- is also not susceptible like false time to measurement, for it is qualitative and not quantitative in nature. This is a poignant anti-mechanistic proposal by Bergson, as the proposition is that real time cannot be measured, and does not need to be, as duration is experience of conscious states.

---

[1] Suzanne Guerlac, Thinking in Time an Introduction to Henri Bergson (United States of America: Cornell Paperbacks, 2006) p.6.

[2] Suzanne Guerlac, Thinking in Time an Introduction to Henri Bergson, p.65.

Foucalt Discipline and Punishment.

Hey

From looking at the chapter from Discipline and Punish, pgs 195- 228, it strikes me how similar the description of the Quarentine measures for the plague are to the the mid victorian concept of social control. It seems almost like a hysteria that is created through fear, as there is a disturbance in the natural order of things within society, this fear generates interest and concern as does the news we read today. First he descibes division through enclosure, then surveillance by policing, ending with punishment through threat of death. Im comparing these measures to that of a moral panic because its intensions suggest paternal motives, as it states,

' the plague was met by order , its function is to sort out every possible confusion, that of disease and that of evil'

It suggests not just physical but moral cleansing too, as the power source is described as 'omnipresent and omniscient', adding to the idea of a farther authoratative figure which exercises both strict but fair treatment to his subjects. The fact that Foucault states that the plague gave rise to disciplinary projects, allows for this idea of paternal intervention, the cause being to reaffirm social control over the masses through the creation of a disciplined society. But i believe like with the Victorian Moral panic and social control that it all depends on the subordinate having defference to his master. like with the body politic, this is based on the notion that all parts of society are content within thier position because they can see the greater picture, which makes even thier small contribution important to society as a whole. So maybe these measures are through fear of a disturbance within society, whether it be directed at the sick or abnormal, but also paternal in thier intensions, as the power source cares for its subjects.

Ive probably gone way off the subject there but just let me know what you think.
thanks

Sallyann Johnson
N0248795.

Foucault on BioPower

In relation to Dominic's post on biopower I have put up a link to a good essay by Keith Crome of Manchester Metropolitan University. Keith spoke here last year and he here presents a very clear and succint account of the philosophical role bio-power holds for Foucault

A comment on Foucault’s Philosophy of Madness

Madness and Civilization (1961) opens with a quote by Dostoyevsky: ‘it is not by confining one’s neighbour that one is convinced of one’s own sanity’. Here, Foucault considers the eternal struggle between the ‘man of madness’ and the ‘man of reason’, outlining society’s need to contain that which is ‘other’, to widen the gap between the so-called normal and the abnormal.

What is madness? For Foucault, madness is not organic and unchanging, it is inseparably embedded in culture and society, a victim of its whims. By returning to its history one can understand how perceptions are moulded by the language, science and beliefs of the time – from the ostracising of lepers, suspicions of demonic habitation and in contemporary thought, as a mental condition.  Madness is the enemy of reason, it is déraison. Foucault identifies the dichotomy of socially-constructed madness; is it in fact a body of unique knowledge or a target of difference and intervention by a power?

This blog presents the notion that perhaps society should not attempt to numb madness and silence its’ outbursts with psychiatry and medicine. Society may always require a certain group, one of Girard’s scapegoats, to unite those who have escaped the stigmatism of being labelled insane. The norm is generally dictated by who is in power, and the parameters measured against what they deem acceptable, despite those in power possibly only being a few degrees along on the continuum of madness. The power relations are at work once again.  

Whilst not romanticising the idea of tortured geniuses, have the likes of Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Edgar Allan Poe and Beethoven taught us nothing of the links between genius and madness?

Perhaps the asylum in fact presents a sanctuary, an escape from the madness of the outside world?

If ‘madness’ is integral to civilisation, why is it uncivilised to be ‘mad’?

References:

Foucault, M, Madness and Civilization (Oxford: Routledge, 2005).

Emma Luxton

N0221912

Bergson and Time

Looking at Bergson’s notion of time he explains that there are two types of time. Quantative, being the spacial measurement of it, and Qualitative which is the ‘real’ time and individual experience.

What interests me is how he would respond to someone who has experienced “déjà vu”, and more importantly “Tripping Out”. Both I imagine are fairly similar experiences physically, “Tripping out” being much more intense, but your experience of time changes here, alongside this there is the importance of memory in this kind of experience. Bergson argues the idea that our memories are constantly shaping our decisions, but if you are “Tripping Out” I think you don’t have that memory, and once you realise that everything you are experiencing, you have experienced before you stop “Tripping Out”. I know it may seem quite out there, and irrelevant. But I wonder whether he would just note this as a neurological experience or a Qualitative experience, if it is the same experience, over and over again. I’m not too sure on what actually happens in the mind through this type of experience but in my opinion, it is the same experience that you experience multiple times until your mind ‘moves forward’ again so to speak.

Any thoughts?

Alicia Hylton N0217828

Foucault and Academic Institutions

I couldn't help but reflect on part of the Chomsky-Foucault debate videos Patrick has posted, this in particular seemed to brush against a contemporary itch:

"But I think that the political power is also exerted by a few institutions which seem to have nothing in common with the political power, which seem to be independent but which actually aren't. We all know that university and the whole educational system that is supposed to distribute knowledge, we know that the educational system maintains the power in the hands of a certain social class and excludes the other social class from this power."

This couldn't be more obvious given the hike in tuition fees and cuts to education in the humanities department since power was taken by the conservative party last year; we will find ourselves lead culturally by a more overtly right wing and upper class academia in years to come if things are left unchanged (or perhaps this recent change merely exaggerates what is already the case, and was obviously the case in Foucaults time).

But what do we do about this? Education can't merely be the proliferation of social stratification, it's essential. Those of us who attended Dr Haase's lecture will remember the discussion of bildung, or education as autonomous personal development rather than economic imperatives or training. There is surely only so far we can go in interpreting academic institutions through the hermeneutics of suspicion. We can all look back at our experience of school (and in this final year, of university) with mixed feelings. Of course school was 'normalizing', of course teachers are tyrants, of course the rapid development of social groups and standards of socializing affect a child's life and outlook, and naturally, power is at play, social classes can become defined, the maladjusted are told they are lazy, the unpriviledge are taught they are stupid, and the working class are given their modesty, a sense of worthlessness. But all of us here are to some extent, educated, cultured intellectuals. To what extent would we scrutinize the academic institution as an implement of power and social class? To a destructive level?