Re: [xmca] subjectivity question

From: Andy Blunden (ablunden@mira.net)
Date: Fri Nov 11 2005 - 15:09:53 PST


   Thanks for that Mary.
   I have read Lois McNay on Foucault, and I liked her a lot, and it was
   there that I did learn that in his latter days Foucault changed his
   mind about the subject and introduced the subject into his thinking. I
   found that material very useful actually, but I was really surprised
   when I read McNay, because no other Foucault critic seems to use that
   part of Foucault. For example, Nancy Fraser, who I also rate very
   highly, criticises Foucault for not having an ethical theory, but
   Nancy Fraser's weak side, if any, is also objectivism.
   As for Judith Butler, I confess I have only read a couple of her books
   and one or two by her "followers" and perhaps I have missed something
   there. Martin certainly seems to think so.I will get hold of "Giving
   an Account of Oneself" as soon as I can and investigate.
   Thanks again for that Mary,
   Andy
   At 09:12 AM 11/11/2005 -0800, you wrote:

>> Poststructuralists claim to have "deconstructed the subject",
     for them
>> it is an illusion.
     Actually, I recommended three texts that are post-structural and
     not
     deconstructionist in their methodology. Late-career Foucault and
     current
     Butler do not take as their target the deconstruction of the
     subject at all.
     In the Butler text, and also Cavarero, the authors provide very
     comprehensive analyses of the major philosophical perspectives for
     thinking
     about subject-object relations, and there are minor, but not
     insignificant
     overlaps with what concerns most CHAT citizens ---
     inter-subjectivities. And
     there are overlaps in literature, which I sometimes think is most
     profitably
     sought in the literature from psychoanalysis on object relations --
     a good
     chunk of the Butler text looks at this literature.
     I was thinking about all of this yesterday -- the way in which we
     are
     speaking different languages in this community <as in any other
     community>
     such that by the time one message gets across the great divide,
     almost all
     the meaning is lost. It seems a very potent difference to note that
     for some
     of us -- like, me, for example -- psychology is not about "mental
     processes", and if I am to talk at all about psychology, then it is
     to be
     interested in the ways in which scholarly traditions endeavor to
     provide an
     account of interiority that is rich enough and complex enough to be
     situated
     in a context of geographic, historical, chronological <at minimum>
     flux. And
     this actually, is where I find that LSV started off on the right
     track in
     his work on semiotics, and then got derailed by mentalistic
     traditions
     which, likely because of his very early death, never got back on
     track. So
     for me, Bakhtin is more helpful, when I am looking back to
     foundational
     texts.
     Mary
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    Andy Blunden, on behalf of the Victorian Peace Network, Phone (+61)
                                03-9380 9435
             Alexander Surmava's Tour - September/October 2006
        [2]http://ethicalpolitics.org[3]/alexander-surmava/index.htm

References

   1. http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
   2. http://ethicalpolitics.org/alexander-surmava/index.htm
   3. http://ethicalpolitics.org/alexander-surmava/index.htm
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