Watching Rick Roderick makes me really like those Southern US accents. On another note, his lectures are really great for some quick summaries to deepen understanding into a thinker's perspective, and this lecture series is really great.
Cannot say enough good things about RR's lectures. I not only learn but am reassured that I'm not completely alone in America. Although it sure feels like it most of the time, especially now that he's gone. At least these lectures live on.
Quite right! Michelle Foucault is extremely popular in Russia; all his works are translated into Russian and published many times.The reason is his view of society as a great Concentration Camp with panopticon Kremlin with Stalin&Beria at its centre
As a norwegian I have to say that it is kind of mind-blowing to listen to these lectures in that beatiful west-texan dialect. This level of discourse and thought is not what I used to associate with people from texas!
I realize I am replying to 11 year old comment... but the condescending attitude of Europeans towards Americans is extremely idiotic, and smacks very much of an inferiority complex.
Roderick's presentation of his thesis is highly accessible and informative; certainly for me. I'm someone who gets influenced by exposure to this or that thinker (here Foucault as re-presented by Rabinow), while not having opportunity or capability allowing me to master their corpus as a whole. So when I end applying the personal thinking I have been influenced to in daily life, there can be a chasm between myself and people not so influenced. Roderick's clear grasp of his own thesis on Foucault, then helps me to stabilise as I confront and attempt to cross that chasm.
'information' and 'knowledge' are not interchangeable. The French word Savoir is appropriate to think about in relation to 'knowledge' the way Foucault uses it in that it mans not just raw data but a know-how, and implies both data and how to structure, hold and employ it. In English, to be 'savvy' is to bot know what and how. I think this is actually an important thing for understanding how Foucault uses 'discourse' and Power/Knowledge. -my 2c
Another reason for this is that what Foucault means when he uses the word discourse is the saying, what is said, and where and how it is said, by which I mean to reference that the saying is merely the tip of the contextual and material history of the saying, which means all of the forms of knowledge that shaped its utterance: the disciplinary practices in their contexts, the Universities, politics, bureaucracies, architectures, material sciences, etc etc etc. It keeps his form of Post Modernism from floating away on a purely abstract symbolic-only mode of analysis.
Would that just be called raw data? Information is what we can filter down from data, ie a form of knowledge. But I agree I think it could be a bit too arbitrary to hold knowledge and information as equal.
Everything he says at the end about the defacializing effect of TV, you have to wonder how he felt about the Internet, which was in its BEST form when he died in 2002
@@reffeenot read it but think I kinda discussed Ceres it by studying and tearing my self apart and then wondering about other people and comparing neuroscience of the personality traits and its nuts a lot of what your arguing against is brain structure.
In the places of higher learning in the Northeast, this accent is associated with racists, religious fanatics, and the generally backwards.... This presentations, and the erudition of the presenter shatters all such associations. Indeed as MF stated knowledge is power.
It is those associations which cause exclusion and ostracism of individuals like the lecturer so their ideas cannot be disseminated. It is political power exercised by "knowledge" AKA prejudice.
@DamiaanVDW I've been listening to them for years. His lectures can be listened to over and over. I've learnt so much from him. Sad that he died so young.
Also sad that Duke University fired him and so we lost him for his last 10 years on this planet. This planet that has shown RR to be pretty spot on as to where we have been headed.
George carlin knew all too well that humanism is always false humanism why is it People s reactions to those hardcore jokes was overwhelming because People knew he was damn right those jokes were mirrors in which People got to see themselves as genuine as it gets carlin was skilled in bringing People into a liberation stage very much like a religious ritual this is not fascism or some apology tô it instead it is about making ourselves aware that there is something off , intrinsically unfair with the very stablisment of our modern society as we know it
Not sure that humanism is always false, though that may often be the case. I'm thinking that the humanism of Jesus Christ wasn't false, though I'm open to other arguments. I'm not Christian myself, but I take some inspiration from the life and teachinga of Christ. Interesting questoins would be: What characterised Jesus' humanism? Can it be called humanism? How does it differ from secular humanism? What are the implications of this difference in society? What are the positives of each? WHat are the drawbacks?
I accidentally stepped into RUclips PEL group when I was searching for Arendt's Human Conditions' video...then you guys have TONS of good stuff..and videos..I am going to be quite busy for awhile..and thanks to PEL...:)
The example of the book one flew over the cokoo's nest is a great one, examples from novels and books help understand the concept better thanks for that.
@@bhpurerange1 that is correct, however he is selling himself as a reasonable person that wants to have an honest argument. and the fans believe it. that is why attacking him with names is counter-productive, although he deserves these names.... we need to thread lightly
@@Vladimir-Struja "however he is selling himself as a reasonable person that wants to have an honest argument" I disagree. ask him about the second book written by Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn and watch as he recoils away from thruth
This is absolutely wonder, a simple breakdown of a complex thinker, could have used a few Nietszche references and a bit more on Foucaults genealogies and connection to the general themes of post-structuralism but all in all
Knowledge and power- proof indeed, in these covid years, that Foucault is as relevant as ever; maybe more so. Brilliantly delivered with humour and clarity by the enigmatic and eccentric West Texan, Rick Roderick. I love all his lectures and listen over and over.
The "racial injustice being fought" that was inspired by a Marxist organization that ran off with a bunch of money for "marginalized communities"(who claimed to be from those communities of "powerless people") and a Russian psyops. Basically under cutting rational thought and democracy.
If anyone who thinks this way about facts was actually challenged, by their own arguments they could not make any judgments. So they are not serious. Their rhetoric is designed to confuse YOU. They want power that’s it and you don’t owe them any explanation. Treat them as parasites.
Foucault didn't mean facts don't exist per se. He meant facts are not independent of interpretation, thus not absolutely objective. And this idea goes back to the beginning of human thought, like the good old pre-socratic "man is the measure of all things". Even the opponents of Foucault, the ardent ones, acknowledge this truth, so they get rattled that their monopoly over facts and their interpretation might dilute or vanish away. I have never seen a proper critique of post-modern though, except a detailed ad hominem attacks or a suspicion of their intentions or perceived negative consequences of their ideas, but NEVER a critique of their ideas. Which has often amused me. Facts such as earth is flat, is an objectively wrong interpretation. Because while the proponent of this thought maintains common natural language, you can put him on a helicopter and ask him to find the edge of earth. Facts such as "all humans are created equal" is meta-physical, because "equal" in it is a abstract concept, thus open to interpretations.
Yes, absolutely wouldn't have amused him though. His worst fears are being realised? He knew he would be misrepresented and abused and said in an interview, that he couldn't control how he would be represented after his death.
@@saimbhat6243let’s be honest, the reason you know the earth isn’t flat is because no neoliberal capitalist built a theme park on the edge and is charging admission. Like even if we dismiss science, we know people would destroy beautiful natural landscapes to earn a buck like the edge of the 🌎
I don't think the microphone picked up the audience properly, there's a few times in these jokes where he responds to the audience but they're inaudible. I think this is just the sound feed from his lapel mic, so we're lucky enough not to hear audience noises throughout! Does make it seem like his excellent jokes aren't landing, though.
Christ was 'the mad' and thus excluded from society. The non-docile body par excellence. Thus, he exists as merely a 'church' and not as a life principle.
But by "eating his body" and "drinking his blood" we do accept him, even include him into our natural world. It's a ritual that keeps the dead alive, even Freud agreed upon that.
fantastic stuff! highly accessible for a thinker whom is incredibly complex and difficult to grasp. Only thing I would criticise would be the focus on Discipline and Punish.
Watching him makes me realize how negatively biased marketers are against people with a southern accent. Ironically, they’re probably more liberal I’m guessing.
That's really true, in many times I've been to the States, and people I've known from USA, I'm always surprised how people are prejudiced against those in the South. I understand the history, but really it's all the same country! Opinions in South may not be as different to their own as some Northerners like to believe...!
Cause Michelle Foucault was a pupil of Louis Althusser and due to his influence joined the French communists after the war. However he quickly left the party after 1957 or so since he was dissapointed learning about Stalin's concentration camps and their victims
The idea that "not everyone has been allowed to perform philosophy" is absurd. It assumes that there is some higher entity needed to grant your philosophy its status. We might naturally only remember the ideas of the most influential figures, but what else is to be expected? This doesn't mean that the lower classes didn't think in philosophical terms, just that they didn't have the means to influence contemporary society and history as follows
The lower classes have no interest in living their life off man made mind fancies, they tend to follow their own will and not that of another. The lower classes laugh at those "educated slaves" who want to change the world for worse with their heavy doses of influenza. Cicero There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
15:00 "...Clearly there's a relation, it seems to me, between knowlege and power... whether there's a way to uncouple knowlege and power... ...rules of exclusion, not inclusion... instiutional communications function through rules that determine who may speak, about what they may speak, for how long they may speak, in what setting... and this is not an invideous thing..." That is useful to note: institutions have such rules for reasons which have stood the test of time, such as the rule about how long one may speak; this encourages brevity and clarity. I only wish that the Tweeting generation had the discipline, accuracy and concision of expression which our centres of learning encourage; instead of giving ourselves time to reflect and give our considered thoughts, we get on line and give the first knee-jerk response to what we read, 1/ regardless of context, 2/ regardless of our use of ambiguous terms, 3/ regardless of resultant unnecessary misunderstanding, 4/ regardless of empathy. I seem to be making an argument for NOT interacting with the hopelessly undisciplined. I think there is wisdom in this; I should value my time and my intellect more, make my knowlege = power. (I say that as someone who is an habitual lover of lost causes)
differous01 i might be wrong bit i understood this statement as descrptive. i didn‘t get the impression that „power“ is something negative. it‘s more an observation of how knowledge is produced. if you have 1000 different views on a topic, you have to exclude most if not all of them through „power mechanisms“ to gain any form of knowledge. i didn‘t understand foucaults view as a prescriptive argument for eradicating these power structures. but please correct me if i‘m false.
I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated
Excellent conclusion. Thanks for posting this. He was yet another voice of validation for me. The world we live in is very much the prison of Foucault's description, if not become worse since his death. Look at the increasingly narrow passages we are expected to walk through, the exclusions and inclusions. Even meeting social needs is restricted to online social networks wherein one must also be force fed the values of the popular culture through the medium of the high school sporting event mentality. Yay. On. Everything. (I'm trying to be positive here. You know, the "law of attraction." Hmm, then why am I repulsed by my own attempt?)
22:22 - Foucault's Whole New Disciplinary Matrix Around Madness: "I've joked about this process - I don't want to use the strong word “madness” here - but when we look at the expansion of this therapeutic zone on into the late 20th century, we now find out that very few of us don't belong in it. I mean, if you're not on a 12-step program today, you're out of fashion; I mean, who would have guessed, that the discourse of madness would eventually cover the whole social field and, until, perhaps the last growth industry we have - other than making movies about sex and violence - is psychiatry, and in running 12-step programs? This is a growth industry." Who would have guessed? Thomas Szasz, in his book The Myth of Mental Illness, published in 1961. It wasn't a guess, either.
I made up a mental construction of the relationship between data>information>knowledge>wisdom as a preteen mowing lawns. The data is there (in all of life) to be observed, information is data understood in short time spans, knowledge is information interpreted in varying contexts & remembered over longer time, wisdom being knowledge applied properly relative to real life concerns. Can I have tenure now? Lolz
Great lecture. I didn't understand how this lecture is related to "The Disappearance of the Human" though. Does it mean that these power structures and relationships (in prisons, in schools, in surveillance society as a whole) replace the human free will and the idea of the individual self? Or is it connected to the notion of a subverted "humanism"?
Foucault’s project is maybe not the “disappearance” of the subject in the form of a ready made essence, but detailing the fact that large swaths of the “subject” is socially/historically contingent and is created through different discourses, regimes of signs, institutionalization, etc. His later ideas on “biopower” and “biopolitics” were especially interesting in this regard due to the fact that he moved the focus of power relations from simple discipline and restriction to power that controlled life in all its facets (birth, biological data, creation of new subjectivities, etc). Very interesting thinker.
The Flaming Philosopher And that makes you interpret it somehow differently, despite the fact, lmao. I think he meant that despite the exact context. He thought the reality was basically a lie suited for survival, which makes the interpretation the only thing that matters about the fact, as it is your relation to the fact you experience, not the fact itself. Therefore there is no reason to think that there is a “fact in itself”
I'm curious about what he says about Foucault's "non-historical" or "genealogical" method. I'm not well read in this stuff myself, but does Marx really believe capitalism was a coincidence? That seems to run counter to all I've heard about Hegelian history.
Just read a bit on historical materialism, it’s basically just a way to view history through the lens of the concrete rather than intangible. It’s way of suggesting that history isn’t beholden to ideology as much as ideology is beholden to history.
I’ll add that from what I understand Marx doesn’t see capitalism as a coincidence as much as he sees every socioeconomic development throughout history as a sort of coincidence. As matter is the most basic building block of the universe so it is also the engine that drives the universe “forward” to some new ideology.
Hmm. Be careful here, we have two thinkers. So, Marx writes that capitalism is born into this world, drenched with blood. So, Marx recognizes some intent behind capitalism and violence. However, I think it is worth nothing that capitlaism is not developed as part of some grand narrative. Capitalism does not replace feudalism because of reason. Reason is not causality nor thread. I think that is the point in these lectures. As for Marx, I'm not sure what his argument explaining capitalism's development is. I suspect it details a discussion of class seizure of power and a beleif by the mass that capitlaism would allow for liberty, equality, and fraternity. Actually, this would be a good question for @RichardWolff
Fascinating talk as it progresses to the actual, physical, "built environment" as itself a prison. In another posting, Chomsky debates Foucault and reminds that an imagined future utopia at least represents some form of ever-changing, rather ethereal goal. Both Disney and Hitler (polar opposites) became somewhat obsessed with urban planning before they died. The infrastructure of the pedestrian proletariat (public spaces/public transport/urban groves and gardens) is that utopia. Mad?
some parks in some parts of town ain't so utopic. park down the street from me is pretty hardcore. noone goes there unless they are begging to get physically harmed. i don;t think it's the only park like that. lots of parks like that in the not so nice parts of towns across the world. so i guess those utopic public spaces you speak of exist along socio-economic lines. it's a big world. i guess some of it not worth everyones time checking out.
Disney’s imagined city in Florida is virtually indistinguishable (ideologically speaking) to Bentham’s Panopticon if you subscribe to the idea that capital inherently controls the proletariat. An interesting point, I’d never thought of it that way before you commented.
Another take: Ancient Man encounters mysterious plagues which, in his innocence/ignorance, he interprets as punishment by the gods. Desperate, he looks around, trying to discover what his sin was in order to eradicate it and thereby appease these mysterious entities He draws up lists of commandments to correct his mistakes, hoping they will restore his innocence, even though he is innocent... Meanwhile, he has to take up the more immediate business of defending himself against powerful human neighbours. If he is not already powerful, he has to become so in order to achieve this... Robert Graves, survivor of World War 1 and author of "Goodbye To All That", thought that the invention of nuclear weapons made further wars unthinkable. Let's hope he was right. But millions still love war movies, crime noir, "The Silence of the Lambs" etc. Especially men, but not exclusively...
I love Rick Roderick lectures, but I disagree with the Noam Chomsky's comment. I Think Noam Chomsky deserve more credit than that. And I can collect a hand full of people who would agree with me. Noam Chomsky is a critical philosopher who is against injustice not just in America but all over the world. He sees injustice just like Dr. King saw it, "An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
My issue with Chomsky and maybe with RR even though I love him so dearly is their belief that things can get better and eventually work out for humanity. I'll go instead with Schopenhauer who knew better. I still have great respect for all three of them.
Interesting but never suggests a viable alternative for crime and punishment. We decided that to move away from kinship tribes into societies and states gave us better opportunities for survival. Therefore, there has to be a degree of consensual and enforced docility or it’s a return to the killing fields in very short order. We eat, we procreate and we fight for dominance, rather like our cousins in the fields and forests, nothing much else of note.
I don't believe Roderick discredited Chomsky, although that's not what you said. You claim Chomsky deserves more credit. I think you would be hard put to justify the need to give a person more credit than a fair remark, especially when their work is not specifically relevant to the topic addressed. Chomsky was utilized as an example to help define Foucault. Going into detail on the credit Chomsky deserves would only serve to confuse the listener into believing him more relevant than he is.
These lectures are great. They introduce thinkers that all too often get lazily dismissed as relativistic drivel by whining, pre-modern specialists with personality disorders. Do they not teach about straw persons and red herrings anymore?
people watch Hollywood violence because it's the "substitute stimulation" (coupled with the vicarious relief of their frustrations via the "exciting violence") for their neurotic boring lives and frigidity. Many creative types have no time for this Hollywood junk, for they achieve excitement in their own craft, art, music, and the sensual/sexually expressive nature that tends to characterize this group. This explains the French New Wave, movies for artists.
26:45 How do you establish there are "important" points in Foucault's work when there is no objective truth. Infacf how does foucault begin to write, how does he choose certain ideas over others. Is as if he does not believe what he proposes himself.
There are differences in the American and Soviet ways of repression. The U.S. security state is involved in the invasion and occupation of American cities and towns where they terrorize the non-compliant (non-compliant to the savage spirit and the vicious doctrine that it defends). We are not a society of surveillance only, but one of disciplinary mechanisms. They send teams of men that accost victims and terrorize them in myriad ways - it can go on for years. It's a sort of 'Gulag' in plain air, in your home: you are not sent to a place of torment, it comes to you instead! In this way it remains (so cleverly and demonically) 'invisible'. Where is it? Where is the place of torment you speak of? Where are the trains, the prisoners - you must be lying! Nothing is seen. The 'Gulag' remains invisible; the criminals disappear as if they never existed. America remains unblemished - the 'land of the free'! While the very notion of 'the people' is being extinguished; the power is transferred away to 'the top'. Of course, there is no mass murder. But that only helps the American way of repression. The American way of doing 'Gulags' is totally successful. The persecuted 'disappear' in that their being, their thinking disappears - their lives stop living. Their souls die. What more could you want? And as such, the American way of repression is triumphant, and being invisible, America remains 'innocent and freedom loving' while the obvious Soviet way of repression led to its demise. Open repression always loses in the end (though it restarts itself after each demise, again and again). The American people, who, in vast numbers, want to be pure cannot detect what is occurring because they believe the narrative of innocence; and 'believing' is more immediate than 'seeing' (believing is always already there, in mind; seeing is outside, and deception rules there). Still there are signs that some members of the legislative and judiciary have seen into it - they're insisting on the rule of law; and activists are now counted by the million, not the thousand. Let's hope Am can be saved yet, and innocence triumph.
Foucault was one of the first people, in my opinion, to seriously try to expose the cruelty of homophoboa with philosophical logic and analysis. And what is so beautiful about Foucault is how indirectly direct he is about this. Everywhere you can see it in his work.
The human condition: To believe that which is helpful physically, irl, in actuality, in reality, to be a hindrance through metaphysical, theoretical, through rhetoric, as a way of mitigating the actually misery in their life. Ex: As stated here, the working class children in the 1960s entered the university system en masse through student loans. This was believed to be great, allowing the white collar middle class to explode and for the amount of people able to work these jobs to explode and feed the system which has lead to the tech boom. Physically, irl, this was great and increased the standard of living for many. Now, 60 years and two generations later, Millennials and Gen Z look at student loans as an albatros; metaphysically we have taken the avenue to a better life, grown accustomed to it, and vilified it to justify why we are miserable. Ex: Physically vaxx are helpful en masse without question. Metaphysically they have been turned into a boogyman that justifies some citizens on the Right's misery in life. This seems to happen over and over in society in the marginalized groups of people in society.
I appreciate Rick's interpretations and the content, too bad he is not here to reap the rewards of his work. I have to take issue with Rick's comments on information and knowledge being 'equivalent' terms I guess. Knowledge, and I think part of what Foucault was pointing at, means the power to decide WHAT is considered knowledge and what information is knowledge. We demonstrate our knowledge with such things as college degrees. I may know everything about the law, everything, and legal precedent, etc. but the only way (with a couple of exceptions) I can demonstrate that knowledge in a court is to have an approved degree and pass the Bar exam. The Bar exam essentially dictates what is legal "knowledge". The Bar Assoc has the power to determine what the scope of legal knowledge is because the bar exam is the only path to practice. In that case, the Bar Assoc has power over a huge slide of the knowledge. If university wants to hand out recognized law degrees, they, in most states, have to be approved by the Bar Assoc to give out degrees which means they comply with the Bar Assoc's power over what to teach and how. The school must prepare the students to meet the knowledge requirements for the bar exam or they will lose students. So the university, because they have the power to certify a level of knowledge - with a degree -- have power over some of that knowledge. That is where you find the power. If any school could give a law degree that would allow one to practice law, and there was no unified bar exam, the Bar Assoc would lose its power and influence. Influence over how law is practiced in America. Knowledge is certain defined information, but it is also the creation of information. If a university would never approve a doctoral dissertation based on qualitative, hermaneutic research, they are deciding what research and types of information make up the knowledge that is created and what is viable knowledge and what is non viable. Foucault implied or even stated that these example institutions are who determine WHAT Knowledge is and they control that knowledge. Some types of information yields similar connections, but ultimately knowledge is the application of information to specific problems/situations and these institutions, governments, etc control what information can be used in what situations and in what ways (knowledge) and in that they are vested with tremendous power that can have huge historical implications. Just my thoughts and maybe I miss the argument but thanks for having a forum to at least consider these things....
Thank you for your thoughts, I was thinking along the same lines when I came looking in the comments. The distinction seems to be a critical one for Foucault.
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I cannot express how refreshing it is to hear European philosophy explained via Southern accent.
Texas! Even better.
wow..is that southern accent? just knew it ..thanks
@Arbane's Sword im a european and i cannot but thnk of mr garrison
Imagine Faulkner teaching English Lit..
@Arbane's Sword interesting. How?
This is a brilliant introduction to Foucault. Anyone who needs to understand governmentality and biopower should start here.
Great educator. The best and most accessible intro to Foucault's work that I've come across.
i cant stop watching this guys videos, i think its the voice.
The hwhy is pretty damn cool
It's rare to hear a southern accent talk positively/neutrally about continental philosophy. xD
Take those linens off the veranda Mary
@@cloongeorgy7553 haha true that!!
@@cloongeorgy7553 yeah they're usually all on the analytical side
Wow way to go professor. Your lecture is absolutely illuminating on Foucault . Thank you.
Olatunde Atanda he is dead but I'm sure he would appreciate your sentiments
Professor Rick Roderick, thank you so much I always come to your lectures. RIP, sir.❤
You speak my language and I am forevermore grateful 🙏
If anyone deserved heaven was Rick. What a great chap he was !! So grateful for all these lectures ☺️🤩
what's great about this guy is that you can hear in his voice how passionate he is. great to listen to.
Watching Rick Roderick makes me really like those Southern US accents.
On another note, his lectures are really great for some quick summaries to deepen understanding into a thinker's perspective, and this lecture series is really great.
Cannot say enough good things about RR's lectures. I not only learn but am reassured that I'm not completely alone in America. Although it sure feels like it most of the time, especially now that he's gone. At least these lectures live on.
One of the most interesting expositions on Foucault I've come across.
SO impressed
Quite right! Michelle Foucault is extremely popular in Russia; all his works are translated into Russian and published many times.The reason is his view of society as a great Concentration Camp with panopticon Kremlin with Stalin&Beria at its centre
normalising power exists in all societies
I thought the Russki's hated gays?
Oh I bet they try to keep that knowledge secret ! the historical closet!
As a norwegian I have to say that it is kind of mind-blowing to listen to these lectures in that beatiful west-texan dialect. This level of discourse and thought is not what I used to associate with people from texas!
so true. I wonder where you are now five years down the road.
Texas is full of surprises.
I realize I am replying to 11 year old comment... but the condescending attitude of Europeans towards Americans is extremely idiotic, and smacks very much of an inferiority complex.
love hearing an intelligent speaker with a southern accent
Roderick's presentation of his thesis is highly accessible and informative; certainly for me. I'm someone who gets influenced by exposure to this or that thinker (here Foucault as re-presented by Rabinow), while not having opportunity or capability allowing me to master their corpus as a whole. So when I end applying the personal thinking I have been influenced to in daily life, there can be a chasm between myself and people not so influenced. Roderick's clear grasp of his own thesis on Foucault, then helps me to stabilise as I confront and attempt to cross that chasm.
'information' and 'knowledge' are not interchangeable. The French word Savoir is appropriate to think about in relation to 'knowledge' the way Foucault uses it in that it mans not just raw data but a know-how, and implies both data and how to structure, hold and employ it. In English, to be 'savvy' is to bot know what and how. I think this is actually an important thing for understanding how Foucault uses 'discourse' and Power/Knowledge. -my 2c
Another reason for this is that what Foucault means when he uses the word discourse is the saying, what is said, and where and how it is said, by which I mean to reference that the saying is merely the tip of the contextual and material history of the saying, which means all of the forms of knowledge that shaped its utterance: the disciplinary practices in their contexts, the Universities, politics, bureaucracies, architectures, material sciences, etc etc etc. It keeps his form of Post Modernism from floating away on a purely abstract symbolic-only mode of analysis.
but anyway, these are great lectures and I appreciate your focus
Would that just be called raw data? Information is what we can filter down from data, ie a form of knowledge. But I agree I think it could be a bit too arbitrary to hold knowledge and information as equal.
Everything he says at the end about the defacializing effect of TV, you have to wonder how he felt about the Internet, which was in its BEST form when he died in 2002
"When a teacher asks a young child 'how much is two plus two?' they are not requesting information. They are issuing an order." -Gille Deleuze.
When he talked about panopticism, all I could think about was Facebook and Google.
And also, you know, the actual carceral state.
I am very late responding to this comment but: Byung Chul-Han's Psychopolitics might be of interest to you if you have not already read it.
Another example of panopticism cast out onto human populations can be found in Peter Thiel/Alex Karp’s Palantir Technologies
@@reffeenot read it but think I kinda discussed Ceres it by studying and tearing my self apart and then wondering about other people and comparing neuroscience of the personality traits and its nuts a lot of what your arguing against is brain structure.
In the places of higher learning in the Northeast, this accent is associated with racists, religious fanatics, and the generally backwards.... This presentations, and the erudition of the presenter shatters all such associations. Indeed as MF stated knowledge is power.
It is those associations which cause exclusion and ostracism of individuals like the lecturer so their ideas cannot be disseminated. It is political power exercised by "knowledge" AKA prejudice.
You, are a prejudiced, discriminatory bigot.. and a fanatic one in that.
Associating someone's character to their accent is *peak* backwards.
Thank you for this series. A very concise and easily understood overview of so much philosophical thought.
@DamiaanVDW I've been listening to them for years. His lectures can be listened to over and over. I've learnt so much from him. Sad that he died so young.
Also sad that Duke University fired him and so we lost him for his last 10 years on this planet. This planet that has shown RR to be pretty spot on as to where we have been headed.
"We don't call them stupid and morons, but the differently abled, but this is a new mechanism of power" - Reminded me of George Carlin
George carlin knew all too well that humanism is always false humanism why is it People s reactions to those hardcore jokes was overwhelming because People knew he was damn right those jokes were mirrors in which People got to see themselves as genuine as it gets carlin was skilled in bringing People into a liberation stage very much like a religious ritual this is not fascism or some apology tô it instead it is about making ourselves aware that there is something off , intrinsically unfair with the very stablisment of our modern society as we know it
George Carlin was the greatest American Philosopher of the 20th Century.
Not sure that humanism is always false, though that may often be the case. I'm thinking that the humanism of Jesus Christ wasn't false, though I'm open to other arguments. I'm not Christian myself, but I take some inspiration from the life and teachinga of Christ. Interesting questoins would be: What characterised Jesus' humanism? Can it be called humanism? How does it differ from secular humanism? What are the implications of this difference in society? What are the positives of each? WHat are the drawbacks?
@@CitizenSnips314 ?
That's why Peterson says you become undocile and authentic by taking charge of your life. Making your damn bed is your first act of resistance. Do it.
I accidentally stepped into RUclips PEL group when I was searching for Arendt's Human Conditions' video...then you guys have TONS of good stuff..and videos..I am going to be quite busy for awhile..and thanks to PEL...:)
I love this guy's voice
The great and greatly missed Rick Roderick R.I.P. wish he were here today to hear his take on the present situation.
The example of the book one flew over the cokoo's nest is a great one, examples from novels and books help understand the concept better thanks for that.
Jordan Peterson should watch this
😂
my toughts exactly
peterson is a fraudster and a charlatan. he cant even follow his own advice and stay out oh rehab.
@@bhpurerange1 that is correct, however he is selling himself as a reasonable person that wants to have an honest argument. and the fans believe it. that is why attacking him with names is counter-productive, although he deserves these names.... we need to thread lightly
@@Vladimir-Struja "however he is selling himself as a reasonable person that wants to have an honest argument" I disagree. ask him about the second book written by Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn and watch as he recoils away from thruth
Kind of a surreal lecture.
This is absolutely wonder, a simple breakdown of a complex thinker, could have used a few Nietszche references and a bit more on Foucaults genealogies and connection to the general themes of post-structuralism but all in all
Knowledge and power- proof indeed, in these covid years, that Foucault is as relevant as ever; maybe more so. Brilliantly delivered with humour and clarity by the enigmatic and eccentric West Texan, Rick Roderick. I love all his lectures and listen over and over.
Excellent! It's the best lecture on great Russian philosopher Michelle Foucault I ever
heard!
Rinat Nugayev why do u think he is Russian?
Rinat Nugayev Foucault is french
+Micah Bragg it's a reference to his communist tendencies, duh!
18:30 "The exclusions were a condition for the possibility of that being a form of knowledge and discourse."
For sure did not expect Roderick to anticipate the racial injustice being fought now in the USA in this video, yet it all makes sense
The "racial injustice being fought" that was inspired by a Marxist organization that ran off with a bunch of money for "marginalized communities"(who claimed to be from those communities of "powerless people") and a Russian psyops. Basically under cutting rational thought and democracy.
US has never not had racial injustice
The idea that facts don't exist is now fully entrenched in segments of American society, though the adherents to that idea might have amused Foucault.
If anyone who thinks this way about facts was actually challenged, by their own arguments they could not make any judgments. So they are not serious. Their rhetoric is designed to confuse YOU. They want power that’s it and you don’t owe them any explanation. Treat them as parasites.
Foucault didn't mean facts don't exist per se. He meant facts are not independent of interpretation, thus not absolutely objective. And this idea goes back to the beginning of human thought, like the good old pre-socratic "man is the measure of all things". Even the opponents of Foucault, the ardent ones, acknowledge this truth, so they get rattled that their monopoly over facts and their interpretation might dilute or vanish away. I have never seen a proper critique of post-modern though, except a detailed ad hominem attacks or a suspicion of their intentions or perceived negative consequences of their ideas, but NEVER a critique of their ideas. Which has often amused me.
Facts such as earth is flat, is an objectively wrong interpretation. Because while the proponent of this thought maintains common natural language, you can put him on a helicopter and ask him to find the edge of earth. Facts such as "all humans are created equal" is meta-physical, because "equal" in it is a abstract concept, thus open to interpretations.
Yes, absolutely wouldn't have amused him though. His worst fears are being realised? He knew he would be misrepresented and abused and said in an interview, that he couldn't control how he would be represented after his death.
Who still argues for 'facts' ...besides me?
@@saimbhat6243let’s be honest, the reason you know the earth isn’t flat is because no neoliberal capitalist built a theme park on the edge and is charging admission. Like even if we dismiss science, we know people would destroy beautiful natural landscapes to earn a buck like the edge of the 🌎
And, I loved your lectures - just listening to my third!
Rick was a first rate educator.
That's why Duke University had to fire him.
@@johnmiller7453 didn’t fall in line? I wish I knew more, but that’s the vibe I get from the very little I’ve read/heard on Rick as Duke prof..
His joke about a C was good, more people should have laughed.
I don't think the microphone picked up the audience properly, there's a few times in these jokes where he responds to the audience but they're inaudible. I think this is just the sound feed from his lapel mic, so we're lucky enough not to hear audience noises throughout! Does make it seem like his excellent jokes aren't landing, though.
@@kategoss5454 Seems like quite a tough crowd though. His jokes are hilarious at times! But you might be right @Kate Goss
Christ was 'the mad' and thus excluded from society. The non-docile body par excellence. Thus, he exists as merely a 'church' and not as a life principle.
But by "eating his body" and "drinking his blood" we do accept him, even include him into our natural world. It's a ritual that keeps the dead alive, even Freud agreed upon that.
A wonderful lecture. My first, I knew nothing of Foucault. Thank you so much.
At 29:42. it is literally written on his body , the power of the king and the church
Brilliant..!!thank you so much for the upload
fantastic stuff! highly accessible for a thinker whom is incredibly complex and difficult to grasp. Only thing I would criticise would be the focus on Discipline and Punish.
This is a FASCINATING video. What an amazing guy!!!!!!
Watching him makes me realize how negatively biased marketers are against people with a southern accent. Ironically, they’re probably more liberal I’m guessing.
That's really true, in many times I've been to the States, and people I've known from USA, I'm always surprised how people are prejudiced against those in the South.
I understand the history, but really it's all the same country! Opinions in South may not be as different to their own as some Northerners like to believe...!
@@dlau5775 All true, but can west Texas be considered the south? Maybe, but not traditionally.
Cause Michelle Foucault was a pupil of Louis Althusser and due to his influence joined the French communists after the war. However he quickly left the party after 1957 or so since he was dissapointed learning about Stalin's concentration camps and their victims
love this man - RIP
great Lecture, power, via foucault ,as an element in dictating elements of 'Truth'
The idea that "not everyone has been allowed to perform philosophy" is absurd. It assumes that there is some higher entity needed to grant your philosophy its status. We might naturally only remember the ideas of the most influential figures, but what else is to be expected? This doesn't mean that the lower classes didn't think in philosophical terms, just that they didn't have the means to influence contemporary society and history as follows
The lower classes have no interest in living their life off man made mind fancies, they tend to follow their own will and not that of another.
The lower classes laugh at those "educated slaves" who want to change the world for worse with their heavy doses of influenza.
Cicero
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
15:00 "...Clearly there's a relation, it seems to me, between knowlege and power... whether there's a way to uncouple knowlege and power...
...rules of exclusion, not inclusion... instiutional communications function through rules that determine who may speak, about what they may speak, for how long they may speak, in what setting... and this is not an invideous thing..."
That is useful to note: institutions have such rules for reasons which have stood the test of time, such as the rule about how long one may speak; this encourages brevity and clarity.
I only wish that the Tweeting generation had the discipline, accuracy and concision of expression which our centres of learning encourage;
instead of giving ourselves time to reflect and give our considered thoughts, we get on line and give the first knee-jerk response to what we read,
1/ regardless of context,
2/ regardless of our use of ambiguous terms,
3/ regardless of resultant unnecessary misunderstanding,
4/ regardless of empathy.
I seem to be making an argument for NOT interacting with the hopelessly undisciplined. I think there is wisdom in this; I should value my time and my intellect more, make my knowlege = power.
(I say that as someone who is an habitual lover of lost causes)
differous01 i might be wrong bit i understood this statement as descrptive. i didn‘t get the impression that „power“ is something negative. it‘s more an observation of how knowledge is produced. if you have 1000 different views on a topic, you have to exclude most if not all of them through „power mechanisms“ to gain any form of knowledge. i didn‘t understand foucaults view as a prescriptive argument for eradicating these power structures.
but please correct me if i‘m false.
I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated
Is this guy Zizek's lost twin?
Javin Gibson b
No, Zizek is Zarathustra's lost buffoon.
fsabouni paaapa
Javin Gibson oo
Alban Bokshi
Pknnj
Excellent conclusion. Thanks for posting this. He was yet another voice of validation for me. The world we live in is very much the prison of Foucault's description, if not become worse since his death. Look at the increasingly narrow passages we are expected to walk through, the exclusions and inclusions. Even meeting social needs is restricted to online social networks wherein one must also be force fed the values of the popular culture through the medium of the high school sporting event mentality. Yay. On. Everything. (I'm trying to be positive here. You know, the "law of attraction." Hmm, then why am I repulsed by my own attempt?)
Sis boom BAh! you are great!
well said.
which is why we need anarcho primitivism don’t @ me
22:22 - Foucault's Whole New Disciplinary Matrix Around Madness:
"I've joked about this process - I don't want to use the strong word “madness” here - but when we look at the expansion of this therapeutic zone on into the late 20th century, we now find out that very few of us don't belong in it.
I mean, if you're not on a 12-step program today, you're out of fashion; I mean, who would have guessed, that the discourse of madness would eventually cover the whole social field and, until, perhaps the last growth industry we have - other than making movies about sex and violence - is psychiatry, and in running 12-step programs? This is a growth industry."
Who would have guessed? Thomas Szasz, in his book The Myth of Mental Illness, published in 1961. It wasn't a guess, either.
Thank you for the upload!!!! Enlightenment on every video
I made up a mental construction of the relationship between data>information>knowledge>wisdom as a preteen mowing lawns. The data is there (in all of life) to be observed, information is data understood in short time spans, knowledge is information interpreted in varying contexts & remembered over longer time, wisdom being knowledge applied properly relative to real life concerns. Can I have tenure now? Lolz
Great lecture. I didn't understand how this lecture is related to "The Disappearance of the Human" though. Does it mean that these power structures and relationships (in prisons, in schools, in surveillance society as a whole) replace the human free will and the idea of the individual self? Or is it connected to the notion of a subverted "humanism"?
Foucault’s project is maybe not the “disappearance” of the subject in the form of a ready made essence, but detailing the fact that large swaths of the “subject” is socially/historically contingent and is created through different discourses, regimes of signs, institutionalization, etc. His later ideas on “biopower” and “biopolitics” were especially interesting in this regard due to the fact that he moved the focus of power relations from simple discipline and restriction to power that controlled life in all its facets (birth, biological data, creation of new subjectivities, etc). Very interesting thinker.
Humans don't have free will, man does.
Nietzsche said "there are no facts, only interpretations" in his response to something.
The Flaming Philosopher And that makes you interpret it somehow differently, despite the fact, lmao. I think he meant that despite the exact context. He thought the reality was basically a lie suited for survival, which makes the interpretation the only thing that matters about the fact, as it is your relation to the fact you experience, not the fact itself. Therefore there is no reason to think that there is a “fact in itself”
The torture and repentance of Winston Smith at the end of 1984 by Orwell is an Extreme example of The power/ Knowledge thing.
I too was reminded of Winston Smith as I listened to this. His chilling torture by O'Brien especially.
This guy is FANTASTIC.
The are fascinating lectures.
Anyone else have the privilege of knowing the one and only Rick Roderick?
I would trade several years off my life to have known him as a friend.
This is hard to watch. Miss him very much. Close friend. R IP Rick Roderick.
Where did my reply go?
40:21
I half expected him to burst out with "TYRANNY!" in an Alex Jones voice. Hahah.
amzing delivery
I'm curious about what he says about Foucault's "non-historical" or "genealogical" method. I'm not well read in this stuff myself, but does Marx really believe capitalism was a coincidence? That seems to run counter to all I've heard about Hegelian history.
Just read a bit on historical materialism, it’s basically just a way to view history through the lens of the concrete rather than intangible. It’s way of suggesting that history isn’t beholden to ideology as much as ideology is beholden to history.
I’ll add that from what I understand Marx doesn’t see capitalism as a coincidence as much as he sees every socioeconomic development throughout history as a sort of coincidence. As matter is the most basic building block of the universe so it is also the engine that drives the universe “forward” to some new ideology.
Hmm. Be careful here, we have two thinkers.
So, Marx writes that capitalism is born into this world, drenched with blood. So, Marx recognizes some intent behind capitalism and violence.
However, I think it is worth nothing that capitlaism is not developed as part of some grand narrative. Capitalism does not replace feudalism because of reason. Reason is not causality nor thread. I think that is the point in these lectures.
As for Marx, I'm not sure what his argument explaining capitalism's development is. I suspect it details a discussion of class seizure of power and a beleif by the mass that capitlaism would allow for liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Actually, this would be a good question for @RichardWolff
Moreso that the historical progression is based on human labor and class struggle, so not predetermined (active rather than passive)
Fascinating talk as it progresses to the actual, physical, "built environment" as itself a prison. In another posting, Chomsky debates Foucault and reminds that an imagined future utopia at least represents some form of ever-changing, rather ethereal goal. Both Disney and Hitler (polar opposites) became somewhat obsessed with urban planning before they died. The infrastructure of the pedestrian proletariat (public spaces/public transport/urban groves and gardens) is that utopia. Mad?
some parks in some parts of town ain't so utopic. park down the street from me is pretty hardcore. noone goes there unless they are begging to get physically harmed. i don;t think it's the only park like that. lots of parks like that in the not so nice parts of towns across the world. so i guess those utopic public spaces you speak of exist along socio-economic lines. it's a big world. i guess some of it not worth everyones time checking out.
Disney’s imagined city in Florida is virtually indistinguishable (ideologically speaking) to Bentham’s Panopticon if you subscribe to the idea that capital inherently controls the proletariat. An interesting point, I’d never thought of it that way before you commented.
But how do we "re-form" the cruel and the sadistic?
Another take: Ancient Man encounters mysterious plagues which, in his innocence/ignorance, he interprets as punishment by the gods. Desperate, he looks around, trying to discover what his sin was in order to eradicate it and thereby appease these mysterious entities He draws up lists of commandments to correct his mistakes, hoping they will restore his innocence, even though he is innocent...
Meanwhile, he has to take up the more immediate business of defending himself against powerful human neighbours. If he is not already powerful, he has to become so in order to achieve this...
Robert Graves, survivor of World War 1 and author of "Goodbye To All That", thought that the invention of nuclear weapons made further wars unthinkable. Let's hope he was right. But millions still love war movies, crime noir, "The Silence of the Lambs" etc. Especially men, but not exclusively...
I wonder what is the power behind all those Foucauldian etc ideologies.
I love Rick Roderick lectures, but I disagree with the Noam Chomsky's comment. I Think Noam Chomsky deserve more credit than that. And I can collect a hand full of people who would agree with me. Noam Chomsky is a critical philosopher who is against injustice not just in America but all over the world. He sees injustice just like Dr. King saw it, "An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
My issue with Chomsky and maybe with RR even though I love him so dearly is their belief that things can get better and eventually work out for humanity. I'll go instead with Schopenhauer who knew better. I still have great respect for all three of them.
Myad!
Good talk.
Awesome vid
4:45 did he mean Instagram?
Inspired and inspiring!
Interesting but never suggests a viable alternative for crime and punishment.
We decided that to move away from kinship tribes into societies and states gave us better opportunities for survival. Therefore, there has to be a degree of consensual and enforced docility or it’s a return to the killing fields in very short order. We eat, we procreate and we fight for dominance, rather like our cousins in the fields and forests, nothing much else of note.
Are these in the public domain?
why do you ask?
+fuuz I was just wondering if I have the right to spread them as well. Thank you for uploading them!
Luke Johnson i dint upload anything,what are you talking about?
+fuuz oh mea culpa
Dr Marion Woodman ( Jungian analyst) wrote a excellent book on anorexia and obesity. It’s in-depth psychology !
I don't believe Roderick discredited Chomsky, although that's not what you said. You claim Chomsky deserves more credit. I think you would be hard put to justify the need to give a person more credit than a fair remark, especially when their work is not specifically relevant to the topic addressed. Chomsky was utilized as an example to help define Foucault. Going into detail on the credit Chomsky deserves would only serve to confuse the listener into believing him more relevant than he is.
One or more of his videos has disabled comments
These lectures are great. They introduce thinkers that all too often get lazily dismissed as relativistic drivel by whining, pre-modern specialists with personality disorders. Do they not teach about straw persons and red herrings anymore?
people watch Hollywood violence because it's the "substitute stimulation" (coupled with the vicarious relief of their frustrations via the "exciting violence") for their neurotic boring lives and frigidity. Many creative types have no time for this Hollywood junk, for they achieve excitement in their own craft, art, music, and the sensual/sexually expressive nature that tends to characterize this group. This explains the French New Wave, movies for artists.
Vot language is zhis?
I would love to take a jog with this guy
the ruling ideology is the ideolgoy of the ruling class. was that roderick, foucault or marx or someone else?
Interesting how Foucault wrote before the idea of surveillance capitalism.
26:45
How do you establish there are "important" points in Foucault's work when there is no objective truth.
Infacf how does foucault begin to write, how does he choose certain ideas over others. Is as if he does not believe what he proposes himself.
There are differences in the American and Soviet ways of repression. The U.S. security state is involved in the invasion and occupation of American cities and towns where they terrorize the non-compliant (non-compliant to the savage spirit and the vicious doctrine that it defends). We are not a society of surveillance only, but one of disciplinary mechanisms. They send teams of men that accost victims and terrorize them in myriad ways - it can go on for years. It's a sort of 'Gulag' in plain air, in your home: you are not sent to a place of torment, it comes to you instead! In this way it remains (so cleverly and demonically) 'invisible'. Where is it? Where is the place of torment you speak of? Where are the trains, the prisoners - you must be lying! Nothing is seen. The 'Gulag' remains invisible; the criminals disappear as if they never existed. America remains unblemished - the 'land of the free'! While the very notion of 'the people' is being extinguished; the power is transferred away to 'the top'.
Of course, there is no mass murder. But that only helps the American way of repression. The American way of doing 'Gulags' is totally successful. The persecuted 'disappear' in that their being, their thinking disappears - their lives stop living. Their souls die. What more could you want? And as such, the American way of repression is triumphant, and being invisible, America remains 'innocent and freedom loving' while the obvious Soviet way of repression led to its demise. Open repression always loses in the end (though it restarts itself after each demise, again and again).
The American people, who, in vast numbers, want to be pure cannot detect what is occurring because they believe the narrative of innocence; and 'believing' is more immediate than 'seeing' (believing is always already there, in mind; seeing is outside, and deception rules there).
Still there are signs that some members of the legislative and judiciary have seen into it - they're insisting on the rule of law; and activists are now counted by the million, not the thousand. Let's hope Am can be saved yet, and innocence triumph.
It already happened!!!!
Drink every time Rick says interpretation
Hit the bong every time he says "account".
I don't want to end up as alcoholic
Hermeneutics isn't relatavism.
Foucault was one of the first people, in my opinion, to seriously try to expose the cruelty of homophoboa with philosophical logic and analysis. And what is so beautiful about Foucault is how indirectly direct he is about this. Everywhere you can see it in his work.
Hes really great and funny..if I had profs like him I wouldn't of dropped out lol!
You would have learned that "of" is a preposition too lol.
@@TheRealJamesKirk Then again, I never went to college and I knew that as well.
I am torn between hating his voice and loving the content he presents
Well the malls are dead and the new "docile body" is your amazon shopper. Of course, things got worse!
42 min mark: “the cia is now mostly obsolete”. My man misses from time to time 😞😞😞
The human condition: To believe that which is helpful physically, irl, in actuality, in reality, to be a hindrance through metaphysical, theoretical, through rhetoric, as a way of mitigating the actually misery in their life.
Ex: As stated here, the working class children in the 1960s entered the university system en masse through student loans. This was believed to be great, allowing the white collar middle class to explode and for the amount of people able to work these jobs to explode and feed the system which has lead to the tech boom. Physically, irl, this was great and increased the standard of living for many. Now, 60 years and two generations later, Millennials and Gen Z look at student loans as an albatros; metaphysically we have taken the avenue to a better life, grown accustomed to it, and vilified it to justify why we are miserable.
Ex: Physically vaxx are helpful en masse without question. Metaphysically they have been turned into a boogyman that justifies some citizens on the Right's misery in life.
This seems to happen over and over in society in the marginalized groups of people in society.
"We are living in a Gulag". Make me cry...
I appreciate Rick's interpretations and the content, too bad he is not here to reap the rewards of his work. I have to take issue with Rick's comments on information and knowledge being 'equivalent' terms I guess. Knowledge, and I think part of what Foucault was pointing at, means the power to decide WHAT is considered knowledge and what information is knowledge. We demonstrate our knowledge with such things as college degrees. I may know everything about the law, everything, and legal precedent, etc. but the only way (with a couple of exceptions) I can demonstrate that knowledge in a court is to have an approved degree and pass the Bar exam. The Bar exam essentially dictates what is legal "knowledge". The Bar Assoc has the power to determine what the scope of legal knowledge is because the bar exam is the only path to practice. In that case, the Bar Assoc has power over a huge slide of the knowledge. If university wants to hand out recognized law degrees, they, in most states, have to be approved by the Bar Assoc to give out degrees which means they comply with the Bar Assoc's power over what to teach and how. The school must prepare the students to meet the knowledge requirements for the bar exam or they will lose students. So the university, because they have the power to certify a level of knowledge - with a degree -- have power over some of that knowledge. That is where you find the power. If any school could give a law degree that would allow one to practice law, and there was no unified bar exam, the Bar Assoc would lose its power and influence. Influence over how law is practiced in America.
Knowledge is certain defined information, but it is also the creation of information. If a university would never approve a doctoral dissertation based on qualitative, hermaneutic research, they are deciding what research and types of information make up the knowledge that is created and what is viable knowledge and what is non viable.
Foucault implied or even stated that these example institutions are who determine WHAT Knowledge is and they control that knowledge. Some types of information yields similar connections, but ultimately knowledge is the application of information to specific problems/situations and these institutions, governments, etc control what information can be used in what situations and in what ways (knowledge) and in that they are vested with tremendous power that can have huge historical implications.
Just my thoughts and maybe I miss the argument but thanks for having a forum to at least consider these things....
Shared Expectations Have you heard of the 7 liberal arts and sciences known as the Trivium and Quadrivium?
Thank you for your thoughts, I was thinking along the same lines when I came looking in the comments. The distinction seems to be a critical one for Foucault.
Great comment!!
Walter White from Breaking Bad...now that's a badass criminal
Foucault although not an absolute relativist as Roderick says, his ideas are being used as such.
Funny to be listening to this lecture right as the netflix show on jeffrey dahmer is super popular.
So much projection from a teacher.