In ‘Questions of Method: An Interview with Michel Foucault‘ (from After Philosophy: End or Transformation?, eds. Kenneth Baynes, James Bohman, and Thomas McCarthy, MIT Press, 1987, pp. 114), Foucault responds to the question of whether his writings in Discipline and Punish had an ‘anaesthetizing effect’ on ‘social workers in prisons’: Paralysis isn’t the same thing asContinue reading “Foucault On ‘Blackmail Serving To Limit The Exercise Of Criticism’”
Tag Archives: Michel Foucault
Foucault And Kripke On Names And Rigid Designators
In ‘What is An Author‘, Michel Foucault writes: The author’s name is a proper name, and therefore it raises the problems common to all proper names. (Here I refer to Searle’s analyses, among others.’) Obviously, one cannot turn a proper name into a pure and simple reference. It has other than indicative functions: more than anContinue reading “Foucault And Kripke On Names And Rigid Designators”
Philosophical Silencing: A Follow-Up
In response to my post on an act of philosophical silencing, Wesley Buckwalter wrote the following comment (over at the NewAPPS blog, where I cross-posted): As you know, I was the gentleman that made that remark in a private facebook thread with a close friend. If I recall correctly, people in that thread were askingContinue reading “Philosophical Silencing: A Follow-Up”
Samuel Delany on Power
I have finally taken down, from my shelves, my long-ago-borrowed copy of Samuel Delany‘s Tales of Nevèrÿon (Bantam Books, New York, 1979) and started reading it. Almost immediately, in the first story of Gorgik, the mine slave taken “as a plaything to Nevèrÿon’s imperial court” (‘The Tale of Gorgik‘), I came up on the following Foucauldian ruminationsContinue reading “Samuel Delany on Power”
Wanted: Moar Philosophers in Bollywood
A few days ago, a delightful oddity began making the rounds: a clip of Bertrand Russell in a Bollywood movie. The background for this clip is straightforward even if improbable: The year was 1967. Russell was by then a very frail 95-year-old man. Besides finishing work on his three-volume autobiography, Russell was devoting much ofContinue reading “Wanted: Moar Philosophers in Bollywood”
Samir Chopra 