Foucault on Genealogy and identity
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- Professor Ellie Anderson, co-host of Overthink philosophy podcast, explains Michel Foucault's method of genealogy as described in Foucault's key essay "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," and relates ideas from this to Foucault's claims about sexuality and identity politics in the 1982 interview "Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity."
This video was created for Professor Anderson's Spring 2021 "Continental Thought" course at Pomona College.
For more from Ellie, check out Overthink podcast!
www.overthinkpodcast.com/
You saved my life, now I have a little bit better understanding of Foucault's genealogy and how to connect it with the definition of problematization. Thanks again. Keep the amazing work!
That was one of the best little drill-downs into Foucault I’ve ever heard. Thanks.
Dear Professor Ellie, thanks for this proyect and regards from Colombia! I learn a lot with you and I admire you!!
When I'm tired of reading, I come to your videos, it's both studying and relaxing for me.
Thanks for the clarity presenting such abstract notions. Clear as a bell.
Phenomenal video, thank you.
Such good work. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your explanation. It really helped.
Very well explained, thank you.
This was a great video. Many thanks indeed.
"Because that is the nature of the way things are." And now I know philosophy.
Incredible video! You are the Queen!
The analogy of onions is a recurrent theme in Hindu & Buddhist philosophies too.
Very well explained, thank you. You're a very gifted teacher :)
On another hand, these reflections reinforce me more on how far I am from Foucault's and Nietzsche's thoughts and ways of thinking. I definetelly don't agree with them and their conclusions and perspectives; the more I study and understand them (and their genious and brilliancy), the more deeply and solidly I disagree :)
I have never appreciated a TH-cam video more than this one
Helpful, thank you
Foucault is certainly a very interesting thinker. Nevertheless, I would like to critique the very vague conception of “essence” which Foucault may be handling. It is not really a refutation of “having an essence” the fact that history is determining the temporality and circumstances of the this essence. Essence has in it the assumption that in what a thing is, it contains its own past. Therefore, I would say that Foucault, even if he says this or not, is not making a critique of “essence” in things, but rather the critique of the confusion between the accidental and the essential. This confusion is a real confusion, since it has real effects, and not only that, but the confusion itself enables its own reproductibility, since if we take the accidental as essential, the becoming is now determined by the particularities of this accidents, and makes the essence to be manifest only through those accidents. Let us take a non-societal example. Oxygen has the accidental property of keeping us alive by mediation of its chemical effects. But this accidental property which leads us in a first moment to need oxygen, in itself is alao killing us. One of its accidents determines the becoming of its essence in certain circumstances. So, Foucault is right in showing us how not only history, but ourselves, are products of what accidents of ourselves we see to be essential. For example, if we thing race or gender is “determinant” of our intellect and capacities, it in fact leads to a certain becoming. We and history is a product of this supposition. But that does not mean there is no essence. Is love essential or unessential to human beings? Is eating unessential to us? These questions may sound ironical, but are meant to show that Foucault is, like many others, a genius that does not understand itself.
Well, that is the problem of the entire stream of post modern literature. These literatures are just for fun reading. A lot of them has no practical meaning , and static in nature. Think about Derrida's deconstruction or speech vs writing theory. You will even struggle to express what he actually wants to say, even if you understand his statement. Still, I will say Foucault is relatively better understood than Derrida. But my favourite is Edward Said...He obviously has a clear point on West's view about the "other"...
@@manaschakraborty9192 The curious thing is that, if you take your time to analyze their positions, they are not so different from that of many analytic philosophers. Their difference is mainly on their style and the way they pursuit their questions, but is not so difficult to see how they can agree with each other.
Maybe the problem is on the identity of philosophy as a discipline, which is only a problem when we think what the identity of science is, which we really do not know, theoretically.
@@nicolasruiz4643 Correctly pointed out. The idea or fact they wanted to express is already very well known for centuries but no one before them, questioned the authorities like they did. In science similar things can be found. Mankind fot thousands of years have seen apple falls from the tree, but there was only one Newton who pointed out ,it was due to gravitational pull, the apple falls towards Earth..Again Einstein went one step further to define gravity, which Newton did not. Same is with Derrida. It was a given fact for centuries that white are superior than Black. This very idea was fantacised, institutionalized, practiced at a micro level in the society but no one question "Who said that White are superior , blacks are inferior?! White are just like white and Blacks are just like black". The view or developing a discourse about this black, " others" etc with Western authorities were questioned by Derrida, Said etc.. Perhaps that is their contribution more than anything else...
interesting comment, thanks.
more people should write comments like that
Your ontology of the human vs the thing in itself is confused. Essence is more than it, is, human, whereas things are what they are.
Very nice! Thank you
It was a while ago I read something from Foucault. I think It was a great conceptualisation of Foucault. I would love If you dived deeper into the idea of knowledge/power, institutional power and how this contemporary “fixed” essences or hyper positions (race & gender) occur. 😅
Excellent analysis
Thank you for this very interesting video. Which book/edition do the page numbers refer to? I would love to be able to read the primary text :)
Awesome!
Bookshelf tour!!
Any interest in doing a series on heidegger, your videos are really great and distill the information clearly
Thanks! We have one Heidegger video in this playlist for now--certainly may do more in the future :)
There are lots of great little books on heidegger. the nearness of distance bitches......I. Am deeerunk!
Thank God for Heidegger, or we'd just have these shallow Neo-Heraclitians... like Nietzsche and Foucault.
Fantastic
Very interesting topic relevant to today’s identity politics, which has its use and place, but I share the same concerns when it pushes oneself into a box of “essence,” where I am this category, vs a fluid interpretation. As a trans person I have never felt like my identity was fixed, but glad that it is fluid and continues to be fluid, as that gives me freedom of choice and also change.
Trans is an identity - that implies an essence.
@@DanielDunne1 what is an essence in a universe of flux?
@@Riley-resothe very idea of flux itself.
thank u
As always these pieces are amazingly articulate discourses on abstruse subjects. The point brought out here about identities has considerable merit in the sense identities are not fixed. And emphasizing how Foucault attacks capitalist concepts of fixed or legal identity as dangerous. That said to me some things can be affected by how identity is longer lasting. Humans use language to add change to people as they live. Animals can’t add those kinds of changes and change in their context is more restricted. Identities in humans cluster around types of lived being, such as sexual practices. But change is complex, and difficult to judge in the sense of the purpose of fixedness. Some concepts like worker don’t offer a good sense of what is meant by universal identity. Rather large scale systems of government shape a long lasting quality of being of identity that varies between systems. This problematic quality of being in a context of systems eludes Foucault’s sense of contingency. One can’t be born a hundred thousand years ago assume an identity outside of the fixedness of the culture around oneself.
What about the heterogeneity of gestural hand communication?
If we are always already in a becoming of history that we cannot sublimate, then how did Foucault do his Geneology? If we are prioritizing the contingencies around the origin of new ideas, what are the contingencies surrounding Foucault? What kind of car did he drive? Did he have a housekeeper?
How can a society that brings out the best in human nature possibly be built on a bunch of people who are willingly and constantly changing the basic tenants of who they are?... This is a man who benefited most from that which he tries to tear down
He didn't tear them down, he problematized/ de-settled them
That's really true of him. We are ok with surveillance and watchdog authority in almost every area of our society...still about the gay movment why was he critical about it ?? I was not able to get that.
It's good that there are women who add their beauty to wisdom and not the other way around.
Personal identity... "reasons and persons" by Derek Parfit
I hope someone uses his criticism of essence and fixed identity to tell the gender critics, they are more right than perhaps they know.
I agree with completely with Norm Chomsky. After his 'debate' with Foucault, Dr. Chomsky states that Foucault is the most amoral person he has ever met.
because you're as childish as Chomsky
"Men are by nature envious... ...they rejoice at the weakness of their fellows , and are pained by their accomplishments"
- Baruch Spinoza
Some men and some women are envious by nature but they are the minority and they can change. The society that we have built does not reflect our true character. We must change the structure of our society in order to bring out the best in us.🌱
I know for a fact I have an innate nature regardless of culture or history.
when I was five years old I was taken to a zoo for the first time, when I saw the caged monkey's, I frowned and asked my parents why do people put animals in cages ?
I was given no prior opinion on the subject whatsoever.
If there were no human nature, the science of economics would have no chance of predicting mass behavior, yet it does to a reasonable degree.
Instead of “gay is normal” as an essentialist claim, we could maybe accept the claim: being gay is common and the very concept of gay is historical, I.e., the concept and lived reality of being gay is becoming and heterogeneous.
If Foucault thinks there is no essence where does he think his own sexuality come from?
only rhe genealogical method can answer that, he might say
Genealogy, not geneology.
Hello, please become an Eastern Orthodox Christian.
lol
She’s so annoying. She could talk about Foucault in a calm and reasonable manner. and less edits (very distracting)
since you're so picky why don't you explain it yourself then
Not possible because Foucault itself is a tooth breaking subject...
She is passionate, and it is her personal style..
@@aal5704 There are some teachers I have seen who are at pinnacle of their wisdom but can not express things in a simple manner. She suffers from that...
I think she’s great.