{"id":928,"date":"2015-10-30T20:18:58","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T00:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/testing.elotroalex.com\/foucault\/?p=218"},"modified":"2016-02-07T21:43:02","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T02:43:02","slug":"foucault-414-daniele-lorenzini-a-dispatch-from-paris-a-little-history-of-truth-in-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/2015\/10\/30\/foucault-414-daniele-lorenzini-a-dispatch-from-paris-a-little-history-of-truth-in-general\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dispatch from Paris: \u201cA Little History of Truth in General\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniele Lorenzini<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have followed with great interest, from Paris, the discussions which arose before, during, and after the first three meetings of the seminar \u201cFoucault 13\/13\u201d, and I really look forward to \u201cFoucault 4\/14\u201d, which is going to be exciting\u2014Linda Zerilli<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Anna Lvovsky<\/a>\u2019s posts on\u00a0Psychiatric Power<\/em>\u00a0are brilliant and challenging. I would like to contribute to these rich discussions by drawing some attention to an aspect of Foucault\u2019s lectures on\u00a0Psychiatric Power<\/em>\u00a0that I have always considered crucial, both for the \u201cdiscursive economy\u201d of these lectures and in view of the methodological and conceptual \u201cshifts\u201d Foucault introduced a few years later in\u00a0On the Government of the Living\u00a0<\/em>(1979-1980).<\/p>\n

At the beginning of his 23 January 1974 lecture of\u00a0Psychiatric Power<\/em>, Foucault opens what he himself calls \u201ca parenthesis\u201d\u2014but readers of Foucault\u2019s lectures at the Coll\u00e8ge de France have already learnt that what he presents as a parenthesis is very often something quite decisive.<\/span>\u00a0Foucault, speaking about the complex and many-sided \u201cmechanism of discipline\u201d that functioned within the asylum in the nineteenth century, argues that its effects introduced a question of truth: \u201cmedical knowledge, which again was only a token of power, found itself required to speak, no longer just in terms of power, but in terms of truth\u201d (PP, p. 235). Indeed, as\u00a0Anna Lvovsky<\/a>\u00a0correctly suggests, in\u00a0Psychiatric Power<\/em>\u00a0Foucault delivers an analysis of madness as a battle over truth-production, and in many senses also the hysterics\u2019 \u201ccounter-conduct\u201d that will be taken into account by\u00a0Linda Zerilli<\/a>\u00a0can be described in terms of a challenge on the level of truth. This is why, by retracing \u201ca little history of truth in general\u201d (PP, p.\u00a0235), Foucault is actually doing something crucial with respect both to the stakes of these lectures and to future developments of his thought.<\/p>\n

More precisely, I would like to argue that, through this parenthesis, Foucault incites us\u00a0to think otherwise\u2014<\/em>i.e. to modify our common and shared conception of truth in order to understand that truth is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0first and foremost a metaphysical, logical, or epistemological issue, but a\u00a0political<\/em>\u00a0or better (as he will clearly show starting from 1980) an\u00a0ethico-political<\/em>\u00a0issue.<\/p>\n

In his 1974 \u201clittle history of truth in general\u201d, Foucault distinguishes two kinds of truth in a way that is reminiscent of the theses we find in\u00a0Lectures on the Will to Know<\/em>\u00a0(see e.g. LWK, pp. 31-32).<\/p>\n

1) On the one side, there is the scientific (or epistemological) conception of truth, characterized by two features:<\/p>\n

a) First, the idea that \u201cthere is truth everywhere, in every place, and all the time\u201d\u2014this is what we could call the\u00a0principle of the omnipresence of truth<\/em>. Therefore, according to Foucault, \u201cfor a scientific type of knowledge nothing is too small, trivial, ephemeral, or occasional for the question of truth, nothing too distant or close to hand for us to put the question: what are you in truth?\u201d (PP, pp. 235-236). A few years later, in\u00a0On the Government of the Living<\/em>, this statement will acquire a more explicit ethico-political value, since Foucault will apply it directly to the subject: it is the subject, indeed, that in Western societies is required to answer the question \u201cwho are you in truth?\u201d<\/p>\n

b) Second, the idea that \u201cno one is exclusively qualified to state the truth\u201d\u2014this is the\u00a0principle of the (potentially) universal access to truth<\/em>. In fact, from the standpoint of the scientific conception of truth, the possibility for the subject to grasp the truth depends on \u201cthe instruments required to discover it, the categories necessary to think it, and an adequate language for formulating it in propositions\u201d (PP, p. 236),\u00a0and not on the \u201cmode of being\u201d of the subject him\/herself\u2014<\/em>what Foucault, in his 1981-1982 lectures at the Coll\u00e8ge de France, will call \u201cspirituality\u201d. During the first lecture of\u00a0The Hermeneutics of the Subject<\/em>\u00a0(1981-1982) (\u201cHS\u201d),\u00a0indeed, speaking precisely of the problem of the subject\u2019s access to the truth, Foucault establishes a distinction between \u201cphilosophy\u201d (or, to use the language of\u00a0Psychiatric Power<\/em>, the \u201cphilosophico-scientific standpoint of truth\u201d; PP, p. 236) and \u201cspirituality\u201d on the grounds of the necessity for the subject, in the latter case, to operate a series of transformations on him\/herself, since spirituality postulates that \u201cthe truth is never given to the subject by right\u201d and that therefore s\/he must change, shift, become to some extent \u201cother than him\/herself\u201d in order to have right of access to the truth (HS, p.\u00a015). On the contrary, Foucault argues, \u201cthe history of truth enters its modern period\u201d when it is assumed that \u201cthe condition for the subject\u2019s access to the truth, is knowledge (connaissance<\/em>) and knowledge alone\u201d (HS, p. 17). In other words, when the problem of the subject\u2019s access to the truth comes to be linked to \u201ca technology of demonstration\u201d (PP, p. 236).<\/p>\n

2) On the other side, there is a more ancient conception of truth, which has been \u201cgradually pushed aside or covered over\u201d (Foucault also says \u201ccolonized\u201d) by the demonstrative technology of truth: a truth which is \u201cdispersed, discontinuous, interrupted\u201d, which \u201cwill only speak or appear from time to time, where it wishes to, in certain places\u201d, and which \u201cis not waiting for us, because it is a truth which has its favorable moments, its propitious places, its privileged agents and bearers\u201d. In short, it is a truth that, far from being omnipresent and universally accessible, \u201coccurs as an event\u201d (PP, pp.\u00a0236-237).<\/p>\n

What I would especially like to highlight here is that Foucault\u00a0apparently<\/em>\u00a0presents this distinction as an\u00a0opposition<\/em>\u00a0of two series \u201cin the Western history of truth\u201d: truth-demonstration\u00a0versus<\/em>\u00a0truth-event, \u201ctruth-sky\u201d\u00a0versus<\/em>\u00a0\u201ctruth-thunderbolt\u201d. In the first series, the relationship between the subject and the object is a relationship of knowledge (connaissance<\/em>), whereas in the second it is a relationship of \u201cshock or clash\u201d, a \u201crisky, reversible, warlike relationship\u201d, that is a \u201crelationship of domination and victory, and so not a relationship of knowledge, but one of power\u201d (PP, p.\u00a0237). Hence, the continuity with the project Foucault inaugurated in\u00a0The Order of Discourse<\/em>\u00a0and in the\u00a0Lectures on the Will to Know<\/em>\u00a0is patent (see on this point\u00a0James Faubion<\/a>,\u00a0Jes\u00fas Velasco<\/a>, and\u00a0Bernard Harcourt<\/a>\u2019s posts). However, Foucault\u2019s aim is not exactly to retrace the history of truth-relationship of power (or of truth-event)\u00a0instead of<\/em>\u00a0the history of truth-relationship of knowledge (or of truth-demonstration), as if they were two\u00a0alternative<\/em>\u00a0histories. His objective, which is clearly inspired by Nietzsche, is rather to show that the second history is\u00a0a part<\/em>\u00a0of the first, i.e. that truth-demonstration itself is nothing else than\u00a0one moment<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0one form<\/em>\u00a0of truth as an event:<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to emphasize the truth-thunderbolt against the truth-sky, that is to say, on the one hand, to show how this truth-demonstration, broadly identified in its technology with scientific practice, the present day extent, force and power of which there is absolutely no point in denying, derives in reality from the truth-ritual, truth-event, truth-strategy, and how truth-knowledge is basically only a region and an aspect, albeit one that has become superabundant and assumed gigantic dimensions, but still an aspect or a modality of truth as event and of the technology of this truth-event\u201d (PP, p. 238).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, in retracing this peculiar history of truth, which has of course both political and ethical consequences, Foucault\u2019s objective is to show that scientific demonstration is only a ritual, that the supposedly universal subject of knowledge is only \u201can individual historically qualified according to certain modalities\u201d, and that when we speak about truth we should always pose the problem of its\u00a0production<\/em>\u00a0(and not that of its \u201cdiscovery\u201d). Therefore, Foucault\u2019s history of truth is an \u201carcheology of knowledge\u201d but also and at the same time a \u201cgenealogy of knowledge\u201d, since it does\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0aim at saying: \u201ctruth is nothing else than power, so let\u2019s talk about power and let\u2019s get rid of truth\u201d. It rather aims at understanding \u201chow truth-knowledge assumed its present, familiar, and observable dimensions\u201d (PP, pp.\u00a0238-239) as well as at posing the question of the possibility\u00a0for us<\/em>,\u00a0today<\/em>, to conceive and make use of truth\u00a0differently<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Two short remarks to conclude. On the one hand, through this four-page \u201cparenthesis\u201d, Foucault gives us some precious clues in order to read\u00a0Psychiatric Power<\/em>, and more precisely his analyses of the relationship between mental illness and the discourse and practice of psychiatry in the nineteenth century, precisely as a way to show how\u2014in this specific context\u2014truth-event has been \u201cgradually hidden by a different technology of truth\u201d based on observation and demonstration (PP, p.\u00a0239). On the other hand, it is worth noting that we find parts of this (archeological and genealogical) project in almost every series of lectures that Foucault delivered at the Coll\u00e8ge de France, and a crucial methodological and conceptual\u00a0mise \u00e0 point<\/em>\u00a0which corresponds to the first five lectures of\u00a0On the Government of the Living<\/em>, where Foucault introduces the notions of \u201calethurgy\u201d and significantly redefines the concept of \u201cregime of truth\u201d forged a few years before in\u00a0Discipline and Punish<\/em>\u00a0(see on this point my paper\u00a0What is a \u201cRegime of Truth?\u201d<\/a><\/em>). Starting from 1980, in fact, Foucault\u00a0couples<\/em>\u00a0his original project of a history of truth in terms of an archeology and a genealogy of knowledge with the new project of a genealogy of the modern (Western) subject. But this is another story, that I hope we will have the chance to take into account shortly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniele Lorenzini I have followed with great interest, from Paris, the discussions which arose before, during, and after the first three meetings of the seminar \u201cFoucault 13\/13\u201d, and I really look forward to \u201cFoucault 4\/14\u201d, which is going to… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1660,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38957,38969],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lecture-4-13","category-to-do-link-problems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1660"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/foucault1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}