Fall 1999 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies:
"The Continental Origins of Postmodernism"

Week 6: October 18-October 24

Eyal Mozes Comments on David Potts's Review of Michel Foucault's "History of Sexuality, Volume I"

Sent: Monday, October 25, 1999 10:55 PM

Subject: Cyberseminat: commentary on David Potts' Foucault review

[From: Eyal Mozes]

I must congratulate David Potts on finding an intelligible meaning in a
reading which I found extremely difficult to understand. I certainly
shared William Dale's experience, of seeing words I recognized but
being unable to connect them to the concepts I know they refer to. I
now realize this is mostly because Foucault takes for granted a totally
alien epistemological framework; by explaining that framework, from his
reading of other writings by Foucault, David makes "The History of
Sexuality" much easier to understand.

I think the two issues that David raises in his conclusion are the key
to understanding how to approach Foucault. On the question of "how
accurate is Foucault as history", David suggests that Foucault does not
distort the historical facts; I agree. But David's alternative - "an
accurate historian with a bizarre interpretive overlay" - is not a good
characterization of these readings, either. I have not read anything by
Foucault, or any other parts of "History of Sexuality", other than the
assigned readings; but judging only from these readings, I was unable
to find in them *any* specific assertions of historical fact at all,
only generalizations that were impossible to relate to any historical
facts I know about. Judging from these readings, I think a better
characterization of Foucault is "a bizarre interpretation of history,
to which historical fact is irrelevant". It is not that Foucault
distorts facts; it is not that his generalizations don't follow from
the facts he cites; it is that he cites no facts at all.

So to David's second question - does Foucault offer any argument to
support his theories, and do arguments matter to him - we should add
another question - does Foucault offer any historical facts to support
his theories, and do facts matter to him? I think the answer to both
questions is no.

And that is what makes reading Foucault - as well as other
post-modernist writers - so frustrating. When I read a book titled "The
History of X", my expectation is that there will be some discussion of
historical facts about X; that the author has some interest in the
facts about X, and, to the extent that he has theories, will try to
present facts to support them. Well, that is not what Foucault does.
For Foucault, writing about "the History of X" simply means stating,
without support, his assertions about how X, like everything else, is
socially constructed. Had he titled his book "The History of Food", or
"The History of God", the assigned chapters could have still been in
the book, with very minor changes; this is because any specific
historical facts about sexuality are of no relevance to Foucault's
purpose. (Though I understand that there exist some followers of
Foucault, like Halperin, who at least do cite some facts and make some
connection, however stretched, between the facts and their theories).

That is why, if we try to relate Foucault's theoretical statement, and
the concepts he uses, to our knowledge of historical facts about
sexuality, the result is the frustrating experience William describes -
words which seem familiar, but designating totally alien concepts.
Approaching "The History of Sexuality" as you would normally approach a
history book, trying to judge factual accuracy and connection of facts
cited to theory, is a similar mistake to the one David Potts identified
in his earlier posting about Heidegger, of approaching "What is
Metaphysics" as you would normally approach a philosopy paper, trying
to judge the validity of arguments. To understand either of them, we
need to understand that given their framework, neither logical argument
nor historical fact is of any importance to them.

[Eyal Mozes ]


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Fall 1999 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies

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