Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 13

Taylor, Foucault, and Otherness Author(s): William E. Connolly Source: Political Theory, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Aug.

, 1985), pp. 365-376 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191237 . Accessed: 09/04/2013 17:31
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

MICHEL FOUCAULT:ANEXCHANGE

I. TAYLOR, FOUCAULT, AND OTHERNESS


WILLIAM E. CONNOLLY The Johns Hopkins University

L-i OUCAULT, according to Taylor, identifies modesofsubjugationpoorlyunderstood or thinly in previous documented critical accounts, buttheNietzschean perspective that this governs account, although supporting resistance todomination, severs themoral nerve ofcollective efforts toimprove themodern condition. Ata high level of generality, I concurwiththis judgment. And,as anyonewould expectwho has read his previous work,Taylorilluminates dark corners ofsocialtheory as hestrives todislodge theviable elements of Foucault'sthought a perspective from thatseemsto depreciate a politics ofsocialimprovement. But I also contend,first, thatthe translation of Foucaultian rhetoric into Tayloresque formulations obscuresdistinctive features of Foucault'sthought and,second,that once thisobscurity is lifted, thesuccessof Taylor'scritique of Foucaultwilldependless on theclaimthat thetheory is "ultimately incoherent" and more on Taylor'sability to defendhis own affirmations from Foucaultian decomposition. Foucault's documentary studies aredesigned, I believe, tosupport an ontological thesis with political implications. Thecharacter ofthis thesis andthewayinwhich itis advanced arethefirst questions tobe posedinan engagement withFoucault. In "The Orderof Discourse," while opposingthe rationalist idea ofa founding subject, thephenomenological enterprise, andthe Heideggerian quest for Being, Foucault asserts: "We mustnot that imagine is a great there universal ora great which unthought runs throughout theworldand intertwines withall itsforms and all its e 1985 Sage Publications, Inc.

POLITICAL THEORY, Vol. 13 No. 3, August1985365-376

365

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

366

POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST1985

andwhich we haveto articulate or tothink at last."1Andin events, opposition to anyontology that contains teleological elements,
notimagine that theworld turns toward We must us a legible facewhich we theworld is nottheaccomplice ofourknowlwouldhaveonlyto decipher; is noprediscursive edge;there which theworld providence inour predisposes Wemust conceive discourse favor. as a violence which we do tothings, or,in which we impose on them.2 anycase as a practice

ofthe"is" andthe"must"inthesestatements? Whatis theforce termof art herewithsufficient The claim-I use a Nietzschean to avoid being drawn intothecircleofepisambiguity immediately within which critics strive toencloseFoucault's temology thoughtis that is more there tobeing than knowing andthat ofthe theadvance knowledge enterprise intonewcorners oflifeis theadvancesimulofsubjectification, taneously anddisciplinary normalization, control. inshort, is that The claim, thewillto truth that is governs modernity thewilltoextend toimpose discipline, form overthat which was not to receiveit. And the"claim"is notsimply designed a knowledge itis intimately claim, although connected toclaims about knowledge. Foucault adoptstwointerlocking strategies to support thisclaim. " Man First, there is,as inthechapter in TheOrder of Things entitled andhis Doubles,"an archaeological account ofhowmodern understandings of finitude-of life,labor,and language-eventually call transcendental and teleological perspectives into questionfrom within. In modern discourse we witness "theinterminable toandfro of a doublesystem of reference: if man'sknowledge is finite, it is because he is trapped, without possibility of liberation, within the oflanguage, positive content and life, iflife, labor, and conversely, labor, and language maybe posited in their positivity, it is because has finite knowledge forms."3 In thissetting everyarticulation of thought presupposes theunthought from which itdraws nourishment and, conversely, thatwhichnourishes thought must alwaysescape fullarticulation. The perpetuation by thought of the unthought provides material from which foundational theories canbe stripped of their foundational pretensions. Foucault'sthought at thisarchaeological leveldoes not seek to defeat an orientation suchas Taylor's. Rather, itidentifies theterrain uponwhich modern critics ofepistemological foundationalism (such as Heidegger, Taylor, Foucault,Blumenberg, and Rorty) compete

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Connolly / FOUCAULTAND OTHERNESS

367

several Thereare,indeed, for with one another of hegemony. points commonality between and Foucault: Taylor
ofthethinkable" "thelimits sets(in Taylor'slanguage) (1) Anepisteme for to the do notnecessarily an age, even though thoselimits correspond as such. limits ofthought of truth does not coalesce withmodern (2) The correspondence theory find in as thoseunderstandings understandings of finitude expression oflife, theories andlanguage. labor, is available totheworld nolonger to modeofattunement (3) Thepremodern between a newform us,although Taylor seems tothink that ofattunement self-identity andtheworld becomeavailable. might Foucault (4) Thereis moreto beingthanknowing, or,in theformulation is more wouldprefer, there thanknowing. to life of (5) Language is impoverished ifitis forced intoa designative philosophy and theprediscursive realm from whichdiscourse is formed language, never can be drawn intodiscourse. fully is (6) The strong ofthesubjectas sovereign or universal no longer theory sustainable. (7) Thedeath ofGoddoesorwould spread aninfection throughout prevailing oftruth, theself, understandings andmorality. rationality,

Itis becauseTaylor shares so much with Foucault atthis first level thathe muststruggle so valiantly againsthimat the second. For within thesebroadcommonalities in reside fundamental differences theorientations ofeach to morality, politics, theself, andtheentire modemcondition; and thecommonalities limit theways in which each can legitimately criticize thecontrary the impulses governing oftheother. thought Taylor, finding himself unable toprove hismost fundamental assumptions to be true, seeksto drawus closerto the of experience attunement between thewayhuman beings areattheir bestandtheactualidentity available tothemodern self.He seeksto transcend theillusion ofthesovereign self incommand oftheworld itina world bysituating bothlarger than itandpartly constitutive of it. He does thisby striving to articulate for us thoseelements inthe self anditscircumstances that comeclosest toexpressing what weare at our best. The mostexpressive articulations are not simply the creations of subjects,nordo theyrepresent whatis truein itself " Theyrather independently ofhuman articulation: havethepower to moveus because they manifest ourexpressive poweritself and its relation to ourworld.In thiskind ofexpression we areresponding to thewaythings are,rather than justexteriorizing ourfeelings."4

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

368

POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

But Foucault,conceiving discourseas "a violencewe do to things," cannot endorse this quest for attunement and selfrealization. He proceeds at thesecondlevel,then, as a genealogist, rhetorical devicesto incitetheexperience of discord deploying or andrationbetween thesocialconstruction ofself, discrepancy truth, within their folds.Andthe alityand thatwhichdoes notfit neatly recurrent experience ofdiscord eventually theself loosefrom shakes a world a world ofharmonization, inwhich theinstituthequestfor tional for harmonize with possibilities a unified personal identity set in the self,and therealization of potentialities of unity in theself harmonizes with thecommon This goodrealized bythesocialorder. quest foridentity institutional identification becomesrethrough as thedangerous defined extension of"disciplinary into new society" corners life. ofmodern The rhetorical to use a phrase ofNietzsche's, us to incite figures, "listen to a different claim"rather thanto acceptthefindings ofan inthis argument; andthey proceed waybecausegenealogy ofthewill totruth cannot present itself as a setoftruth claims.Genealogy is not a claimto truth (although itfunctions inan episteme inwhich established theories oftruth are calledintoquestion); itexercises a claim upontheselfthat unsettles theurgeto givehegemony to thewillto truth. The Foucaultian rhetorical forinstance, strategy works, through oftheunifying displacement ormellow metaphors governing Taylor's texts bymore disturbing ones; andbytheconversion ofnounforms giving solidity tomodern oftruth, andnormality conceptions subject, intoverbsthat present them as constructions; and bytheposing of questions leftunanswered in thetext;and by the introduction of sentence fragments that communicate eventhough do notfit they into theconventional form thatgivesprimacy to thesubject;and by a mode of repetition in one textthatexposes and counteracts the ofrepetitiveness unconscious effect onjudgment in thecumulative flow of mainstream texts.These strategies are designed, I believe, toexpress a viewoftherelation simultaneously between socialform and thematerial from which it is constructed at odds with that accepted byTaylor, toexpose thesubterranean role played byrhetorical configurations intexts bywriters suchas Taylor ingaining assentto their mostfundamental convictions, and to excite in thereader the ofdiscord experience between thesocialconstruction ofnormality andthat which doesnot fit neatly within the frame ofthese constructs.

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Connolly / FOUCAULTAND OTHERNESS

369

inthis histexts can still be criticized way, Now ifwe readFoucault who seekto that thosesuchas Taylor and opposed.But I contend itto be incobyshowing oftheproject fundamental features dismiss are stick oncethey that tomake charge will find itmore difficult herent ofFoucaultian bya genealogy critiques their notallowedto precede Let formulations itseekstointerrogate. translation ofitinto thevery several morespecifically me show how thisis so by considering Foucault. Taylor makesagainst charges I stanceof "adoptsa Nietzschean-derived Foucault,says Taylor, andthus systems ofpower, historical between thedifferent neutrality ariseoutofhisanalyses."5 that theevaluations seemsto neutralize over ofoneperiod thelife refuses toendorse that Foucault Itis true arenot hedoesmake that theendorsements anditalso is true another, familiar tous. most inthesubject-centered moral vocabulary couched "hermetibetween theviewthatFoucaultdistinguishes But, first, is greatly He truth exaggerated. regimes" cally sealed monolithic and in his of such an studies punishment denies assumption explicitly has He speaks,forinstance, of "thiswillto truth which sexuality. as he identifies affinities centuries ofourhistory"; crossedso many of the betweenthe religiousconfessionals well as differences and he emphasizes the confessional; medieval age and themodern theWest since hashaunted dualism that ofthemind/body importance wayoflife anysettled toendorse Foucault does refuse itsinception. inbecause he claimsthateverysuch settlement unambiguously even whileit mayenablelifeto be in particular volvesimposition for example, He is notneutral, is heneutral. then, ways.Butneither, Informed bytheNietzschean aboutthewillto truth and itseffects. he thetruth," maxim from we willnotperish that "we haveartso that totruth theholdthewill toeliminate) seekstoloosen(butnot,I think, butits cannot be eliminated, has overmodemlife.The willto truth of Taylor's characterization be contested. can andshould hegemony on assault theFoucaultian assimilates as a neutralist illicitly Foucault to a stancethatdepreciates normative judgment subject-centered interrogaevaluation It misrepresents Foucault's thereby altogether. it. tionofmodemstandards prior to contesting ofnormality

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

370

POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

II

projects .

ofsocial"strategies without Foucault's that Taylor asserts theory


.

ofexplanation kind tobe intelligia certain without purpose requires to thepurposeful action ofagents ina waythat ble . . . to be related we can understand."i6 here inonerespect, andhisclarification ofwhat I agree with Taylor Butitalso attributes is superb. an intena goodexplanation requires tionto Foucaultthatis not his. Foucaultdoes not seek to offer will that becausehe knows suchan objective complete explanations he seeksto unsettle, becausehe drawhimback intothediscourse will knowsthatin the modern epistemea coherent explanation oftruth and subjectivity presuppose thevery conceptions he wishes seek through to to call intoquestion.He does, though, genealogy self andthediscourse themodem inwhich it between create distance is implicated. Genealogy, notexplanation. insist that thegenealogical inreply, can have Taylor, might project toestablished no presence evenas a counterpoint modesofexplanarhetorical tion.As alternative inducealternative strategies effects, be subjected must eventhey, hemight evaluasay, finally toepistemic tion.Even one who seeksto playtheroleof thefoolto prevailing itmaybe claimed, modesofdiscourse, must be drawn backinto the But these are not circle ofepistemology. has actuarguments Taylor us. He has not reallytried, ally givenin the textbefore first, to ascertain what stance Foucault adopts with respect totheaspirations ofthehuman toaskwhether sciences and,then, sucha stance can be as a viablecounterpoint to thoseaspirations. sustained He merely assumes that Foucault intends tooffer explanations contesting those that andthen he showsthat nowhavehegemony, ifFoucault's texts do embody suchintentions, do not liveuptothestandard they ofgood or coherent explanations.
III

. makes no sense." Why? Because "purposefulness

a theory Foucault, saysTaylor, offers ofpower that is notlinked to freedom. Itis a theory of"power without freedom ortruth." Andthis willnotwork, for the"notion ofpower ordomination requires some notion ofconstraint imposed on someone bya process in someway related to human agency."7 And,again,"powerneedstargets," but

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Connolly / FOUCAULTAND OTHERNESS

371

while toaccept ofpower touse thelanguage Foucault wants refusing overthem. whohavepowerexercised theidea ofsubjects But the target of Foucaultagreesin partwiththiscontention. a subject that is notinhistheory is repressed orconstrained power by thesubject that becomes Power nota mere fiction power. produces of andlaw, buta realartifact. The subject, on Foucault's theory reading, is not "dead": It is verymuchalive and verymuchthe effect of thesubject, Butifpowerproduces institutions. modemdisciplinary theself? constrain orlimit inwhat waysdoespower Subjectification, in an embodied material recalcitrant an effect ofpower, subjugates but andconstrains, self resistant to this form. Powerproduces then, inselveswhich butthat is nottheself as agent, thetarget ofconstraint andsubjectification resists agentification. Foucault's theory ofpower that continue is part ofhisassaulton thoseteleological philosophies in themodemage. The theory of the to find disguised expression embodiedsubject,for instance,is a theoryof selfessentially realization thattreatsthe selfas if it were designed to fulfill its and to reject its subjectivity; therepotentiality through perfecting as an sidualteleological inside premise that hopeis to see thesubject it. Freeon material notdesigned to receive artificial reality imposed inthis is notreducible it dom, perspective, tothefreedom ofsubjects; is atleastpartly therelease ofthat which doesnotfit into themolds of andnormalization. subjectivity Thisis what Foucault means when he saysthat "thesoulis the prison ofthe body"andwhen hesupports the "insurrection ofsubjugated knowledges" that speak,although imperand indirectly, to thatwhichis subjugated fectly by normalization. Foucault also explicitly aspires toa conception ofrights attached not totheself as subject, merely butespecially tothat which is defined by the normalized as subject othemess,as deviating from or falling beloworfailing to liveup to thestandards ofsubjectivity. I agreewith Taylor insaying that we should cherish someidealof subjectivity, and Foucaultseemsto me,although there are counter tendencies inhiswork as well,to be toowilling to dispense with the idealofsubjectivity altogether. ButTaylor's critique ofFoucault on the subjectthrough themedium of a critique of his conception of power misses its target.Foucault's theoryof power may be exaggerated-human beings may, forinstance, be more receptive to subjectification thanFoucault's ontology ofdiscord allows.Butitis notan incoherent theory ofpower.AndTaylor'sfailure to see that himfrom deflects a morefundamental question: Whatimplications

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

372

POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

might Foucault'sdocumentary studies ofotherness carry forestablished theories ofthesubject? IV in seeingtruth as imposed."8 "Foucaultmustpresuppose truth that inhisproject, an incoherence Hence,theultimate incoherence spreads an infection intohistheory ofpower, freedom, subjectivity, rather and order. as imposed Foucaultneedsto see truth bypower, than a discovery that serves as a standard bywhich toassess power; Thatis as imposition. a conception of truth buthe cannotsustain available Taylor's charge. ButI think there area coupleofrejoinders to Foucault here. ifhistexts oftruth and First, he can saythat presuppose a theory subjectivity even whilecalling them intoquestion thispredicament hiscritics. affirm inverts Forthey merely theonefacing conceptions oftruth andsubjectivity inthemodern constantly calledinto question of truth episteme.Taylor, forinstance, cannotprovethe theory presupposed byhistheory ofsubjectivity andFoucault cannot escape presuppositions at odds with his ownproject. We have reached an impasse to which there arealternative possibleresponses. Ifthelimits ofthemodern episteme do notconstitute thelimits to of Foucault's as such,a case can be madeinfavor possiblethought informed Foucault's to this response predicament. response, overtly hisdiscourse is to refuse to constrain bypolitical considerations, by he strives to stretch theestablished thesepresuppositions. Rather, limits of thethinkable by concentrating on how otherness appears as theproduct of a subjectivity thatis itself whenit is presented This political of estrangement from produced. project the identity us in is the to appraise itcritically we are a position givento before obverse ofTaylor's at theend project, exemplified bythediscussion of his text,of drawing us intoendorsement and perfection of the insists we "cannot"escapethis identity nowgiven tous. Taylor that than identity; Foucault insists that we cangofurther Taylor imagines ifonlywe pursue thegenealogical project relentlessly. is no suchimpasse buthe that Now Taylor couldargue there here, a more on hispart. has not.Thatwouldrequire affirmative argument with For onlyifTaylor showsfirst that he escapesthispredicament and subjectivity respectto truth can he concludethatFoucault's immersion initprovides sufficient reasonto dismiss hisproject.

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Connolly / FOUCAULTAND OTHERNESS

373

is a secondresponse available toFoucault as well.He might There his contains that oftruth acknowledge although archaeology elements of an immanent thatin themodemepisteme critique-arguing the within assumptions foundational theories of subjectivity and truth erode the solidity of the foundations constantly themselves-his ofthewilltotruth is notitself a claimtotruth. It consists, genealogy again,of rhetorical to incitetheexperience of strategies designed inthoseareasinwhich thequestion oftruth subjugation has recently been givenprimacy. Thatis whatThe History forinof Sexuality, is all about.It seeksto fix stance, truth theconnection between and inmodernity-to of sexuality modern character exposethepeculiar, theconviction "that itis sexitself which hides themost of secret parts theindividual, thestructure ofhisego,the ofhisfantasies, theroots forms ofhisrelationship to reality."9 Andtheintrusion ofthewillto truth intothissphere involves theextension of discipline intonew frontiers of disciplinary society.The more modestside of this thesis-that the connection between truthand sex is now accentuated-issusceptible, even in Foucault'sview,to documenand critique; tarysupport butthepolitically moreimportant claim aboutthedisciplinary effects ofthisintrusion willcarry conviction only if Foucault convincesus that "thereis no prediscursive providence which predisposes theworld inourfavor," no true idento be realizedby unveiling tity the secrets of sex. And thatlatter conviction functions notas a truth claimbutas a genealogical claim against theprimacy ofthewillto truth. A Taylorcritique of Foucault'sview of truth mustshow why is incoherent evenas a counterpoint genealogy toexplanatory theory and, especially, why Taylor's ontologyis more viable than Foucault's.If,as I believe, Taylor must acknowledge that hisontologyis notsusceptible todemonstration byepistemological means, he will find himself facing something likethepredicament heattributes to Foucault:The theory oftruth he endorses presupposes an ontology means.If Taylor supportable affirms onlybyindirect thisfeature of hisownenterprise, itis notunreasonable toexpecthim togrant itto Foucault. I have charged, Taylor, seeks to evade the pressure Foucault exerts on his own theory of thesubjectby convicting Foucaultian ofincoherence. I havealso suggested, theory first, thatFoucaultis notas vulnerable to thesecriticisms as Taylor makeshimoutto be and,second,that eventhough that charge is inflated, there still is a

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

374

POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

I have that case tobe madeinfavor ofthemodern subject. Assuming of whattheory madeprogress indefusing thecharge ofincoherence, Foucaultian an with thesubjectremains defensible after encounter theory? Without trying to arguethecase indetail,I wishto suggest that while established theories ofpersonal identity inadequately cope ofthemodern theconstitution with thewaysinwhich subject spawns as an essentially thesubject is a case to be madefor there otherness, ofmodernity.'0 ambiguous achievement of selfas because without theemergence It is an achievement ormoral democratic subject, we couldnotsustain citizenship responbecauseoncewe affirm achievement sibility. Butitis an ambiguous to be a subject, that theselfwas notdesigned we areina position to which does that ofsubjectivity must see that theformation subjugate oftelos notfit neatly within itsconfines. When we giveuptheresidue clinging to modern conceptions of thesubject, we can adopta different is other Wewillsee political stance tothat which tosubjectivity. and othemess to be less whatmental instability, criminality, perverandcontained what must beproduced sity areinthemselves andmore inthis ifwe ifsubjectivity is to be. Ifwe understand thesubject way, and notpreacknowledge thatthesubjectis formed from material designed to fit perfectly intothis form, we areina position to reconorithat nowgoverns institutional siderthepolitics ofcontainment in entations to othemess. We willnotbe able to conceivean order is eliminated, butwe maybe able toappraise more which otherness adequately thedebtsubjectivity owes to it. I haveintimated onewayinwhich thetheory ofthesubject might be revised ofFoucault's ofotherness after anexploration genealogies to encourage Taylor to articulate moreaffirmatively whatshifts, if any, seem to him to be requiredin his own theories of truth, freedom, order,and personalidentity after engaging thesetexts. there Specifically, arethree related areas inwhich clarification would be illuminating. First,givenTaylor'sprevious critique of the primacy of epishis apparent of the correspondence temology, rejection theory of hisendorsement insocialtheory truth, ofthehermeneutic circle with itsacceptance ofpersistent theoretic contestability, hiscommitment toan expressive philosophy oflanguage inwhich thehuman capacity for articulation never exhausts theunarticulated material from which itis drawn, whattheory oftruth does he endorse against Foucault's view of truth as imposition ofform uponmaterial notdesigned to

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Connolly / FOUCAULTAND OTHERNESS

375

receive it?How is this andhowdoesitshuffle theory tobe established theFoucaultian theory outofthesphere ofviablecompetitors? ifany, Second,what makeinhisown modifications, wouldTaylor theory with of personalidentity after a confrontation Foucault's histories of otherness? Does Taylornow endorsea theory of selfinwhich fulfillment thegoalis tointegrate othemess into more perfect forms ofidentification with thewillofa rational Ordoes community? henowsee something intheviewthat we should strive tocreate more institutional space to allow otherness to be? Whatis the relation betweensubjectivity and otherness, and how shouldwe respond to that politically relation? to whatextent Third, does Taylor'sopposition to Foucaultembodya residual commitment to thesortof teleological philosophy Foucault's genealogies aredesigned tohunt downanddestroy? Ifhis theory oftruth and subjectivity is nourished byan ontology at odds withthe one advancedby Foucault,how is thisontology to be inthemodern sustained age? These are largequestions, and notall ofthem can be considered within theframe ofthis exchange. Theyare,however, questions one is driven to through an engagement with Foucaultian genealogy.

NOTES
1. Michel Foucault, "The Order of Discourse," in Robert Young, ed., Untying the Text(Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981),p. 67. 2. Ibid., p. 68 3. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (London: Tavistock Publications, 1970), p. 316. 4. Charles Taylor,"Language and Human Nature" (Plaunt Memorial Lecture, Carleton University, 1978),p. 34. Later in the same essay Taylor says, to distinguish his position both fromthe enchanted view of the world priorto the Enlightenment and the Enlightenment itself,"The view of the universe as an orderof signs is lost forever, at least in its originalform" (p. 44). 5. Charles Taylor,"Foucault on Freedom and Truth,"Political Theory12 (May 1984), p. 162. 6. Ibid., p. 169. 7. Ibid., p. 172. 8. Ibid., p. 176. 9. Michel Foucault, HerculinBarbin (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980),p. xi. 10. I have triedto develop this conception, along withthe allied conceptions of "slack in theorder,"and othernessin "The Politics of Discourse," in The ambiguity,

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

376

POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1985

Press, University NJ:Princeton Discourse, 2nded. (Princeton, Terms ofPolitical 11(August pp. 1983), PoliticalTheory Politics and Ambiguity," 1984);" Discipline, Revisited (New andAmbiguity," Nomos:Authority and" Modern Authority 325-342; Press,forthcoming). York:New YorkUniversity

William E. Connollyteaches political theory at TheJohnsHopkins University and is editorof Political Theory.

This content downloaded from 201.234.181.53 on Tue, 9 Apr 2013 17:31:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi