FOUCAULT'S STRATA AND FIELDS SYNTHESE LffiRARY STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Managing Editor: JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University Editors: DONALD DAVIDSON, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University ofLeyden WESLEY C. SALMON, University ofPittsburgh VOLUME 218 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kusch, Martin. Foucault's strata and fields ап lnvestigatjOn into archaeological and genealogical science studies / Ьу Martin Kusch. р. ст. -- (Synthese 1 ibrary : v. 218) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-94-010-5567-3 ISBN 978-94-011-3540-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-3540-5 1. Foucault. Mjchel. 2. Science--Philosophy--Hjstory--20th century. 3. Social sciences--Philosophy--History--20th century. 1. Title. П. Series. B2430.F724K87 1991 194--dc20 91-33950 ISBN 978-94-010-5567-3 Printed оп acid-free paper АН Rights Reserved © 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published Ьу Кluwer Academic Publishers in 1991 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1991 No part of the maierial protected Ьу this copyright notice тау ье reproduced or utilized in any form or Ьу апу means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or Ьу any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. ..................... .. ix INTRODUCTION xi PART I: FOUCAULDIAN ARCHAEOWGY ........... 1 1. INTRODUCTION.......................... 1 2. ON THE VERY NOTION OF 'ARCHAEOLOGY' ..... 5 3. THE NEW HISTORIES IN FRANCE 12 THE ANNALES EXEMPLARS ..•.••.•........•. .. 12 Against traditional history ................. .. 13 The history ofmentalities 15 Serial history and the construction ofthe historicalfact. 19 THE EXEMPLARS OF HISTORICAL EPISTEMOLOGY .••. .. 24 Duhem vs. Koyre 24 Bachelard ........................... .. 27 Canguilhem .......................... .. 32 Althusser 35 4. ARCHAEOLOGY, THE NEW HISTORIES, AND THE HISTORY OF IDEAS 40 CORRELATING THE NEW HISTORIES .•......•..... 41 A CRITICAL RE-EvALUATION OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS. 43 Foucault and Lovejoy .................... .. 44 The mythology ofideas ................... .. 47 The mythology at work: the examples of Holton and Cohen 50 The mythology ofcoherence and contradiction 54 v vi CONTENTS 5. THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MODEL I: IDENTIFYING DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS , 58 INTRODUCTION ......................... .. 58 WHAT Is A FOUCAULDIAN STATEMENT? 60 THE FOUR SERIES 64 Objects. ............................ .. 65 Enunciative modalities 67 Organizations ofthe field ofstatements ......... .. 68 Strategies ..... ...................... .. 70 INTERRELATIONS, DERIVATION TREES AND CONTRADIC- TIONS ............................... .. 71 COUNTERPARTS AND ACCESSIBILITY RELATIONS - COM- PARING DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS 75 Discourses and discursive formations .......... .. 75 Counterparts ......................... .. 78 Accessibility relations .................... .. 80 6. THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MODEL II: BEYOND CON- TINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY ............. .. 83 PHILOSOPHER'S vs. HISTORIANS' HISTORY OF SCIENCE .. 83 THE DEBATE OVER CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY RECONSTRUCTED ........................ .. 86 The positivist-empirist model 87 The antipositivist model 88 Adding strata: the antipositivist revisionism 90 Laudan and Foucault as postmodernists 95 THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIMENSION 102 7. ARCHAEOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE AND OTHER HIS­ TORIES OF SCIENCE ". .................... .. 109 NOTES TO PART I 112 CONTENTS vii PART ll: FOUCAULDIAN GENEAWGY ........... .. 115 8. INTRODUCTION.......................... 115 9. THE CONCEPT OF POWER 117 SOME STANDARD DISTINCTIONS 118 A FOUCAULDIAN DEFINITION OF POWER ......... .. 122 10. THE GENEALOGICAL CONCEPTION OF POWER I: FIELDS AND NETWORKS 127 MODELS OF POWER 127 INTERNAL RELATIONS. .................... .. 130 POWER AND PERSONAL IDENTITY 134 NETWORKS OF POWER 138 NETWORKS OF POWER AND INVISIBLE HANDS 143 11. THE GENEALOGICAL CONCEPTION OF POWER II: SOCIAL POWER AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE ... 149 THE PRODUCTIVITY OF POWER ............... .. 149 BARNES' PROPOSAL 152 DEFENDING "POWER/KNOWLEDGE" 155 A disquieting suggestion .................. .. 157 Science and exclusion .................... .. 157 An argument from underdetermination 161 REALISM AND MODALITY 163 12. GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH STRATEGIES 165 INTRODUCTION ......................... .. 165 RECOVERING AGONISTIC EVENTS 169 The return ofthe event ................... .. 169 Recovering contingency 172 Causal multiplication .................... .. 174 The agonistic dimension 175 PHYSICALISM 178 Histories ofthe body 178 Body, power, knowledge .................. .. 181 viii CONTENTS DISTRUST AND IRONY ..................... .. 186 Interests ............................ .. 187 Ironic hypotheses 191 13. GENEALOGICAL PERSPECTIVISM 193 INTRODUCTION ......................... .. 193 SKEPTICISM 194 CONSTRUCTIVISM 196 EPISTEMOLOGICAL RELATIVISM 200 "Relativism Refuted" - refuted .............. .. 200 The "not-to-be-neglected truth" 207 Foucault's relativism 210 14. GENEALOGICAL CRITICISM OF POWER AND RA- TIONALITIES 213 GENEALOGY AS CRITICISM AND ANALYSIS OF RATION- ALITIES .............................. .. 213 Is RESISTANCE POSSIBLE? 217 CRITICISM WITHOUT NORMATIVITY? 221 NOTES TO PART II .......................... .. 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................ .. 235 INDEX OF NAMES .......................... .. 250 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 257 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted, most of all, to my colleagues and students in the Depart­ ment of History of the University of Oulu. I have especially profited from discussions with Jouko Aho, Heini Hakosalo, Hippo Johansson, Jouko Jokisalo, Vaino Louekari, Matti Lukkarila, Juha Manninen, Aarne Nikkonen, Erkki Routti, Arja-Liisa Raisanen, Minna Uimonen, and Erkki Urpilainen. I am also grateful to "my" librarians, both Paula Viander of the Department of History and the people of the interlibrary loan office of the University Library. Outside of my alma mater, special thanks are due to Timo Airaksinen, Harri Kantele, Esa Itkonen, Karin Knorr-Cetina, Lothar Lasker, Tuomas Nevanlinna, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Calvin Normore, Kari Palonen, Outi Pasanen, Tuija Pulkkinen, Yves Roussel, Kari Saastamoinen, Hartmut SchrOder, and Georg Henrik von Wright for their criticism and/or encouragement. My wife, Riitta Korho­ nen-Kusch, deserves special thanks not only for her commenting, but also for her crucial support at a point when I was ready to give up on the whole project. I am also grateful to an anonymous reviewer for Kluwer Academic Publishers. The University of Oulu has supported my project with a travel-grant to Paris. The last stages of the work I carried out while holding the position of a younger fellow at the Academy of Finland, and while enjoying the hospitality of the University of Leuven (Belgium). Finally, I wish to thank Ian Morris-Wilson and Jan Jagiellowicz for help with my English, Auli Kaipainen for excellent secretarial assistance, Jaakko Hintikka for accepting the book into Synthese Library, and Annie Kuipers of Kluwer Academic Publishers for her friendly cooperation. I gratefully acknowledge the permissions to quote from the follow­ ing books: Michel Foucault, The Archaeology ofKnowledge, translated by A.M. Sheridan, Tavistock, London, 1974, and Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977, copyright (c) 1972, 1975, 1976, 1977 by Michel Foucault, edited by C. Gordon, Pantheon Books, Random House, Inc., New York, 1980. I dedicate this book to two friends who have had a large share in its creation and completion: Heini Hakosalo and Marja-Liisa Kakkuri­ Knuuttila. Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila has been a close friend and supporter for many years now, and during the writing of this book we IX x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS have spent many hours on the phone and in Chinese restaurants in Helsinki discussing Aristotle, rhetoric, feminism, vegetarianism, music and what not. As concerns the topic of this specific study, even more important has been Heini Hakosalo's cooperation. Since we set out to work on Foucault roughly around the same time, we had planned to publish our results as one book. As both of our parts kept growing in size, however, this plan had to be abandoned. Heini Hakosalo's part (Hakosalo 1991) therefore had to be published separately. Being my nextdoor neighbour in the history department, Heini Hakosalo has been not only a central source of inspiration and good humour, but also the first hurdle and final stumbling block for most of my ideas on Foucault. Qulu, June 1991 Martin Kusch INTRODUCTION In recent years, a large number of books and articles on Foucault has been published. Almost all of the book-size studies are expository and introductory. Indeed, there seems to be no other modern philosopher with reference to whom a comparable number ofintroductions have been produced in such a short period. Most of the articles too provide over­ views, rather than critical assessments or rational reconstructions, even though there exists by now a small number offine papers also in the two latter genres. Moreover, more often than not, writers on Foucault approach his work as part and parcel of so-called "postmodern" philo­ sophy. They concentrate on topics like the "death of the subject", the relation of Foucault's work to .Derrida or Habermas, or its significance for postmodern art and culture. Without wanting to deny the merits, either of introductory exposi­ tions, or of studies that read Foucault