QQC 5

Quote:

"It is perhaps risky to consider the opposition between true and false as a third system of exclusion, along with those just mentioned. How could one reasonably compare the constraint of truth with divisions like those, which are arbitrary to start with or which at least are organized around historical contingencies; which are not only modifiable but in perpetual displacement; which are supported by a system of institutions which impose them and renew them"

Question:

How do you feel about Foucault's claim that our conception of truth is rooted in our historical and social context and is easily modifiable and in perpetual change? Do you agree with it?

QQC #5

“...discourse is no more than a play, of writing in the first case, of reading in the second case, and of exchange in the third, and this exchange, this reading, this writing never put anything at stake except signs" (Foucault 1470)

Do you agree with Foucault’s idea that rhetoric has less to do with knowledge and more to do with signs?  Can you think of another way that discourse would be considered as signs rather than knowledge? How do you think Foucault derived this claim?

QQC 5: Foucault

Quote: "Here is the hypothesis that I would like to put forward[...]: that in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized, and redistributed by a certain number of procedures[.]" (RT 1461)

Question: Do you think that limiting discourse, either in the ways Foucault says society does or in other ways, is a good idea? Are there situations in which it's acceptable?

"...discourse is not simply that which manifests (or hides) desire -- it is also the object of desire; and since, as history constantly teaches us, discourse is not that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized."

In this quote, it seems to me that Foucault is saying that discourse causes struggle and must be "seized" if this struggle is to stop. Do you think this is true? Does discourse cause struggle? Does this mean discourse has no ability to bring about resolution?

QQC 5

Quote: "On the other hand, strange powers not held by any other may be attributed to the madman's speech: the power of uttering a hidden truth, of telling the future, of seeing in all naivete what the others' wisdom cannot perceive."

Question: Do you agree with Foucault that only the speech of a "madman" can hold these qualities (or "powers")?

QQC 4

"discourse is not simply that which manifests (or hides) desire it is also the object of desire"

Question: would seeking out discourse, under this definition, lean towards a more patriarchal understanding of rhetoric? How could a feminist understanding be applied? 

QQC

Q: Knowledge is created not by the act of observing, Foucault says, but through "relations...between institutions, economic and social processes, behavioral patterns, systems of norms, techniques, types of classification, modes of characterization: and these relations are not present in the object."

Q: Do you believe this is a more effective way in gaining knowledge?