From one galaxy to another: the trajectories of French intellectuals

Beaud, Paul; Panese, Francesco

doi:10.1177/016344395017003003

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 7 publications

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“…Nor is his prose that of a Romantic'quasi-anarchist' as Rorty would have us believe, though one can understand why reading it led Rorty to the conclusion that Foucault was best described as a'poet' (1991: 196;c.f., Flynn, 1991;Rousseau, 1972-3). lt is rather the prose of someone very elusive, often deliberately so, as his position as a prominent French intellectual allowed him to be (1977b, 1997c; c.f., Beaud and Panese, 1995 on the'trajectories of French intellectuals').…”

Section: Interpretive Fashions and Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Michel Foucault, Social Policy and 'Limit-Experience'

Culpitt¹

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<p>This thesis considers whether the discipline of social policy can validly use the patterns and intentions implicit in Foucault's critique of modernity to develop a new qualitative approach to social theory. He examined the conditions under which various regimes of social and political practice came into being; how they are maintained and the particular manner of their transformation. There are two specific emphases that establish the pattern of my overall inquiry. The first involves a reflection on the troubled and ineffectual place of normative social theory within contemporary social policy discourse. The second is a reconsideration of Foucault's oeuvre in relation to new social theory building within social policy. Both of these concerns offer an opportunity to reflect on the place of social theory within a discursive world that 'appears' cosmopolitan and diverse. Foucault famously declared that the point of philosophical activity involved the endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently - to examine the functioning of our ideas as 'limit-experiences'. He coined this phrase 'limit-experience' to outline his critique of the 'forms of rationalizations' that comprise the present practice of politics within modernity. He thought the decisive question was how apparently 'universal, necessary, and obligatory discourses about political and social knowledge shapes that which ought more properly to be regarded as 'singular, contingent, and the product of arbitrary constraints'. The former injunctive and 'magisterial' arguments that supported initial patterns of welfare state rhetoric are no longer persuasive. There has been a 'sea-change' in contemporary social ideas - from a welfare state to a welfare society - one that is breath-taking in its hegemonic compass. That world is increasingly depicted as a postmodern social world where there is little apparent respect for, let alone reliance on, the grand metaphors and social themes of classic social policy. This reconsideration of Foucault's ideas from a social policy perspective will not necessarily yield a new compelling normative rhetoric but it will provide an opportunity to think differently about the taken-for-granted nature of so much social policy theorizing. His portrayal of how we might 'think differently' about the multitude of practices involved in the rationalizations and subjectifications of 'limit-experiences' provides an opportunity to reflect on the patterning and practices that construct the current discourses of welfare and social policy. We do need to think differently or at least to see if it is possible to do so. Imagining difference, strategizing for it, and welcoming it, mark us out as constantly restless - a personal style that Foucault embraced with some gusto!</p>

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Section: Interpretive Fashions and Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Michel Foucault, Social Policy and 'Limit-Experience'

Culpitt¹

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Postmodernism and the Crisis of the Intellectual: Reflections on Reflexivity, Universities, and the Scientific Field

Bassett

1996

Environ Plan D

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In this paper the author takes up the issue of the social responsibilities of academics, raised in recent articles in this journal, through a discussion of the crises facing contemporary intellectuals. The paper begins with a plea for a reflexive sociology of intellectuals, and after a brief review of early debates on the role of intellectuals, the author concentrates on Gouldner's grand vision of intellectuals as a ‘flawed universal class’. In the next section the forces that have undermined such grand visions in the past few decades, precipitating the current crises, are discussed. The author then categorises a range of positions that have been recently developed to justify some continuing role for intellectuals as a social category in contemporary society. This discussion leads on to a focus on the work of Bourdieu, which seems to the author to offer the most productive framework for thinking about these issues. But in the last section he raises a number of problems that might be tackled through the incorporation of some feminist approaches.

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l'AFFAIRE SOKAL ET LA PRESSE FRANÇAISE: CHRONIQUE d'UN RETOUR À l'ANTI-Américanisme PRIMAIRE (?)

Cowan¹

1999

cfc

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From one galaxy to another: the trajectories of French intellectuals

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Michel Foucault, Social Policy and 'Limit-Experience'

Michel Foucault, Social Policy and 'Limit-Experience'

Postmodernism and the Crisis of the Intellectual: Reflections on Reflexivity, Universities, and the Scientific Field

l'AFFAIRE SOKAL ET LA PRESSE FRANÇAISE: CHRONIQUE d'UN RETOUR À l'ANTI-Américanisme PRIMAIRE (?)

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