PHIL 2280 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Classical Liberalism

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 2280
• Professor: Omid Shabani

Document Summary

The recent history is characterized (cid:271)(cid:455) the ge(cid:374)eral feeli(cid:374)g of the (cid:862)proliferati(cid:374)g (cid:272)riti(cid:272)iza(cid:271)ilit(cid:455) of thi(cid:374)gs, i(cid:374)stitutio(cid:374)s, a(cid:374)d pra(cid:272)ti(cid:272)es, a(cid:374)d dis(cid:272)ourse. (cid:863) The ai(cid:373) of these atta(cid:272)ks has (cid:271)ee(cid:374) (cid:449)hat he (cid:272)alls (cid:862)totalizi(cid:374)g theories(cid:863) or (cid:862)u(cid:374)itar(cid:455) theories(cid:863) that are all-encompassing because they claim to be able to explain everything. Example that he offers are marxism and psychoanalysis. Thus, foucault sees our time as marked by the efficacy of critiques, on the one hand, and the inhabiting effect of global theories on the other hand. Critique of global theories is characterized by their local character, which for foucault indicates something resembling an autonomous an non-centralized theoretical production that does not need validation from the all-e(cid:374)(cid:272)o(cid:373)passi(cid:374)g theor(cid:455). This is (cid:449)hat he (cid:272)alls (cid:862)retur(cid:374) of k(cid:374)o(cid:449)ledge(cid:863) that makes local critique possible. He also calls the return of knowledge the insurrection of subjugated knowledge, which has two features: 1) it refers to historical content buries and masked in functional coherences or formal systematizations.