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Comment by voidhorse | Hacker News Reader

I have a lot of issues with latter 20th cen continental (particularly french) philosophers, but of all of them Foucault is the last one anyone should have an issue with. While he's guilty of some of the pompous and needlessly intelligible stylistics this crew adopted, he at least has some pretty substantial ideas behind his work. Derrida and Lacan on the other hand....

As far as sociology goes, I think you probably realize claiming an entire field is bunk is dumb. In fact you are committing the very wrong you are apparently complying about (writing off the field of developmental psychology). I haven't heard of. a single beef between these two fields btw, must have been an odd textbook.

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What's insubstantial about Lacan? There seems to be enough in there to give D&G, Zizek etc careers (as well as inspire a bunch of compelling media i.e. The Matrix)

All great things, but helping other philosophers have careers and inspiring cool art does not necessarily imply that you yourself had substantial philosophical concepts.

I'm aware: I was inviting your thoughts (this is a cramped space for a debate). For mine, reading Lacan directly is a chore (post-atom bomb academic arts can have a "use all the cool sciencey words" problem), but I find the Other/other and reworking of Freud's ego id etc thought-provoking.

Asking open-mindedly and genuinely: what, for you, comes to mind as an especially useful and/or powerful idea uniquely articulated by foucault?

Biopower is the most famous one, but I actually think his greatest contribution was to make philosophers pay more attention to the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power.

I actually think his phd thesis "the history of madness" is his best work. It encapsulates much of the subject matter that would occupy him (knowledge and power) in a domain that's easier to understand than some of his later arguments, and it predates his adoption of a more contorted literary style (or maybe the translation is just better, idk).

Ian Hacking also has a great text that extends Foucault's work "Historical Ontology" that picks up many of the chief ideas in a far more lucid manner for those of us who aren't fans of the later continental style (which if I'm being honest, was always a little too concerned with being obtuse just to sound intelligent)

> the ways in which epistemic systems and ways of organizing knowledge are connected to political power

Right. Which was immediately weaponized but poorly and at the wrong target(s), which is why he is so reviled.

Yeah, believe me, I'm not a fan of the misapplication and misunderstanding of much of this work. It's a bitter lesson in why making one's ideas clear in straightforward prose is so essential. I think Foucault at least, could be absolved from the notion that he intended any kind of said misapplication. Some other philosophers however, I think we're just straight up hacks that exploited the vogue of confusing language and weak metalingual philosophizing (Derrida, cough cough). If only we got students to read Wittgenstein first and save them from all the sophist language games.

I was wondering where Wittgenstein fits into this. He's the only one that truly makes me think "are we taking crazy pills or is it just me?"

Just to volunteer an example: An editorial by Assange that explicitly called out the panopticon was on my mind today.

The rise of "meta glasses" and reading ICE also wishes to employ them was what reminded me of this I believe.

Sociology (like philosophy, like math) is one of these subjects were a good teacher makes all the difference. I guess true of any subject. Many people come away from a subject thinking it's bunk or not relevant to them for all sorts of reasons. Teachers are not meant to be babysitters or proctors they are supposed to offer context and connect the dots.

The amount of bad teachers (it is a hard job) is quite staggering. Education is in large part a mess because we've tried to scale a system that was designed for the very few to the very many without the proper investment.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I dom't believe the panopticon is Foucault's idea.

The term/design is not his but he offered an interpretation or extrapolation inspired by the concept that was unique enough that if you mention panopticon in the context of Foucault it means something unique.

More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish

The Panopticon was taken from prison design and he used to it expand the idea that it was coopted by government over the rest of society.

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