Difference, discourse, genealogy : critiques of the 'limit' in the writings of Michel Foucault
Date
1987
Authors
Meredith, John Franklin
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Abstract
Since the late nineteen-seventies, Michel Foucault has become an increasingly fashionable figure in Anglo-American social theory, though one whose significance and coherence remain contested. It is argued here that the apparent inconsistency of Foucault's work is attributable to the real consistency of its challenge to the basic intent of conventional social theory.
Following the chronological development of his original work, an interpretation is offered which traces the aims of the early, 'aesthetic' writings through the later and better-known archeological and genealogical periods. The connecting thread is shown to be a mode of enquiry dedicated to probing the limit, rather than establishing the foundations, of social knowledge and practice. In the three central chapters, Foucault's pursuit of this critical project is examined with reference to the methodological concepts of transgression, archeology, and genealogy, respectively, and in each case my interpretation is juxtaposed to various exemplary or well-known positions from the critical literature. The historical reconstruction reveals both the integrity of Foucault's work as a whole and its progressive applicability to practical social criticism. Diverging from many of Foucault's critics, however, I attribute the superior political value of the later work, not to Foucault's development of a theory of power, but rather-to the various methodological refinements of the original project of probing our cultural limits.