Michel Foucault

Self nomination. Myself and others have been refining this page for about a year, and I think it's ready - but am more than willing to alter it if it needs further refinement. --XmarkX 02:45, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Object for now, but would love to see it make the cut. Support.
  1. The intro "positions" him ("often described as a postmodernist and a poststructuralist, though during the 1960s his work was often labelled as structuralist", etc.) but doesn't really summarize either the style or substance of his work or indicate what was original about it. Addressed.
  2. There is no mention of how his notion of "episteme" is either similar to or different from Thomas Kuhn's notion of "paradigm". Withdrawn, I won't push it.
  3. I, Pierre Riviere... should at least be mentioned. reluctantly withdrawn.
  4. Would you agree that most of his works deserve articles of their own? I notice that they are not even redlinked. Lacking that, I would expect to see The Order of Things discussed at somewhat greater length. Done. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:16, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

• I appreciate these comments but broadly disagree:
  1. I really don't see how this can be done without simplifying hs career to be totally misleading. What we have done here is tried to preserve his enigmatic nature. OK
     • I may continue to object, then. As it is, the intro would not give someone who is unfamiliar with his work any clue why they should care.

       Hey, I have conceded on this one too and added a blurb to the intro--XmarkX 07:39, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

       I added one more sentence to that, pointing out his emphasis on synchronic over diachronic (although I'm avoiding those technical terms). With that, I think we're there. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:52, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

       I understand what you're getting at here - I inadvertantly implied that Foucault's tells us how discourses change, rather than looking at the transformations themselves. I think what we have there now is a bit inelegant, so I'm going to tidy it a bit, but thanks.--XmarkX 19:34, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  2. The episteme/paradigm stuff has been written about, but is not of crucial importance.
     • This is for English-language readers, who are far more likely to be familiar with Kuhn's work than Foucault. Still, I won't push this issue.
  3. I, Pierre Riviere is not important, as it was only edited by Foucault, not written by him.
     • But more accessible than much of his own work, and clearly an application of his thought, a good route in for people who are not already deeply embedded in reading contemporary French philosophy (which is to say, for the average Wikipedia reader). I don't think it deserves more than a mention in the article, but I do think it deserves that mention and, like the other works (next item) a link,even if a red-link for now. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:47, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

       Look, I still don't understand this: I, Pierre Riviere was a piece written by Pierre Riviere, and prepared for publication not by Foucault alone but by an entire seminar group. It is not representative of anything about Foucault - it is an histroical document that Foucault thought should be more widely available, that's all.--XmarkX 04:34, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

       I don't seem to currently own a copy, so I can't check right now, but I recall that Riviere's text is about 10% of the book. There is lengthy discussion about the competing medical and legal discourses, the medical wishing to rule him mad and therefore under their jurisdiction, the legal sane and therefore under theirs; in particular, there is a classic application of Foucauldian thinking in how each literally ignores (or perhaps doesn't notice) inconvenient facts, such as the legal side trying to limit the definition of madness to very specific categories and the medical side ignoring those of his actions that show an understanding of consequences. (I read this about 20 years ago, so it is imaginable that I am not recalling correctly, but I'll be very surprised if that's the case. Does someone have a copy at hand?) -- Jmabel | Talk 08:00, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

       I don't have a copy either, but looking at the table of contents on Amazon, it seems that the memoir is about a sixth of the book, but most of the book is made up of historical documents (the 'dossier'), and the remainder made up of 7 articles, only one of which is by Foucault, and that article is only 12 pages long. Hah! :) --XmarkX 10:46, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

       I still think it deserves a mention with a link, but will not make this an objection to featuring the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:37, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

  4. This is a really good point - it think it would be good to excise the bried descriptions of individual works to their own entries. Can/should I do this now though?--XmarkX 00:49, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
     • Well, you can certainly link them now, to acknowledge the need. --Jmabel | Talk 01:47, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

       Done --XmarkX 04:08, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Support, looks good to me. Everyking 07:42, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Support, based on my rather limited knowledge of Foucault, though it would be nice if Jmabel's first point could be dealt with in a succinct and readily understandable way. RadicalSubversiv E 02:50, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• OK, have added a short blurb - see if you are satisfied.--XmarkX 04:08, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Great. RadicalSubversiv E 04:35, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Support, would love to see this as a feature. CriminalSaint
• Support. Minor criticism, though, about the references: trying to give context about references is good, but claims like "this is the most detailed biography" do not have their place in any bibliography/reference section. Phils 11:59, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Just to clarify, is the problem with that that it's non-NPOV, or that comments about references shouldn't be included in that section?--XmarkX 13:30, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Point of fact is that there is no consensus on whether reference sections should be annotated or not. My feeling is that it is good if the comments are NPOV. That is just really hard to do since some references simply are of higher quality than others. To be really NPOV you would need to cite the comments to sources, then cite those, etc. Its turtles all the way down after that. - Taxman 22:35, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

• The thing is, the comment that Macey's biography is the most detailed is totally NPOV - it is three times as long as either of the others and just contains far more information.--XmarkX 04:51, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Object. Sweeping statements like "His writings have had an enormous impact across the humanities and social sciences..." need inline citations to reliable sources, else they are POV. Another example is "Terms coined or largely redefined by Foucault, as translated into English:". What evidence supports that his interpretation of those terms widely influenced anyones? No time at the moment to read the whole article, but work on that much is certainly needed. - Taxman 22:35, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • What kind of citation are you looking for? I can attest that, as a current PhD student in the humanities, Foucault's influence is clear. I can point to the volume of books on Foucault. But, ultimately... this seems to me to fall outside the realm of POV. To my knowledge, nobody makes a serious or credible claim that Foucault's impact is anything less than enormous. We don't need to represent that POV any more than we do flat earthers. Snowspinner 03:41, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
    • Any reliable source that supports the POV that he was very influential in whatever areas he was. I've never heard of the guy, so what do I have to go on that he was influential? The article, and you saying he was. If he was so influential, then of course there would be a good source that speaks directly to that, so it shouldn't be a big deal to find one. No we don't need to represent the POV that he wasn't influent if it it truly minor, just support the POV that he was so influential. - Taxman 14:30, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • I object this kind of attitude. I think the author should show, not tell when making statements about Foucault's importance, but the use of sources for such statements is questionable. Sources should be useful, and they shouldn't exist just for their own sake. Statements about influence can always be seen as being subjective: sourcing them won't lend them more credibility because influence is not a quantifiable concept. Wether Foucault was influential is not a subject of debate: what the author needs to do is to show why he was influential and what his influence was: he does this in the rest of the article. Phils 11:43, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • So you want to be able to state a POV and argue that point in the text? Thats called an essay, and is not acceptable under the NPOV policy. If whether he was influential is not a subject of debate, then surely you can find someone reputable that describes his influence and cite and/or quote that. If you will kindly read the FA criteria, you'll notice citing sources is clearly in there. So asking to cite a POV statement, one that is an important point to the article and is potentially contentious is not unreasonable. Why not just try improving the article instead of arguing? - Taxman 14:08, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • OK, I'm going to weigh in and just say I don't really understand your point. I never liked this list of 'enormously influential' fields - I would like it to be pared down to just philosophy, sociology and literary theory in the English-speaking world, which I think is sufficiently uncontentious - I have wanted to do this for a long time but there was formerly serious resistance from other editors. Don't know if it's ok to do it at this point.
        • Well I don't know what to say about paring down the influential fields because I don't know anything about him or his influence. So that is why I am asking for a source supporting his influence. If it is sufficiently uncontentious, then as stated above, it should be easy to find a reliable source that describes his influence. - Taxman 14:30, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
      • The second thing you cite as unreferenced is just a understanding on your part: there is no claim that these terms are 'influential', just that Foucault either was the first to use them, or used them in a substantially novel way, which is objectively true in all cases.--XmarkX 19:26, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • That may be me misunderstanding that but "Terms coined or largely redefined by Foucault" seems to imply that his use influenced the meaning of the words as others know them. If not, why would that section be there? At a minimum if his meaning and usage were not influential, that section should say so. - Taxman 14:30, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Support although it would be nice to at least mention Foucault's_Pendulum_(book) by Umberto Eco since it was named because of Michel Foucault.  ALKIVAR™ 02:07, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • No it wasn't, it was named after Léon Foucault--XmarkX 06:43, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Your right... my bad.  ALKIVAR™ 09:18, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Wow. This fell off my watchlist somehow. I was going to go back to it and see what kind of work it still needed. Apparently, not much. Snowspinner 03:41, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Biographical sections are particularly good; the discussion and summary of individual works could still use some fleshing-out (and what's there, though largely accurate, could use some editing for a more lucid and simpler prose style), but the whole thing indisputably meets the FA standard. Particularly impressive in comparison to Wikipedia's still slipshod coverage of most of the other major figures of continental philosophy. Maybe add a few more pictures as illustrations of Foucault's objects of study (e.g., a panoptical prison)? -- Rbellin|Talk 04:28, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Support Without commentEggplantWizard 21:03, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Reply to Taxman

I don't have a written source, but Foucault's influence has been enormous. He is probably the most-invoked name in terms of the social construction of sexuality and sexual identity. His views on the episteme and archeology (vs. history) figured prominently in the philosophy curriculum I encountered in the early 1970s, while he was still alive. When you say you "don't know anything about him or his influence": can I guess that your philosophy background was mainly in the Anglo-American tradition, favoring analytic philosophy over speculative? Other than a quick mention in an intro course, most Anglo-American philosophy departments don't teach any Continental philosophers who worked after about 1920, not even Heidegger or Sartre. Foucault is not so influential as to have broken that barrier (although I can't imagine there is a Gender Studies or Queer Studies curriculum that omits him), but this is a case where just Googling his name should give a quick clue of the extent of his influence. That said, you might have a look at http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/ejournal/foucault.htm or http://www.foucault.qut.edu.au/. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:43, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I have done virtually no philosphy studies, so I am coming at this topic fresh. And from the perspective of someone that does not already know who he is, a statement of his enormous influence is dubious. You all already know it and that is fine, but it doesn't mean it is not good to cite that central fact about him for others that also don't already know about the guy and his work. But see below for a resolution that would be just fine. - Taxman 16:05, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

It strikes me that one way to demonstrate influence would be to document the large degree of inclusion of his works in academic curricula. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:47, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Google Scholar, which (in my opinion) is still very incomplete in coverage of the humanities, gives 1,865 citations for Discipline and Punish alone. -- Rbellin|Talk 07:32, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That would suffice quite happily for me. I guess I assumed one of the biographies of him would describe his influence and thus would be easy to cite as a source. If not, the citing of his work by others supports the influence just fine. - Taxman 16:01, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, but Taxman, as was said to you in the beginning, ultimately these claims are as problematic when made in an academic work as in Wikipedia - the fact that I can refer to a book that says Foucault was influential, does not make it so - it only means that it is a POV that I can note. Basically, your argument reduces down to the position that any claim about influence is POV, which is not true - I don't even think you want to say that.--XmarkX 05:17, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, that is exactly what I will say. It is a POV. It may be a correct one, but if it is, you can find a reliable source to support it. Thats simply providing backing support for a claim, which is very basic for well researched writing. Of course citing a source doesn't make it so (it either is or it isn't), but providing evidence to make it more believable that it is so is very important for such a central claim about a person. I can't believe asking someone to cite a source for something so central to an article is made out to be this big of a deal, when it is a basic part of the featured article criteria. I'm not being unreasonable here, this could have been taken care of very quickly. Also, what Jmabel has stated below is spot on, by the way. - Taxman 14:13, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

XmarkX, there is no rule against citing an authority's views. The NPOV rule is a rule against either stating the view in the narrative voice of the article or being unrepresentative in one's selections of presented third party POVs. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:04, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Pleasure reading it. Concise and at the same time has breadth. And indeed, his influence has been enormous. No doubt.--Zappaz 03:49, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Support after spellings errors are cleaned up. Run the text through a word processor to catch errors in grammar and spelling. Nichalp 19:47, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

• Support after further work has been done on the style and and additional general tidying up. BTW, I got tired of reading the debate over evidence (or not) of Foucault's influence, so decided to rewrite that section. I hope that the section now addresses these concerns. --Panopticon 20:59, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)