Foucault is the primary intellectual force behind the contemporary social science trend of seeing everything through a power relationships lens. His influence cannot be overstated, at least in the American academy. It's bizarre.

I’ve read Foucault. I’m familiar with western and continental philosophy. I studied psychology, sociology, and political science too. Foucault‘s influence, as well as French existentialism and post-structuralism in general, are to blame for the current state of social science. Boiling everything down to a cultural power struggle is a pyramid scheme, a cult that infiltrated American academia. It’s certainly not a moral philosophy and Foucault’s life reflects that.

Couldn't agree more fully. It's a shallow lens that's not very good at prediction.

It's bizarre to see you argue on the one hand that he negatively impacted the quality of social science research, then on the other hand declare by fiat that his personal life counts as data point against the quality of the same work!

Foucault's writing is problematic because the conclusions he makes are too broad and are backed up by too much conjecture. So were a lot of other writers of the time, many of whom Sokal covered in his book "Fashionable Nonsense."

I'm saying he used for moral relativism as a way to rationalize his immorality. Foucault's "Fashionable Nonsense" was problematic because it rationalized things like pedophilia which he also strongly advocated for in public along with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

With the problems of modernism apparent in the philosophical academy, continental and especially leftist philosophy had a huge void of ideas. Post-structuralism took root precisely because it shrugged the idea of having An Answer but also explained many of the problems with modernism and salvaged the ideas of the Left as best as it could without having to exhume Hegel viz Marx. Rational critiques of post-structuralism remain as lurid as ever but I still see a huge void in modern western philosophy that post-structuralism dances in the ashes of.

If anyone is aware of other non-rationalist western philosophies, I'd be curious as I'm only aware of the Lacanian schools and then more standard post-structuralist stuff like Foucault and Deleuze.

I'd also be careful of trying to read a philosopher's life inside their ideas. Deleuze led a very bog-standard life for a white man in the postwar era in Europe despite advocating for fairly radical philosophies. It's the ideas that take root and shape the academy and then society. If you wish to push back on post-structuralism, criticize the idea, not the people. Foucault himself may have been depraved, but others certainly weren't.

The very fact that Max Stirner, and anything from anyone with some notion of "Anarchism" in their ideological descriptions is explicitly not something you're aware of is very telling of how the main stream academy has unjustly left Egoism and related ideas to languish in obscurity.

Stirner was prophectic in calling out Hegel's and Marx's bullshit, and the way that his work triggered Marx so hard that Marx felt the need to write an entire book calling him a doo-doo head (The German Ideology) shows that he was subversive in the best way possible - he got under the skin of a thinker whose legacy is hundreds of millions of people dead. I suggest giving him a read, as he has a truly non-rationalist philosophy which is very different from any that you've read before.

Re: Deleuze being "bog standard". You think that doing tons of LSD with his homie Guattari while they wrote Anti-oedipus was "normal"? One of them even killed themselves by throwing themself out of a window (supposedly due to "chronic pain" but who the heck knows with their literal schizoanalytical ideas)

You can analyze the philosopher and their work. Socrates' system of thought can be understood without knowing he fought in the Peloponnesian War, that he was beloved, and that his wife was a shrew. But his philosophy makes even more sense when you know those personal details because context matters. For instance David Hume was an empiricist but accounts of his life make little to no sense. Besides motivations, personal details usually illustrate the limitations to a philosophy. That being said I don't think of Foucault as a philosopher, I think of him as a rhetorician and charlatan.

Was that before or after Foucault cooked him in the debate?

I think it was after they met for the debate. I don't remember Chomsky calling Foucault a phony. The quote I remember is Chomsky calling him "amoral".

The debate is a fun thing. Some people hear Foucault make no sense, others see him slicing Chomsky up into so many pieces he appears to not even notice.

it is wrong. Chomsky said no such thing about him as a person. He was referring to Foucalt's belief system as being amoral

Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral". Chomsky doesn't consider post-structuralism, and by extension Foucault system of thought, to be a philosophy. Foucault is a rhetorician.

I guess if you're a 16 year old with an IQ of 85 and are stoned out of your mind Foucault cooked Chomsky, sure why not. lmfao. get out of here.

…a comment written in the style of a 16 year old with an IQ of 85

“lmfao” indeed

Cooked him? They had a perfectly pleasant and interesting conversation for the first 75% of the talk - both regularly shooshing the clueless moderator.

Then at the end it turned more towards morality and Foucault showed himself to be quite clearly completely, illogically, disturbingly amoral - as Chomsky himself later more or less described him (a video which has been linked in other comments)

No person with a shred of moral character or intellectual honesty could ever conclude anything remotely close to Foucault winning, let alone "cooking" him.

edit: It starts building up to the real conflict/debate around maybe 45min, but it really becomes concrete at 54:13. Foucault just finished rambling about "destroy the bourgeoisie " and Chomsky says "surely you believe that your role in the war is a just role" and then further lays down some very sensible, insightful ideas about justice.

Foucault then says something to the effect of "the proles dont fight for justice, they fight to have power for the first time in history. One wages war to win, not because it is just".

Chomsky disagrees, but remains patient and extends an olive branch to him to say something less insane - suggesting that if such an overthrow would lead to a terroristic police state (e.g. the USSR, north korea etc...) , then I wouldn't want the proles to win. The only justification for such action is if one thinks - rightly or wrongly - that some fundamental human values will be achieved".

Foucault just doubles and triples down and they go back and forth.

YET, he even ends up agreeing with Chomsky by saying that the "suppression of class power" is the goal. Chomsky says ah hah, so you finally agree with me then.

And foucault just dodges it and rambles some more. Chomsky then again shares some beautiful and insightful, yet humble, ideas.

And then it ends.

Foucault - and postmodernism in general - is all about narcissistic resentment.

The link is here. Its very much worth watching. https://youtu.be/3wfNl2L0Gf8?si=954dTZp7G_C9PTMr&t=3255

Here are the two best tributes to Chomsky that I know of:

The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky by Arundhati Roy http://www.rarre.org/documents/roy/The%20Loneliness%20Of%20N...

When Chomsky Wept by Fred Branfman- https://www.salon.com/2012/06/17/when_chomsky_wept/

Absolutely beautiful writing about a beautiful person.

Sorry, but if you're gonna do the midwit whining about pomo thing, you gotta spell ressentiment the French way, them's the rules.

This topic is always filled with such morons like you.

No. He said his philosophy was amoral. He had nothing bad to say about him as a person. the opposite actually.

Incorrect. After their debate Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral". Chomsky doesn't think Foucault has a philosophy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y&t=263s

full quote

"He struck me as completely amoral, id never met anyone who was so totally amoral" ... "I mean, I liked him personally, it's just that I couldn't make sense of him. It's as if he was from a different species, or something."

this is a far cry from calling him a morally bankrupt person

Why? Any context or reference?

You can watch Foucault and Chomsky debate! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8

Foucault was a degenerate. He espoused a belief in moral relativism to conceal the fact that he was a monster. In reality he was at best a pedophile and at worst a culture destroying sociopath. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i63_kAw3WmE

Who arbitrated which is best and which is worst?

According to the moral nihilists and atheists that are Christians, it was God who dictated what is objectively good, bad, ethical, and sociopathic cultural destruction.

So social conservatives are just upset that their authoritative God being is dead. Harsh but true.

That's pure melodrama. There is no God, so he can not die. Good and bad, right and wrong, are usually pretty obvious but people are greedy, weak, and stupid. 16% of the population can't comprehend morality and 50% struggle with the idea. After that it's context, willpower, and virtue. In a game theory sense most people are going to tend towards selfishness and pretend it's self-preservation. It's human behavior.

What’s funny is people down voted this comment even though it’s true. What does that say about the voting system on this site? lol

It is not true.

It is true. After his debate with Foucault, Chomsky said "he struck me as completely amoral, I'd never met anyone who was so totally amoral".

But that's not calling him a "morally bankrupt phony" at all.

He was a pedophile that died of AIDS. This is a complete inversion of Kierkegaard’s life. Post-structuralism is a total racket https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y

Stop putting words in Chomsky's mouth. He never said these things.

(Also, are there still people who think that "died of AIDS" is an insult?!)

You’re in denial.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973077>

It’s not a “personal attack”. If a man drinks to excess everyday and I refer to him as an alcoholic I’m not attacking him. It’s simply an unpleasant fact. If I provide evidence to support a statement and someone irrationally denies it then it’s fair to say they’re in denial.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23001661>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23400737>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36470028>

I see what you're saying and I disagree. I believe you're framing my statement in a negative light which breaks the first and second rule you pointed out. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9973077 Which could be construed as gatekeeping. But thanks for making me aware of community guidelines, they'll come in handy.

Search HN via Algolia for "by:dang personal attacks" to see his guidelines. In some cases he'll spell these out in more detail and the rationale behind them, which should further clarify rule, intent, and rationale.

I still believe my statement is a fact.

Channeling dang, "just stating facts" isn't sufficient defence: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29811958>.

Generally, mods' goals are something of a dual mandate: intellectual curiosity (see: <>), and trying to keep the discussion from boiling over, which it's constantly on the verge of. I'm not finding the comment I'd had in mind yet, but this one at least hints at the concept: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32588063>.

And a longer one which goes into the whys and wherefores: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29803838>.

Another long and good one: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176705>.

For clarity: I'm not a mod, I occasionally disagree strongly with mod's positions. But I've also come to understand, if at times grudgingly accept, their principles.

I don’t think I need a defense.

The point is that if you're consistently violating HN's guidelines, you'll find yourself penalised. Mostly by ordinary participants such as myself, but if you're persistent and insistent, mods will eventually step in.

And "just telling the truth" isn't a defence, justification, or excuse.

If you want to explore this issue further, you are free to search though dang's voluminous set of responses on this and other topics.

That’s right you’re not a moderator. So unless you’ve got something to say about Foucault and/or Chomsky I got nothing else to say to you. Have a good day, tone cop.

Since I'd omitted the "intellectual curiosity" link above: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20193552>

You said "Chomsky called Foucault a morally bankrupt phony". He never said anything like that, and you should not use Chomsky's name to prop up your opinion of Foucault's philosophy.

> “Never said anything like that.”

Except he did and you’re just contradicting me. Chomsky doesn’t regard post-structuralism to be a philosophy, he considered it to be a racket. I share his opinion https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9js6LdkRE6Y

I am contradicting you because you are taking his words out of context.

Chomsky disagrees with the philosophy, but he never called Foucault morally bankrupt nor a phony. Those are your words, not Chomsky's.

This is a Monty Python skit. Chomsky called him amoral and his philosophy fake. He doesn’t disagree with Foucault’s “philosophy” he thinks it’s fake. A moral person doesn’t swingle people with lies. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

I am contradicting you because you are taking his words out of context.

Chomsky disagrees with the philosophy, but he never called Foucault morally bankrupt nor a phony. Those are your words, not Chomsky's.

PS: I'm actually genuinely sorry you and Chomsky don't understand Foucault. It's very illuminating when you do. I don't have a great deal of sympathy for your attempted character assassination on Foucault, though. And I do appreciate a lot of Chomsky's writings, and that's why I react so negatively to your attempts to bring Chomsky into that. Chomsky's dismissal of post-modernism as "not philosophy" is simply dim, and I'd say a variant of his obnoxious habit of dismissing linguists who take a different or broader view of the subject by simply saying that what they're doing "isn't linguistics". And I actually think that the intellectual quirk that causes him to do that is the same thing that makes him struggle with understanding the actual content of Foucault.

Contradiction isn’t a valid antithesis. Also I never used quotation marks around “morally bankrupt”, I put it together based on statements Chomsky made about moral relativism, post-structuralism, and Foucault, over a 30 year period from debate, talks, and his books including Manufacturing Consent. I understand Foucault, I understand that he’s a charlatan. Are you denying that Foucault advocated for eliminating age of consent in France or are you okay with that?

Interpreting charitably: someone who had what was at the time a death sentence of an infectious disease and (if allegations are true) sexual relations with people who could not legally consent ... might suggest a certain amorality or immorality.

(I'm not specifically familiar with either Foucault's behaviours or Chomsky's description, I'm simply referring to the discussion here on HN, and its guideline "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>.)

Exactly. Thank you.