/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6723790]

Is he the best gay philosopher of all time? Why did he never write about homosexuality?

[Anonymous No.6723798]

Not 100% sure it's Foucault who said it, but I saw something attributed to him that showed distaste for homosexuality as an identity rather than a sexual act.

[Anonymous No.6723799]

Nietzscheans are barely philosophers. He was a decent theorist and a bad historian. The genealogical method is fundamentally flawed.

[Anonymous No.6723837]

Roger Scruton.

[Anonymous No.6723845]

the majority of shit he wrote was about homosexuality and its place in society, damn, you dudes don't actually read do you?

[Anonymous No.6723848]

Socrates fucked boys and is objectively the best philosophet

[Anonymous No.6723855]

>>6723790
homosexuality is at time explicitly addressed and encompassed (along with other kinds of sexuality) in his history of sexuality books

the real question is why does op make threads without doing any kind of elementary google searching, let alone reading actual books

[Anonymous No.6723859]

>>6723790
not even close

[Anonymous No.6723869]

A marxist post-structuralist continental Ecole Normale Superieure professor and feminist activist was teaching a class on Martin Heidegger, known hermeneuticist.
"Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Nietzsche and accept that his genealogical method was the most highly-evolved theory the continent has ever known, even greater than Hegel's dialectics!" At this moment a brave, rational, positivist analytic philosopher who had read more than 15000 pages of Popper and Wittgenstein and understood the raison d'etre of empricism and fully supported all modern hard sciences stood up and held up the constitution. "How universal is this text, frenchie?" The arrogant professor smirked quite Jewishly and smugly replied "It's not universal at all, fucking positivist, its "truth" is rooted in our shared understandings about culture, the subject and the nexus of power and knowledge." "Wrong. It's been 225 years since human reason created it. if it was not universal, and post-modern relativism, as you say, is real... then it should be regarded as a myth now." The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of On Grammatology. He stormed out of the room crying those ironic post-modern crocodile tears. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, Michel Foucault, wished he had pulled hiimself up by his bootstraps and become more than an AIDS ridden sadomasochist interested in fisting. He wished so much that he had some kind of truth to hold on to, but he himself had written to disprove it! The students applauded and all rolled into American universities that day and accepted Wittgenstein as the end of philosophy. An eagle named "Formal logic" flew into the room and perched atop the copy of "Principa Mathematica" and shed a tear on the hardcover. The last sentence of "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" was read several times, and Karl Popper himself showed up and demonstrated how dialectics is nothing but a means of justifying contradictions. The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of the gay plague AIDS and his "books" were disregarded for all eternity.

[Anonymous No.6723873]

>>6723798
The quote you're thinking of is from History of Sexuality Volume 1

>Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphroditism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species.

He's not necessarily saying he believes it is just "an act of sodomy," he's talking about how the cultural perception of it shifted and created these new moral/medical categories of "sexualities."

[Anonymous No.6723874]

>>6723798
That was foo-ko

[Anonymous No.6723882]

>>6723799
>fundamentally flawed
How? Explain in 500-1000 words.

[Anonymous No.6723883]

>>6723848
Socrates (as he is presented in plato) argues against pederasty.

[Anonymous No.6723888]

>>6723873
Foucault's actual claims are always more interesting and more palatable than they are when you hear plebs who can't into history yell about 'muh power flows'

[Anonymous No.6723891]

>>6723869
11/10

[Anonymous No.6723904]

>>6723882
I would type out my own criticism but it's identical to the one I found on Foucault's Wikipedia page. It isn't rigorous and it doesn't provide much useful information-both of which are things a historical analytic should be able to provide.

Philosopher Richard Rorty has argued that Foucault's 'archaeology of knowledge' is fundamentally negative, and thus fails to adequately establish any 'new' theory of knowledge per se. Rather, Foucault simply provides a few valuable maxims regarding the reading of history. Says Rorty:

As far as I can see, all he has to offer are brilliant redescriptions of the past, supplemented by helpful hints on how to avoid being trapped by old historiographical assumptions. These hints consist largely of saying: "do not look for progress or meaning in history; do not see the history of a given activity, of any segment of culture, as the development of rationality or of freedom; do not use any philosophical vocabulary to characterize the essence of such activity or the goal it serves; do not assume that the way this activity is presently conducted gives any clue to the goals it served in the past."[166]
Foucault has frequently been criticized by historians for what they consider to be a lack of rigor in his analyses.[167] For example, Hans-Ulrich Wehler harshly criticized Foucault in 1998.[168] Wehler regards Foucault as a bad philosopher who wrongfully received a good response by the humanities and by social sciences. According to Wehler, Foucault's works are not only insufficient in their empiric historical aspects, but also often contradictory and lacking in clarity. For example, Foucault's concept of power is "desperatingly undifferentiated", and Foucault's thesis of a "disciplinary society" is, according to Wehler, only possible because Foucault does not properly differentiate between authority, force, power, violence and legitimacy.[169] In addition, his thesis is based on a one-sided choice of sources (prisons and psychiatric institutions) and neglects other types of organizations as e.g. factories. Also, Wehler criticizes Foucault's "francocentrism" because he did not take into consideration major German-speaking theorists of social sciences like Max Weber and Norbert Elias. In all, Wehler concludes that Foucault is "because of the endless series of flaws in his so-called empirical studies ... an intellectually dishonest, empirically absolutely unreliable, crypto-normativist seducer of Postmodernism

[Anonymous No.6723907]

>>6723888
Yeah, I'm always a bit perturbed by the identity politics progressives trying to claim him as an intellectual forebear when he in fact deliberately avoids that kind of impassioned moralizing of history.

[Anonymous No.6723921]

>>6723904
Weak/10
Seems like minor bones tah pick

[Anonymous No.6723926]

>>6723921
Yeah, well, maybe outside the discipline of history, the quality of a particular historical methodology isn't that important. Enjoy your theories.

[Anonymous No.6723927]

>>6723904
As for Rorty's criticism, it doesn't take much reading of Foucault to observe that he doesn't just offer a "negative" theory of knowledge that uproots assumptions. History of sexuality makes distinct claims about of the social evolution that took place, as I quoted here >>6723873 and as is clear in his rather distended analogy between confession and psychiatric evaluation. So he absolutely does make claims other than "u cant know nuffin."

As for his historical research being shoddy, that's certainly a common criticism and I'm not equipped to defend him from it. But yours was not an objection to Foucault but to the genealogical method as a whole.

[Anonymous No.6723952]

>>6723904
Sounds like a bad translation
Kek timetolearnfrench.com

[Anonymous No.6723973]

>>6723904
when you said you thought geneology was a fundamentally flawed historical method, i thought you were going to critique nietzsche. all you post has to offer is some contemporaries saying that foucault's concepts are vague. that is not tantamount to an epistemological reply to geneology, which by the way i certainly agree is open to such a critique, as any historical method is, but none is really offered by you nor your citations.

[Anonymous No.6723978]

Why do all French philosophers make me think they're pretentious and have no idea what they're talking about

[Anonymous No.6723985]

>>6723973
>>6723927
I've made better critiques of the method on here in the past, I'm having a hard time coming up with them right Noe, though. That might be because I've read more Foucault and Nietzsche since the last time I mentioned this and now can't make the same criticisms because they don't seem as valid at this point.
Anyway, it isn't that big a deal. I'm mostly b8ing, anyway.

[Anonymous No.6724002]

>>6723978
Because you're too embarrassed to use a dictionary when reading a book, so you just assume the words mean nothing.

[Anonymous No.6724074]

>>6723869
>American Universities
>not worshiping Foucault

Top lol

[Anonymous No.6726439]

Move over baldie.

[Anonymous No.6726939]

If we arranged all gay philosophers in a man train, which philosopher would be the one in front who is not fucking an ass but is being fucked and which philosopher would be in the back, unfucked but fucking?

[Anonymous No.6726954]

>>6726439
and the award for the world's dorkiest hairstyle goes to...

[Anonymous No.6726967]

>>6723869
Oh, can we have one of those threads?

A secularist, atheist professor and defener of the science religion was teaching a class on Dawkins, a known persecutor.

"Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship The God Delusion and accept it's wisdom as absolute truth!"

At this moment a brave young Christian and student of Theological studies, who had converted over 1500 lost souls and understood how the problem of evil was nonexistent, stood up ALONE and held up a well-read, note-filled and deeply-annotated bible.
"How can you prove God doesn't exist?"

The cackling, strident and smug professor laughed his condescending laugh now,and smugly replied "Science has proved it so."

"Wrong. Philosophy has proved science to be a lie. For God so loved the world."

The professor was visibly shaken, dropped his copy of On the Origin of Species and blurted many blasphemies. He stormed out of the room crying those false, lying atheist tears.

The students applauded and were all converted to the correct religion that day, as well as holding a baptizing party in the university pool.

The professor lost his tenure and was prayed for the next day. He died of a car accident during a Newsboys concert and was converted just before his death. Hallelujah.

The student's name - Albert Einstein.

[Anonymous No.6726971]

>>6726967
This is so reddit it hurts.

[Anonymous No.6727010]

>>6723904
'In addition, his thesis is based on a one-sided choice of sources (prisons and psychiatric institutions) and neglects other types of organizations as e.g. factories'

not only does this contradict some of Rorty's earlier grievances it's fucking stupid because Foucault justifies why he picks prisons and psychiatric institutions?

[Anonymous No.6727018]

>>6726939
/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6727031]

>>6726939
Wittgenstein would be unfucked.

[Anonymous No.6727052]

>>6723859

Witty was not gay, that's a myth

[Anonymous No.6727056]

>>6727052
>hasn't read Monks biography

[Anonymous No.6727753]

>>6723790
He did write about it. He was a critique of sexuality as such.

[Anonymous No.6727759]

>>6723790
Who is this guy anyway? Fuckout?

[Anonymous No.6728051]

>>6727759

Literally Europe: The Person. Gay, French, Atheist, moral relativist, Foucault has been a darling of the left, although his amorality doesn't square with the inherited moral puritanism of today's western left, as this guy >>6723907
correctly observes.

[Anonymous No.6728201]

>>6727010
Not only that: Foucault does talk about factories in D&P.