Différance

The hardest concept for my mind to digest in this essay was the concept of a Trace. An effacement? Like effacer, in French, to erase?

In my mind, trying to visualize Trace I thought of the bear tracks that we spoke about in class, of course with understanding that Trace is not an object, but a doing. So Trace is that time when I see the tracks and I think of the bear. Although the bear is not present, I make him present and therefore the tracks are not really there anymore, but have been erased by the presence of the bear (in my mind). I have brought the bear to the present by erasing what is in reality the presence in the present (the tracks), and have brought the future to the present.... I think...

Two Lectures by Foucault

This kind of ties in with my last post of reason and discourse. Here he pretty much says that as we try to narrow down knowlege, many things get left out. He says that sooner or later those things left without revolt against those things left within.

Then again he doesn't really blame anyone. He says it is mostly, if not all, done unintentionally over time and space. It is not pruned purposefully, but rather it just gets, so to speak, "filtered" out. I wonder though, is it really all unintentional?

What is Enlightenment?

If I understood it correctly, I fell in love with the way Foucault attacked what we think of as "Enlightenment." If I understand it as he does, "enlightenment" is merely the rejection or the ignoring of, not necessarily what is UNreasonable (or maybe it is), but what is beyond reason. Without saying it directly, he points out the arrogance of humanity of wanting to squeeze everything within the limits of "reason."

When people thought (or think) of themselves (ourselves?) as enlightened by reason alone, was it not by reason alone that people once assumed the earth was flat? At that time, that only sounded reasonable.

Discourse on Language

This confused me because for a while I had my fixed visual of discourse: a box. It is a box for what today is "truth and knowledge." Then suddenly my visual of discourse began to transform into something that looks more like a cell, from which organisms leave and to which others enter, without force and some with the use of force. Just like in diffusion and osmosis, truth and knowledge have entered our minds forcibly and other times unintentionally....

What is Philosophy?

I want to focus on two things Deleuze talked about: truth and discourse.  He attacks the fact that people search for the truth from a preconceived notion, from a certain disposition. As if truth was somehow a balloon and it was tied to a ribbon, which was tied to say, a chair, on the other end. "Truth" can only go certain ways, and can only reach out so far when it is trapped within that discourse. This makes sense to me, but I wondered, how can we escape that?