Discourse
From Geography
(New page: written or spoken communication or debate. (oxford dictionary)It is important to distinguish Foucault's use of the category, a discourse, from contemporary uses of the term 'discourse'. Fo...) |
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written or spoken communication or debate. (oxford dictionary)It is important to distinguish Foucault's use of the category, a discourse, from contemporary uses of the term 'discourse'. For within the human sciences this term is becoming embarrassingly overloaded and more likely to induce confusion than any clarity it might originally have been set to produce (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/txt/discours.htm). | written or spoken communication or debate. (oxford dictionary)It is important to distinguish Foucault's use of the category, a discourse, from contemporary uses of the term 'discourse'. For within the human sciences this term is becoming embarrassingly overloaded and more likely to induce confusion than any clarity it might originally have been set to produce (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/txt/discours.htm). | ||
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| + | Foucault's concern is not to produce a general theory of discourse (whatever that might mean). His use of the term discourse may be taken to be tactical. It may be thought of as an attempt to avoid treating knowledge in terms of 'ideas'. The reason for avoiding the term 'ideas' is that it brings in its train a series of presuppositions which Foucault hopes to abandon. | ||
Revision as of 13:19, 12 October 2010
written or spoken communication or debate. (oxford dictionary)It is important to distinguish Foucault's use of the category, a discourse, from contemporary uses of the term 'discourse'. For within the human sciences this term is becoming embarrassingly overloaded and more likely to induce confusion than any clarity it might originally have been set to produce (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/txt/discours.htm).
Foucault's concern is not to produce a general theory of discourse (whatever that might mean). His use of the term discourse may be taken to be tactical. It may be thought of as an attempt to avoid treating knowledge in terms of 'ideas'. The reason for avoiding the term 'ideas' is that it brings in its train a series of presuppositions which Foucault hopes to abandon.
