Foucault and the Human Subject of Science

117 Pages·2018·1.314 MB·English

by  Garðar Árnason

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN ETHICS
Garðar Árnason
Foucault and the
Human Subject
of Science
SpringerBriefs in Ethics
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10184
ð Á
Gar ar rnason
Foucault and the Human
Subject of Science
123
Garðar Árnason
Institute of Ethics andHistory of Medicine
University of Tübingen
Tübingen,Germany
ISSN 2211-8101 ISSN 2211-811X (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inEthics
ISBN978-3-030-02812-1 ISBN978-3-030-02813-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02813-8
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For Sandra, Lona, and Elisa
Acknowledgements
Thisbookhasbeentakingformoveralongtime.Itgrewoutofmydoctoralthesis,
parts of which survive in this version. I remain grateful to the supervisor of my
thesis, the late André Gombay, and the reader, Ian Hacking, for extensive discus-
sionsandadviceovertheyears.Variousotherpeoplehavereadandcommentedon
earlier drafts of work that ended up in this book. I am particularly grateful to
Donald Ainslie, Vilhjálmur Árnason, Mark Kingwell, Robert Mugerauer, Amy
Mullin,SkúliSigurðsson,andIngridStefanovic.Theydonotnecessarilysharemy
views, and any inaccuracies, errors, and shortcomings are my responsibility alone.
Parts of this book have been presented at various conferences and meetings.
ApaperbasedonSects.2.1and2.2waspresentedattheworkshop“Rationalityand
Social Predictions,” which was organized by the NorFA Network “Local and
Global Modes of Scientific Rationality” and held in Tromsø, Norway, in 2004.
A paper based on Chap. 3 was read at the Institute for Science, Ethics and
Innovation (ISEI), University of Manchester, UK, in 2008. Parts of Chap. 3 were
also presented at the 25th European Conference on Philosophy of Medicine and
HealthCareinZürich,Switzerland,in2011.ApaperbasedonChap.4,thestudyof
left-handers, was presented at the 28th European Conference on Philosophy of
MedicineandHealthCareinDebrecen,Hungary,in2014.PartsofChap.4appear
in “Biopolitics and the Longevity of Left-Handers” in Péter Kakuk (ed.) Bioethics
and Biopolitics (Springer), pp. 59–76. Parts of Chap. 5 on the Icelandic Health
Sector Database have been presented at the conference of the Society for
PhilosophyandTechnology(SPT)inAberdeen,Scotland,in2001;andatthe18th
European Conference on Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care in Reykjavík,
Iceland, in 2004. I thank audiences and participants at these events for very useful
discussions. Parts of Sects. 5.3 and 5.4 have appeared in a book chapter:
“Interbreeding within the Icelandic population is high compared to that of mice or
fruit-flies”, in G. Árnason, S. Nordal and V. Árnason (eds.): Blood and Data:
Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Human Genetic Databases (Reykjavík:
University of Iceland Press, 2004). I thank the University of Iceland Press for the
permission to reprint material from that chapter.
vii
viii Acknowledgements
For their support and inspiration over the years, I thank Vilhjálmur Árnason,
Matti Häyry, Doris Schroeder, Tuija Takala, and Urban Wiesing. Finally, I thank
three anonymous reviewers for very helpful and constructive comments and
suggestions.
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 The Origin and Development of Archaeology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Archaeology in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Madness, Medicine, Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3 Power, Knowledge, and the Politics of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.1 Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.2 Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.3 Sciences of Man, Sciences of Nature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.4 Politics of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4 Left-Handers as Subjects of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.1 Pre-scientific Conceptions of Left-Handedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.2 The Rise of the Scientific Study of Left-Handers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.3 Left-Handed Science: The Longevity of Sinistrals . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.3.1 Why Think That Left-Handers May Have Reduced
Longevity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.3.2 Study I: The Baseball Encyclopedia (1988). . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.3.3 Study II: The California Study (1991). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.3.4 Study III: Marcel E. Salive et al. (1993) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.4 Left-Handers and Knowledge Production. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.5 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
ix
x Contents
5 Icelanders as Subjects of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.2 The Icelandic Health Sector Database: The Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.3 Eugenics, Nationalism, Nazi Experiments and the Icelandic
Health Sector Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.4 The “Totally Informative Population” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105