Michel Foucault: Personal Autonomy and Education

244 Pages·1996·13.68 MB·English

Michel Foucault: Personal Autonomy and Education
Philosophy and Education
VOLUME 7
Series Editors:
C. J. B. Macmillan
College ofE ducation. The Florida State University. Tallahassee
D. C. Phillips
School of Education. Stanford University
Editorial Board:
Richard J. Bernstein, New Schoolfor Social Research. New York
David W. Hamlyn, University ofL ondon
Richard J. Shavelson, University of California. Santa Barbara
Harvey Siegel, University of Miami
Patrick Suppes, Stanford University
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Michel Foucault:
Personal Autonomy
and Education
by
JAMES D. MARSHALL
The University ofA uckland. New Zealand
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marshall, JaMes <JaMes D.)
Mlchel Foucault : personal autonomy and educatlon I by James D.
Marshall.
p. CM. -- <Phllosophy and education ; v. 7)
lncludes bibl lographlca 1 references (p. ) and indexes.
ISBN 978-90-481-4697-0 ISBN 978-94-015-8662-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8662-7
1. Foucault, Mlchel. 2. Foucault, Mlchel--Contrlbutlons in
phllosophy of education. 3. Postmodernism and educat ion.
4. Autonomy (Phl1osophy) 1. Title. Il. Serles.
B2430.F724M36 1996
194--dc20 96-11697
ISBN 978-90-481-4697-0
Printed on acid-free paper
AII Rights Reserved
ce 1996 Springer Science+Business Media Dord.recht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1996
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Preface
Introduction : A Thousand Masks 3
Chapter 1 : Influences Upon Foucault 21
Chapter 2 : Liberalism and Liberaral Education SS
Chapter 3 : Personal Autonomy as an Aim of Education 83
Chapter 4 : Education and Power III
Chapter 5 : On Education 137
Chapter 6 : Personal Autonomy Revisited 165
Chapter 7 : Doing Philosophy of Education 195
Conclusion 213
References 221
Index of Names 237
Index of Subjects 243
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge the following sources in which some of
my ideas from my reading of Foucault have been presented.
Some earlier ideas on Foucault were presented in: 'Foucault and
Education,' Australian Journal of Education 33(2), pp. 97-111, 1989;
and, 'Foucault and Educational Research,' in Stephen Ball ed., Foucault
and Education: Discipline and Knowledge, London and New York,
Routledge, pp. 11-28, 1990.
Some of my more recent views are to be found also in: 'The
Autonomous Chooser and 'Reforms' in Education,' Studies in Philosophy
and Education 15(1) (forthcoming); 'Wittgenstein and Foucault:
Resolving Philosophical Puzzles,' Studies in Philosophy and Education
14(2-3), pp. 329-344, 1995; 'Pedagogy and Apedagogy: Lyotard and
Foucault at Vincennes,' in Michael Peters ed., Education and the Post-
modern Condition, New York, Bergin and Garvey, pp. 167-192, 1995;
and, 'Michel Foucault: Governmentality and Liberal Education,' Studies
in Philosophy and Education 14(1), pp. 23-34, 1995.
I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following
scholars, whose accounts I use in the text: Gary Gutting for his account
of Bachelard and Canguilhelm; Roy Boyne for his discussion of Foucault
on madness; and Huck Gutman for his account of Rousseau and the
Romantic self.
vii
PREFACE
This book is designed to serve two purposes. First it provides an
introduction to the ideas and works of Michel Foucault. It should be
particularly appropriate for education students for whom, in general,
Foucault is a shadowy presence. Second, it provides a Foucault based
critique of a central plank of Western liberal education, the notion of the
autonomous individual or personal autonomy.
There are several introductions to Foucault but they tend to be
written from a particular theoretical position, or with a particular interest
in Foucault's ideas and works. For example Smart (1986) and Poster
(1984) exemplify the former, and Dreyfus and Rabinow (1983) the latter.
There is no substantial work in education on Foucault, apart from Ball
(1990), which is an edited collection of papers by educationalists. The
writer started reading Foucault from a position in education which was
in the liberal framework, somewhere between Dewey, Freire and
Habermas, but with an interest in punishment, authority and power. The
book is the outcome of several years of trying to introduce students in
education to his ideas and works in an educationally relevant manner.
But an introduction, on its own, cannot show this relevance to education.
Unless his ideas are put to work, unless they are used as opposed to
mentioned in some sphere or area of education, then they may be of little
relevance.
In order to understand Foucault it is necessary to have some
knowledge and understanding of the intellectual climate(s) in France post
World War II, and the ideas, works and thinkers against which, and
against whom, he defined and elaborated his thought. Also it is
necessary to be aware of ideas, positions, and methods, that he adopted,
adapted and made to groan. To comprehend the relevance of his work
for education these ideas must be put to work. That is the intention of
this book - to show that he provides the basis for a powerful critique of
the post-Enlightenment ideal of personal autonomy. It is not just that this
ideal is difficult to attain in education but that it is fundamentally
incoherent; instead of liberating the individual and guaranteeing
independence it promotes dependence, subjection and domination.
According to Foucault:
one writes things in part because one thinks them but also so one
won't have to think them any more. Finishing a book is also not
wanting to see it any more. As long as one has some love for
his book one works on it. Once one no longer loves it, one stops
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2 MICHEL FOUCAULT: PERSONAL AUTONOMY
writing it. (quoted in Eribon, 1991: 277)
This book is now finished, but it has been a long time in the
writing, mainly because of constraints upon my energy and time from
administrative duties. It has both suffered and prospered from short
periods of intensive work whilst in Paris, during four visits in 1990-1992,
and as a visiting professor at Simon Fraser University in 1991. It was
substantially rewritten whilst I was a visiting fellow at Edith Cowan
University in March/April 1994. I am grateful to the space and
hospitality afforded me by these two universities, and to my friends
Robin Barrow and Bruce Haynes in particular. I am also grateful for the
patience of staff at the Biliotheque Nationale and the Bibliotheque
Saulchoir, and for the assistance of M.Thierry Holzer of Mission des
Archives du Ministere de l'Education Nationale.
It was my former colleague Eric Braithwaite who, several years
ago, passed me a copy of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. There are
many of us who have intellectual debts to Eric.
Finally, I would wish to acknowledge the continuing intellectual
support for my work on Foucault of my friend and colleague Michael
Peters, and the support over many years of Bridget. Josie Lander,
Bridget Holland, Hilary Stewart, Denise Davies and Bev Cooke assisted
with the preparation of the manuscript.
James Marshall
The University of Auckland
INTRODUCTION
A THOUSAND MASKS
One of the more interesting and controversial thinkers to have emerged
in the Western World in the twentieth century is Michel Foucault.
According to Liberation (30 July,1984); "Sans doute la dernier grande
voix d'aujourd'hui". Yet he does not seem to impinge directly and
explicitly upon educational thought and practice. Where he has
influenced Western thought it might be argued that it was at the
periphery, perhaps heralding the end of traditional philosophy in the
company of Jacques Derrida, or the end of history in the company of
Nietzsche. If he has been seen as a visiting European scholar at North
American Universities he may not have been taken as a serious
philosopher, historian, whatever, but rather as a visitor to established
intellectual fortresses, or as a vagabond without the gates demanding
entrance. How can anyone who says this be taken seriously by
University academics?:
I think I have in fact been situated in most of the squares on the
political checkerboard, one after another and sometimes
simultaneously: as anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised
marxist, nihilist, explicit or secret anti-marxist, technocrat in the
service of Guallism, new liberal etc. An American professor
complained that a crypto-marxist like me was invited to the
U.S.A., and I was denounced by the press in Eastern Europe for
being an accomplice of the dissidents. None of these
descriptions is important by itself; taken together, on the other
hand, they mean something. And I must admit that I rather like
what they mean. (Foucault, 1984a, p. 383f)
The distinguished historian of religion, Georges Dumezil, was to
say that there were a thousand F oucaults; "he wore masks, and he was
always changing them", so that for Dumezil there was no true identity to
be discovered beneath these masks and disguises (quoted in Eribon, 1991,
p. xi). There was Foucault as scholar at a desk in the Bibliotbeque
Nationale almost daily, there was Foucault the dandy, the academic, the
Government advisor, the committed philosopher, engaged homme de
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4 MICHEL FOUCAULT: PERSONAL AUTONOMY
gauche, masked philosopher, and so on. If Dumezil rejected some of the
alleged masks he never rejected Foucault.
Academics seem exasperated that Foucault does not appear to fit
into recognisable categories and does not employ reputable or even
recognizable methodologies. Some historians (e.g., Maxcy 1977:
Megill,1979) see him as a structuralist - which he vehemently denied,
e.g., in the introduction to Words and Things - Foucault, 1973a); others
object that he plays fast and loose with historical data and time, appealing
to concepts like rupture and discontinuity which, they claim, fail to
explain (Megill 1979). Philosophers find him to be incoherent (Taylor,
1986: Walzer, 1986), or protest that his methodology wavers between the
philosophical, the politically strategic, and a moral onslaught (Fraser
1985). Marxists believe that what appears as a radical position on the
Left cuts across the central and basic tenets of Marxism (or perhaps
transcends Marxism by critiquing its fundamental assumptions). In some
cases, Foucault is seen as providing important insights into
individualisation and the operation of forms of power, even if the final
account of power is inadequate (e.g., in relation to state power:
Walzer,1986; Poulantzas, 1978). One former Marxist suggests, more
radically, that 'the classic discourse of socialism is rendered problematic'
(Smart 1983, 1986).
But Foucault, like many other French intellectuals, did not write
either for a narrow disciplinary or even for an intellectual audience alone
as, for example, Discipline and Punish; the birth of the prison
(Foucault, 1979a) was read by both criminologists and criminals alike. As
a member of Le Group d'lnformation sur les Prisons (G.I.P.) he wrote
on prison riots. Independently, as "un homme de gauche" he wrote upon
and discussed with workers elements of the class struggle (see, e.g. the
discussion with a worker named Jose, in Liberation, May 1973b). Yet
he denied the title of intellectual: even that he knew any intellectuals
(Foucault, 1980b). He was involved in a number of political causes, and
both demonstrated (with Sartre!) and lobbied politicians (Eribon, 1991).
However a burgeoning array of academic critiques attest to the interest
that his work has aroused in both academic and professional circles.
But,in general, Foucault has been ignored by educationalists - with the
exception of a scattering of journal articles and an edited collection by
Stephen Ball (1990).
I would argue that Foucault should be taken for himself and not
as some other person neatly classified into recognisable categories.
At the time when he was at the height of his influence upon
French intellectual life, when he had begun to occupy a position held