Thursday, June 3, 2010
Michael Foucault- What is an Author?
Understanding philosophy has always been a bit difficult for me but this is what i grasped from the reading. Foucault basically points out that to be an author is much more than a simple title, or a name that can be given, it is a state. Foucault also introduced the term of "first" authors in that they, who he names a few as Marx and Freud, are the original authors from a historical stand point. He also refers to these authors as "transdiscursive," in that they produced the rules and possibilities of other texts and established in endless possibility of discourse (p14). I can agree with this statement in that authors who have come after these "first" authors have indeed shadowed these notable authors and have had something to model but that is not to say All authors since Marx and Freud have merely been imitations of them which have come before them. By the end of the essay i wasn't as confused as i started out, many of Foucault's ideas made sense. His closing sentence was one to certainly think about after all the ideas posed in the essay. He asked "What difference does it make who is speaking?" And i thought well, in many cases one would want to read a book written by a notable author, one who is known to write well on the given subject. Therefore in terms of notoriety there is a difference.
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I would have to disagree with the idea that Marx and Freud are the "first" authors. Sure, they were incredibly influential, but I think that the early Greek philosophers were truly the "first" authors. They helped lay down a lot of groundwork for Marx and Freud.
ReplyDeleteI think he actually refers to these authors as 'founders of discursivity' and i don't think by referring to Marx/Freud that Foucault is saying these are the 'first' or 'pure' authors from which everything is derived. Instead, I think he makes the important distinction that discursive authors actually produce difference and a multiplicity of possibilities (114/115) as opposed to the novelist who tend to produce 'same-ness' in iterary tropes/techniques. I don't think he means to say that authors following Fredu/Marx or preceding them are imitations or of less 'value,' so much as he is trying to comment on their modes of existence and how discursive authors expandpossible applications. I wonder if Foucault would consider the Greek philosophers as founders of discursivity...to me it seems likely..not sure though...
ReplyDeleteI agree that Marx and Freud were 'first authors.' Whom did Freud get his ideas from? Sophocles, Aristophanes! Before Marx, were there not other great philosophers? Plato perhaps? Thomas More, Descartes, LOCKE? I understand this idea of being the author of thought, however, there were many other philosophers who put pen/ink to paper before him, and good ones at that.
ReplyDeleteYes Jazmyn you are probably correct :) I seem to have missed the point of that the first time I read it.
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