Journal article
Philosophy from the texture of everyday life: the critical-analytic methods of Foucault and J. L. Austin
- Abstract:
- In a 1978 lecture in Tokyo, Foucault drew a comparison between his own philosophical methodology and that of ‘Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy’, claiming the label ‘analytic philosophy of politics’ for his own approach. This may seem like a somewhat surprising comparison given the gulf between contemporary analytic and continental philosophy, but I argue that it is a very productive one which indeed might help us reconsider this gulf. I proceed through a comparison between Foucault and the speech act theory of J. L. Austin, one of the analytic philosophers Foucault had in mind in his Tokyo lecture. By focusing on the methodological commonalities between Foucault and Austin, this article identifies the core of a philosophical methodology that cuts across the analytic/continental divide in philosophy in general while constituting a powerful alternative to the methods applied by analytic political philosophers specifically. This approach, which I term ‘analytic critique’, is one that starts from a critical analysis of what happens in ordinary lived experience and ‘bottom-up’ in an avowedly politically engaged way – thereby challenging the conceptual and political aloofness of contemporary political philosophy in the liberal-Rawlsian tradition. Foucault’s appropriation of the label ‘analytic philosophy’, it is argued, ought to function as a call to more imaginative methodological-theoretical engagement across the traditional division between continental and analytic approaches.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 292.7KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.22439/fs.vi33.6802
Authors
- Publisher:
- Copenhagen Business School
- Journal:
- Foucault Studies More from this journal
- Volume:
- 33
- Pages:
- 48-66
- Publication date:
- 2022-12-29
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-09-22
- DOI:
- ISSN:
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1832-5203
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1281854
- Local pid:
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pubs:1281854
- Deposit date:
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2022-11-06
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Jasper Friedrich
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- ©2022 The Author. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Authors retain copyright to their work, but assign the right of the first publication to Foucault Studies. The work is subject to a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, but despite these restrictions, authors can take for granted that Foucault Studies will permit articles published in Foucault Studies to be translated or reprinted in another format such as a book providing a full reference is made to Foucault Studies as the original place of publication.
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