(Wikipedia, Nov 12th, 09 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory):
Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things can be said to touch on the issue of Reflexivity. Foucault examines the history of western thought since the Renaissance and argues that each historical epoch (he identifies 3, while proposing a 4th) has an episteme, or “a historical a priori“, that structures and organizes knowledge. Foucault argues that the concept of man emerged in the early 19th century, what he calls the “Age of Man”, with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He finishes the book by posing the problem of the age of man and our pursuit of knowledge- where “man is both knowing subject and the object of his own study”; thus, Foucault argues that the social sciences, far from being objective, produce truth in their own mutually exclusive discourses.
Is this what Hayles (1999) is talking about – that we make our own discourses by putting them into practice? If this is the case, then is it a case of if I think ‘posthuman’, I am posthuman. Anyone know how to put that into Latin?
http://web.physik.rwth-aachen.de/~hebbeker/lectures/ph3_0203/escher.gif
Hi Sarah,
Great site – am taking up your invite to comment! I’m interested in your comments on reflexivity – I’ve writing some stuff in my thesis about this – but mainly coming from the sociological perspective and looking at how sociology as a discipline structures and organises ways of looking at the world. There is some interesting stuff by Bourdieu about the “scholastic view” – how academics impose particular versions of what counts as knowledge.
P.S Posthuman is post homo, I think…
We show this to our prof doc students as an intro to a lecture on reflexivity – I really like it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsz9ivKXP6I
Taking a literal but scientific view of this, wouldn’t being ‘posthuman’ mean you were dead?
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Sarah – Hayles is arguing that thinking about ourselves in certain ways is exactly what makes us posthuman. Sian might be able to wrestle up some Latin for us! Anyway, I like your link with Foucault and the production of knowledge.
Captain makes an interesting point – in all of the ‘posts’ (postmodernism, poststructuralism) there is a tension between the notion of after as in, ‘having moved on’ (’pushing up daisies’ etc) and the notion of after as in ‘following from’ or working with. I guess I see posthumanism as a case for what sorts of humans we are becoming. Not a case for us no longer being human.
Hello again,
I agree with you. I see it as what we might be becoming and how we might be thinking our way into becoming this and how our becoming facilitates certain ways of thinking. It’s all a bit reflexive, isn’t it?
All the best,
S
I absolutely agree. That is precisely how I see it. Cheers!
hmmm. i liked it.
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