Foucault's Analogies, or How to Be a Historian of the Present without Being a Presentist

7/23/2019 Foucault's Analogies, or How to Be a Historian of the Present without Being a Presentist

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C L I O

3 :

2001

DAN IEL M. G ROSS

Foucault's Analogies, or How to Be a

H istorian of the P resen t without Being

a Presentist

Among the cultural inventions of mankind there is a treasury of

devices, techniques, ideas, procedures, and so on, tha t cannot exactly

be activated, but at least constitute, or help to constitute, a certain

point of view w hich can be very useful as a tool for analyzing what's

goingonnowandtochange

it.

We don't havetochoose between our

world and the Greek world. But since we can see very well that some

of the main principles of our ethics have been related at a certain

moment to an aesthetics of existence, I think that this kind of

historical analysis can be useful.

M ichel Foucault, On the Genealogy of Ethics

It is easy to construct a story in which analogies as

traditionally conceived have no place for Foucault in the

writing of history.^ Prompted hy Foucault's own method-

ological proclamations in Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,

commentators have generally characterized genealogy as a

skeptical, even nihilistic strategy for writing history. It is

supposed to sha tter our ability to identify a historical event

in a continuous narrative, to identify with past subjects, to

1.

Along these lines see lsoJan G oldstein's definition of genea logy, cu lled from

articles collected in Foucault and the Writing of History 14; Larry Shiner,


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58 Foucault's Analogies

identify ourselves in some essen tial way . Indeed t h e

piirpose of his tor y guided by genealogy, Fo uc au lt in sis ts, is

no t to discover th e roots of our ide ntity bu t to comm it itself

to its dissipation. ^ And as we will see, classical an alogy in

the Aristotelian/Thomistic tradit ion is often understood

simply as a f igure that establishes an element of identi ty

over dis pa rate objects or even ts.

So instead of writ ing history as reminiscence or

recognition, one should, for ins tan ce , paro dy th e buffoonery

th at supplied th e Frenc h Revolution w ith Ro m an prototypes,

romant icism with knight ' s armor, and the Wagnerian era

w ith the sword of a G er m an hero (160). In ste ad of fixing

similar i t ies in an unreexive his tory of monuments and

origins, genealogical history, according to Foucault, should

correspond to th e acuity of a glance th a t d ist ing uish es,

separates, and disperses, that is capable of l iberating

divergence a nd m ar gi na l elements^the kin d of disso ciating

view that is capable of decomposing itself capable of

shat ter ing the uni ty of man's being through which i t was

thought that he could extend his sovereignty to the events

of his pa st (153). In a wo rd, difference, not ide ntity , sho uld

serve as the affirmative principle when doing history, and

synthetic pretension should be decomposed as i t appears.

Fou cault actua lly m ight give th e historian advice not u nlike

w ha t W ittgen stein gives to a grea t arch itect in a bad

period : Don' t ta k e com parabi l i ty, bu t ra th er

inco m para bility, as a m a tte r of course. ^ For, as we will see,

this is precisely what Foucault expressly tr ies to do in the

second chapter of The Order of Things The Prose of the

World, wh ere he descr ibes how the Renaissance hierarch y

of analogies supposedly crumbles under the weight of a

Classical science of ord er.

Fo uc au lt 's prac tice, how ever, tells a very different story.

His genealogies continually propose crucial, synthetic

m om ents th at produce new researc h dom ains. In fact, my

claim can be pu t in th e stronge st term s: th er e is no

Foucauldian method, whether genealogical or otherwise.


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Einiel M. Gross 59

without positive analogies. However, the way Foucault uses

analogies is complex and atraditional; it builds upon the

classical model while radically revising tradition in the

direction of his own philosophy of language. Distinguishing

Foucault's use of analogy from the classical prototype and

Wittgenstein's philosophical anti-metaphysics, this article

shows what sort of history one writes when relation is

characterized in Foucault's positive, analogical mode.

Like the W ittgenstein of the

Philosophical Investigations

Foucault's detective work traces how analogies are s ituated,

and both take the logic of reduction to task . Indeed,

Foucault explicitly uses W ittgenstein's kinship

ties

to link,

for instance, the modern pervert to the pre-modern libertine,

yielding the following proportional formula: as the libertine

was to tbe deployment of alliance, so the deviant is to the

deployment of sex.^ But neither for Wittgenstein nor for

Foucault are formal resemblances simply read off the world

and uniformly named, nor does language simply impose

likeness. Resemblances appear first as ad hoc kinships, or

sym pathies, at whicb point they can

he justified

against the

associated fields th at they help compose. W ittgenstein sees

these fields composed of various human practices, both

discursive and non-discvirsive, some of wbicb (logic and

psychoanalysis, for example) systematically reduce resem-

blances to identities. But always the philosopher,

W ittgenstein tested the limits of everyday language by way

of abistorical thought experiments ra ther than philology. In

contrast, Foucault locates when particvdar identities were

produced in language, what institutional conditions made

them stick, and how they might be transformed in tbe

writing of history.

The Persistence of Analogy

In the Renaissance as Foucault describes it, analogy bad

a potentially universalfiel of application, but tbis potential

could never be realized fully because divine order was

ultimately opaque. This limitation left m an at tbe very


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half of a un iversa l at las, as Foucault pu ts i t , bu t he could

nevertheless piece together a t reme ndo us nu m ber of natviral

signs. Fou cault recites a series of poetic observ ations dr aw n

from CroUius's

Trait des signatures

Man stands in proportion to the heavens, just as he does to

animals and p lants, and a s he does also to the earth , to metals,

to stalactites or storms. Upright between the surfaces of the

universe,he

stands in relation

to

the

firmamenthis

face

is

to his

body what the face of heaven is to the ether; his pulse beats in

his veins as the stars circle the sky according to their own fixed

paths; the seven orifices in his head are to his face what the

seven planets are to the sky); but he is also the fulcrum upon

which all these relations turn, so tha t

wefind

hem again, their

similarity unimpaired,

in the

analogy of the hum an animal

to

the

earth it inhab its: his flesh is a glebe, his bones are rocks, his

veins great rivers , his bladder

is

the sea, and

his

seven principal

organs are the m etals hidden in the shafts of mines.

In the epis teme sha red by gram m arians ( such as Ram us) ,

n atu ra list s (Belon), physiognomists (Porta) and, I will add,

a theolog ian such as Cajetan^word, na tu re , and m a n could

all be drawn together in a complex interlocking system of

signification, th e no des of wh ich wou ld be m ar ke d viltimately

by God's sign atu re: visible m a rk s for th e invisible ana lo-

gies. It is , for instance, no accident that the walnut

resem bles th e hu m an h ead , for th is is the iconic sign given

to m an tha t wounds of th e per icranium can be cured by the

thic k g reen rind covering th e sh ell of th e fi-uit, an d so on.

Bu t as Fou cault insis ts in Nietzsche, Genealogy, H is-

tory, no epis tem e completely closes upo n

itself

guaran tee -

ing cer tain knowledge, e tern al t rut h, or t ran spa ren cy of th e

sys tem as a wh ole. And th e job of th e genealog ist is oste nsi-

bly to draw ou t fissvires in a given system , bo th inte rn al an d

ex tern al. Th e holy confusion of Cajetan th a t w e will see

undermines the univocal predication of mein, and God is

introduced by Foucault in a different form as the Renais-

sance epistem e begins to crum ble. Th ere always will be a

slight degree of non-coincidence betw een resem blan ces, as

Foucau l t pu ts i t , an insurm oun table misal ignme nt b etween

the g raphics of th e na tur al world and th e graphics th a t form


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Daniel M. Gross 61

to be explored if even the slightest of analogies was to be

justified and

finally

ake on the appearance of certainty ,

in

thus from its very fovmdations, this knowledge was merely

a thin g of sand (30).

Now, given Foucault's radical stance regarding the

absolute uniqueness of a given historical event, period, or

culture, and given his pronouncement of a tota l collapse of

the Renaissance episteme, one would not expect analogy to

resurface in Foucault's corpus as an analjrtic tool. Nor

should analogy reappear in Foucault's post-Renaissance

episteme unless resuscitated as a politically motivated

simulacnim ^history as farce. There is nothin now,

Foucault insists , either in our knowledge or in our refiec-

tion, that still recalls even the memory of that being (43,

emphasis mine). Nothing, except perhaps literatureand

even then in a fashion more allusive and diagonal tha n

direct. But recur analogydoes. In what form, and to what

end?

The key to answering these questions lies not in

Foucault's explicit theoretical statem ents , but ra ther in his

actual language of comparison and transformation. First,

we

must look at the terms Foucault uses to compare various

discourses th at compose

one

historicd period as well as th e

objects that those discourses name. How, for instance, will

Foucault justify his comparison of prisons, factories, schools,

barracks, and hospitals^this illuminating synthesis that

has generated research projects across the him ian sciences?

Then we must look at what stays the same as one historical

period gives way to another. So when we read Foucault's

description of the trsinsition from the Renaissance to the

Classical age (an age th at is supposedly responsible for the

new iurangement in which we are still caught [43]), we

should be particularly sensitive to the strategy Foucault

employs to compare befores and afters. What we m ust

grasp and attemp ttoreconstitute are the modifications th at

affected knowledgeitself at that archaic level which m akes

possible both knowledge itself and the mode of being of wha t

is to be known.


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then lodged within this overall relation. From now on, every

resemblance must be subjected to proof ycomparison, tha t is ,

it will not be accepted until its identity and the series of its

differences have been discovered by means of measurem ent with

a common unit, or, more radically, by its position in an order.

(55)

Clearly Foucault wants to say the figures that composed

sixteenth-century knowledge have been iraresfigured and

recontextualized in the wake of Baconian skepticism,

Linnaean taxonomia, and Cartesian/New tonian m athesis (to

name a few of Foucault's favorite reference points). So, for

instance, the sixteenth-century accumulative sensibility

giveswaytoanalysis, resemblances ire redistributed within

or without modern scientific categories, and order

no

longer

needs divine sanction to do its work. The universe of

analogies, in short, is to

e

superseded by an ordered world.

But whydoesFoucault rehea rse this transition? In order

to pinpoint which sixteenth-century

figur s

are substituted

for

yfigfures

n the seventeenth century. And

how

then are

th e two figures related? It seem s, svirprisingly, by propor-

tional analogy. Foucault sets himself the task of reconsti-

tuting the modifications tha t characterize a transition

between periods and thereby grasp the conditions that affect

the production and solidification of knowledge. But once

again we are presented with a contagion of positive analo-

gies,

which compare, for instance, accumulation, as it

functions in the sixteenth century, to analysis, as it func-

tions in the seventeen th century . And, as we will see, the

classical theory of analogies suggests that, for each propor-

tional analogy, an analogous term can be generated . For

example, the term order functions analogically in two

historically distinct expressions: divine order and the

science of order. These are, moreover, anedogies th at

function on the metalevel of Foucatdt's critique, not simply

in serious sta tem en ts plucked from the historical record.

Though it might be unfair to ask Foucault to purge analogy

completely from his thinking,weshould expect those th a t h e

does use to waiver, to suggest dis-analogies, to function as

ad hoc sympathiesunless, that is, Foucault himself is


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DzinielM.Gross 63

the mode of description in order to see if Foucault's analo-

gies actually defeat his genealogical intentions.

Again the Classical age. Despite the Classical period's

radical distance from the Renaissance, Classical identities

apparently did not map completely over the vagaries of

similitude. Indeed, as Foucault describes the Classical

episteme, positive analogies seemed to multiply recklessly.

Hence the following: Variations of price are to the initial

establishment of the relation between metal and wealth

what rhetorical displacements are to the original value of

verbal signs. And what's more, the theory of money and

prices occupies the same position in the analysis of wealth

as the theory of character does in natural history. Like the

latter, it unites into one and the same function the possibil-

ity of giving things a sign, of representing one thing by

another, and the possibility of causing a sign to shift in

relation to what it designates. And finally: What algebra

is tomathesis signs, and words in particular, are totaxon-

omy:

a constitution and evident manifestation of the order

of things. A breathless series of comparisons by positive,

proportional einalogy now seems complete within Foucault's

description ofonehistorical episteme, and this despite the

fact that the new sciences of General Grammar, Natural

History, and the Analysis of Wealth all coincide in the

seventeenth century around the figure ofmathesis univer-

salis the analji;ic grid designed to decompose vague analo-

gies into scientifically justified identities and differences

(202).

However,The Order of Things(1966) was first published

five years before Foucault's supposed turn toward genealogy.

Thus it is not too surprising that analogy functions as a

synthetic tool for Foucault, despite his explicit claims about

our radical break from the Renaissance episteme. In fact,

Foucault still allows himself a range of tools familiar to

structuralists when writing heArchaeology of Knowledge

(1969), a work designed to distill the method motivating his


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archival researcb. It turns out that relations of opposition,

complementarity, ind analogy can indeed all still be used to

study tbe economy of wbat Foucault calls a discursive

constellation. '

More svirprisingis tbat little changes witb tbe publication

six years later of

Discipline

and Punish. Indeed, positive

analogies turn up tbrough all of Foucault's work^his

modernism notwithstanding^though tbe function of

analogies does change, as we will see. Moreover, tbe

appearance of analogy during tbis period in Foucault's work

is no mere anachronism. In

Discipline

and Punish,we find

both a synchronie use of analogy ostensibly enmesbed in tbe

historical record and analogies at work on tbe metalevel of

Foucault's descriptions. Here is one crucial example from

tbe panopticon cbapteran example tbat in fact ties

Discipline and Punish toTheOrderof Things. [Disciplin-

ary] investigations are perhaps to psychology, psychiatry,

pedagogy, criminology,

Uid

so many other strange sciences,

wbat the terrible power of investigation was to tbe calm

knowledge of tbe animals, tbe plants or tbe eartb. Anotber

power, anotber knowledge. ^ We are tbus presented witb

two distinct technologies functioning in two distinct bistori-

cal contexts, yet Foucavdt refers to tbem witb tbe same

analogous term: enqute ( investigation ).^ As we will see

later, the traditional theory of analogy suggests tbat tbe

recurrence of tbis term is deeply significant.

InDenominum analogia,the late fifteentb-century work

designed to systematize Aristotelian/Thomistic theory.

Cardinal Tomassode VioGaetano (Cajetan) calls analogy a

mean between pure equivocation and univocation. ^** For

Cajetan, analogy bas an ambiguous epistemologicd status

marked by the recurrence of a term. In order to vmderstand

7. Foucault,

Th e Archaeology ofKnowledge

trttns. A. M. Sheridin Sm ith New

York: Pantheon, 1972),

66.

8. Foucault, Discipline

and

Punish:

the

Birth

of the

Prison trems. Alan

She ridan New York: R andom House, 1977),226.


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DanielM.Gross 65

how Foucault's analogies work, we must in fact get a be tter

sense of this traditional scheme against which Foucault's

innovation is contoured. Only then can we begin to clear

away the metaphysical assumptions that obscure the

function of analogy in Foucault's w ork.

The lassical Theoryof Analogy and ItsScholastic Legacy

In its most basic form, tradition suggests th atw analyze

analogy by means of the quasi-mathematical paradigm

2:4::3:6, an expression th at reduces to a common rat io

2. ^^

Given the Aristotelian formulation knowledge:object of

knowledge: :sensation:object of sensation, we would look for

a term such as perception th a t would be the ratio ex-

pressed on both sides (this understanding of analogies is

still w ith u s in th e form of Miller's Analogy Tests).^^ The

sem antic point would be th at we can perceive the idea

H elen is in love as readily as we perceive, say, a stone.

Ignoring pragm atic considerations thus h as its price. No

interpretive problem arises if perceiving is understood

equivocally when ranging alternatively over ideas and

stones, but then again nothing ha s been gained by proposing

the formula in the first place. If strict proportionality is

maintained, however, then we are left with the impossible

proposition that an idea such as Helen is in love is per-

ceivedno differentlythan is a stone. Of course, the kejrword

perception functions neithe r equivoctilly nor univocally

with respecttoideas and objectsan observation of the sort

that launched the scholastic debate on the function of

analogy.

Analogy is no simple phenomenon of language according

to Cajetan, and it must be hand led carefvilly. So tacked on

the end of Cajetan's infiuential tr ea tise is a chap ter entitled

11 . Aristotle,

Topics,

trcins. E. S. F rste r (Ctimbridge, Ma ss.: Loeb Classical

Library, 1989), 108a 7-17.

12.

Miller's Analogies Tes ts operate as follows: proportionalities sug gest

an

apt

common word generating one literal and one metaphorical sentence. We may


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Precaut ions to be Ta ke n in the Un ders tand ing and U se of

Analogous Term s. I t is introduced as anhors text r e bu t t a l

to those relativizing soph ists who would overlook th e mode

of un ity hidden in antdogous ter m s. First of al l , w rites

Cajetan,

wemust beware lest from the univoca tion of an analogous nam e

with respecttocertain thingsweare ledtothink tha t this name

is univocal in an absolute sense. Almost all analogous names

first were univocal and then by extension were rendered analo-

gous,i e

common byproportionto thosethingsinwhich they are

univocal and to others or to another. For example, the nam e

w s omwas at first giventohuman wisdom andw sunivoctil to

the wisdom of

ll

men. Then, when men rose to a knowledge of

the divine na ture and saw the proportional similitude between

us insofar as we are wise and God, they extended the name

wisdomto signify in God that to which our wisdom is propor-

tional. In thisw ywhatw sxuiivocaltousw smade analogous

to us and

God

The same is true of other terms (73).

Cajetan first asks us to approach seemingly univocal

te rm s such as wisdom, good, an d powerful w ith

caution, allowing them a complexity denied simple generic

term s such as animal . Ap parent ly th e sem ant ic nodes in a

lang uag e fork periodically, and if we a re insen sit ive to th e

division we nm the risk of following the low road to blas-

phem y. Indeed pa nth eis t he resies of ju st this sort provoked

from the Fovirth Lateran Council of 1215 a famous tenet of

ne ga tive theology still effective for C ajetan : no sim ila rity

betw een creator and cre ated is to be noted witho ut no ting a

greater diss imil i tude.

So th e common te rm wisdom does indeed originate

univocally, as does th e na m e anim al. Bu t only wisdom

accrues analogous m ean ing wh en extended a s a pred icate of

God. Moreover, sem an tic exten sion in thi s case differs from

m etapho rical extension ofth e sort th at f igures in an expres-

sion such as God is a lion. For suc h m eta ph or s ironically

extend the range of a common no un tha t ha s absolutely one

13 . Constitutiones Concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis

glossatorum

ed. Antonius Garca y Garcia, Monum enta Iuris Cannica, Series

A:


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DanielM.Gross 67

formal

mesuiing

in order to indicate some sha red property:

though

rod

is not

alion,literally speaking, in th is case God

and the lion share courage, in an analogous m anner. By

way of contra st, proper analogy equitably extends the

range of a common pro perty. So for Cajetan, comparing

the propositions Socrates is wise and God is wise is no

heresy. In fact it generates a story compatible with religious

doctrine. An allegory with its temporal, causal, and

evaluative forceiswhat saves analogous term s from the fate

of mere equivocation.

To interpret analogous terms naivelyas isolated and

unevaluated linguistic samples^is to misunderstand every-

day speech and to deny the harmony of na tur al order. For

example, the animal itself is cfdled healthy formally,

whereas urine , medicine, and other similar things a re called

healthy not because of health inherent to them, but

extrinsically after the health of the anim al, insofar as they

signify it, cause it, or have some other relationship to it

(17). In fact it is precisely such measurable and d irected

relationships th at give analogous term s a sta tus far superior

toth at of simple univocity or accidental

equivocity.

Without

knowledge of natural harmony (and vdtimately of divine

order), one might incorrectly tak e a person and tuine to be

indistinguishable insofar as they are both intrinsically

healthy, or, on the contrary, one might view the health of

a person and the h ea lth of medicine as m aterially unrelated .

But health}^ appliesfirstto inimds, andthenby mesins of

extrinsic denomination to urine, the sign of health in an

animal, and to medicine, the cause of health in an animal.

It is the situation of concepts and things in a universal story

of creation that determines their relations, not simply

intrinsic or nom inative identities.^^

Turning abruptly from the profane to the sacred, Cajetan

affirms th at the scheme thus generated is discreetly valued

as well. The notion o goodalso, which is verified in the

essen tial good, and after which the others are denom inated

good

in the

order

of

exem plarity is realized formally only in


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the first good; the others are called good by extrinsic

denom inat ion and in relat ion

t

the first

good

(15,

emp has is

mine). Not simply a m ean s to produ ce n eo-A ristotelian

categories, Cajetan's extrinsic denomination turns out to

follow as well the mies of a Platonic hierarchy, where, for

example, each good thing occupies a unique place

determ ined by i ts relat ive distance from

the

Good.

B ut ev en if we desire to conform to th is perfectly ord ered

system, our imperfect knowledge of God and his creations

means that the language we use will always be subject to

sl ippage. Cajetan 's theory thu s cannot help bu t m u rm u r

colorfully about the d5niamic and contoured process that

gen erates his analogical system . W hen, for insta nce , we

ab str ac t th e emalogon being from its an alo ga tes (i .e.,

things that are ) , we gedn both the insight that comes

cloaked in identi ty and the confusion hidden beneath.

Concealing, as i t w ere, the insep arab ly concom itant

diversi ty, th e analogon both un ites th e diversi ty of notions

by propo rtional iden ti ty and confuses t he m in a certain way

(43).^*

Moreover, th is confusion, or incom pletene ss, is

stru ctu rally unavoidable, because being in i ts ideal form

will always be obscured.

As i t turns out , i t is this nagging threat of l inguist ic

failure that keeps Cajetan's system from calcifying.

An ticipating Fouca ult , we can say th a t Cajetan describes th e

role analogy plays in fixing a discursive s yste m (or lang ua ge

game) at the same t ime that he indicates the internal and

extern al l imits th at system m ust gen erate . For Cajetan

those limits appear to be a result of a theological doctrine

th a t pos its th e rea lm of Godly perfection as ineffable,

whereas for Foucault it is the absence of strict formation

rule s th at ult im ately keeps a serious, or cultura lly

sanc tioned, speech act from stabilizing . M oreover, in

Cajetan's scheme, only divine revelation could gfuarantee

perfect correspondence between word, object, and idea, and

therefore even the devout are usually left to their own

devices as the y attem pt to un de rsta nd th e world they live in.


13/27

Daniel M. Gross 69

In fact, Cajetan's system remains viable even if a materially

effective God is reduced to a structureil function, leaving

only human culture as tbe force driving language.

Tbe conditions of discursive formation are also a deep

concern for Foucault. Moreover, tbe phenomenon of einalogy

serves Foucault botb as an object of analysis and as a vital

analytic toolas it did Thomas and Cajetan. However,

Foucault forcefully rejects the suggestion of a universal

scheme underl3dng specific analogies, even if that scbeme

exists only ideally. And it is faitb in tbis universal scbeme

tbat ultimately dulls Cajetan's sensitivity to tbe role buman

babits and bistories play in creating semantic stability.

Despite our inability to grasp oiir relationsbip to God in its

exactitude, for Cajetan tbe power of buman institutions

depends, in tbe end, on the power of God. Writing in the

wake of

The Order of Things

Foucault tries to think

anidogy against any such epistemological guarantee^for

example, a repressive episteme or a myth tbat fixes

identity and underwrites perfect semantic convertibility.

Tbe result is a new understanding of how analogies work.

Analogies are irreducibly ambiguous speech acts that

perform a metalinguistic function. By proposing a patently

false identity while insisting nonetheless upon kinship,

analogy does tbe impossible. It formulates the nondiscur-

sive in a linguistic scheme and manifests simultaneously the

absurdity of doing so. This is the insight that led the

traditional tbeory of emalogy away from tbe matbematicsil

paradigm outlined above. Cajetan tells a story in whicb the

univocal term wise, a predicate of someone sucb as

Socrates, is extended to God, instituting botb tbe kinsbip of

bumans and God, as well as their radical difference.

Similarly in Foucault's scheme, tbe term investigation

becomes a predicate of botb the clinical uid tbe natviral,

thereby instituting both a kinship and a radical difference.

Drawing analogies generates similitude, but only grapbic or

pbonic identity remains, that is, as long as the rhetorical

context of the analogy is specified. If restrained in tbe

semantic field, Foucault's analogical terms could be reduced

to mere identities, and bistory woiild again become farce.


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70 Foucau lt's Analogies

lim its of iden tity. Fo ucau lt specifies context by modifying

his key ter m . For exam ple, the clinical inve stigation is

dist inguish ed fi-om the investigation of n at u re , an d this

distinc tion figures in a broa d ar gu m en t abo ut th e difference

betw een Classical and disciplinary order. The inv estiga tion

of the n atu ral w orld, pace Bacon and L inna eus , w as inten-

t ionally designed to ex tract a tr u th from its objects. Th e

clinical investigation , on th e oth er ha nd , pas sively disci-

plines the subject by way of micro-procedures inst i tuted

from th e bottom up : tes ts , interview s, ordered sp aces, and

so forth. An other power, an oth er kno wled ge.

Understood, then, in terms of isolated semantic identi-

t iesunderstood, that is , as modern logic would have

it analogy is ei ther m ean ingless or parad oxica l . Bu t

precisely because analogy manifests such blatant semantic

confusion, i t demands an interpretat ion, or argument ,

sensit ive to th e dis pa rate fields i t dra w s tog ethe r. W hen

successful , this comparative act generates a new rhetorical

f ield and new historical data to be assimilated (when

calcified, the comparative act becomes inscribed in myth).

For exam ple, inDiscipline and Punish seemingly disparate

practices of judicial , n atu ra l , an d clinical inve stigation are

drawn together, and a new research project is formed

aroun d technologies of th e body. So dra w ing analogies

carries a rhetorica l as well as a historical bu rde n. And i t is

on the level of si tuating analogies that Foucault most

obviously diverges from C ajetan's totalizin g sche m e and as

we wil l see, from W ittgen stein's ahistoricism. Th oug h long

aw are of th e possible use s an d abu ses of sys tem atic co mp ari-

sons,

Fou cault non etheless employs analogies in The Order

of Things to regularize his epistemes an d the ir trans form a-

t ions. In term s of me thod. Discipline and Punish is a

transit ional work, while The History of Sexuality is

Foucault 's showpiece for the dual treatment of analogies:

seemingly na tura l com parisons are subjected to sh ar p

historical cri ticism, while new com parisons are d raw n along

ethicsd lines.

In summary, Cajetan specifies both the natviral causal


15/27

Daniel M. Gross 71

the story is practically reversed (though of course Foucault

never explicitly addresses Cajetan or the scholastic

problematic). Analogies are ad hocsympathiesth at can both

mark the emergence of true genealogical thinking or pre-

figure the tyran ny of identity and order. But th at order,

whethe r godly or scientistic,

is

imposed_after the fact. When

Foucavilt writes, a system of relatioHsls no longer guaran-

teed a priori, and in this respect his method depends upon

Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, especially as it is

formulated in The Blue

Book

Though methodological

similarities between Wittgenstein and Foucault have been

noted by Alec McHoul, Ian Hunter, Dreyfus, and Rabinow

among others, the critical distinction has never been

adequately characterized. That distinction can be formu-

lated most precisely by comparing their use of analogies, and

it can be boiled down to a fundam ental difference between

two disciplines: history and philosophy.

Wittgenstein s Analogies

By our method we try to counteract t he m islead ing effect of certain

a n a l o g i e s . . . .

The Blue Book

I don't believe I have ever invented a line of think ing. I hav e always

taken one over from someone else. . . . Can one take the case of

Breuer and Fre ud as an example of Jew ish reproductiveness? W hat

I invent are new similes [G leichnisse]

Culture and Value

n

emerging virtue of analogya term that W ittgenstein

sometimes uses interchangeably with simile and some-

times employs as a justified simileis that it provides a

means

to

make synthetic statements without ap peahng to a

str ict rule . This central vir tue of analogy is recognized

explicitly by Wittgenstein in The Blue Book lecture notes

and absorbed ten years la ter into the famousInvestigations

tre atm en t of family resemblance (especially

^67-^76).

The

resemblances between different uses of a general te rm resis t

any sort of identification, and th is fact in turn precludes the


16/27


an d extend ed by analogy. W ittgenstein's theo ry of anedogy

thus contradicts the view that everyday language is rule

governed, w he the r th at view be old scholastic or new. And

since Fouca ult 's analogies extend precisely this tu rn in th e

philosophy of lang uag e towa rd a new h istoricism, i t is

helpful to examine first in some detail how Wittgenstein's

ahistoricd theo ry of analogy w ork s.

As W ittgenstein sees it , sjnithetic sta tem en ts are p eri lous.

Without a rule against which synthet ic s tatements can be

tested, the seductive force of simili tude, and grammatical

analogies in part icularcan lead one astray: just because

I can talk about an "unconscious thought" does not mean

that I can talk about an "unconscious toothache."^^

Wittgenstein comes to the conclusion that the disciirsive

resemblances that f i rs t caught his at tent ion are most

appropriately understood against a background of nondis-

cursive practices, th at is , if the y are to m ak e sense w ithou t

dep end ing on formal rule s. I t is also th e point at wh ich

Wittgenstein most forcefully recasts the tradit ional theory

of analogy with a rhetoricd sensibility, doing

s

in a meinner

som ew hat different from Foucau lt . They agree in th eir

dis taste for metaphysical uni t ies , and they share pract ical

fai th in th e he urist ic power of analogy. Bu t W ittgen stein

does not rely on soph isticated forms of discursive kno wledg e

to provide a diseimbiguating context for analogical terms.

W e do not have to

know

for instan ce, tha t Socrates an d God

ar e incom parable in the ir mutued wisdom (Cajetan), nor t h a t

Classical order and disciplinary order differ (Foucault).

Instead, Wittgenstein asks us simply to look and see how

analogical ter m s fimction in different w ays as the y ar e us ed

in a variety of practical si tuatio ns.

Reversing Descartes 's famous plea for introspection,

W it tgen stein ask s us in the Investigations simply to consider

th e proceedings tha t we call "gam es." I mea n board-g am es, card-

gam es, ball-game s, Olympic gam es, an d so on. W ha t is common

to them all?Don't say: "There mus be something common, or

they would not be called 'games' "but look and see whether

there is anything common to all. For if you look at them you

will not see something that is common to all but similarit ies,


17/27

Daniel M. Gross 73

their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here

you find many correspondences w ith th e first group, but many

common features drop out, and others appear.*^

Both by means of his style and his explicit imperative,

Wittgenstein preempts the possibility that we could ever

talk about his

"theorj^

of einalogy in a traditional sense.

Anedogies perform no single linguistic or metdinguistic

function th a t would render them for systematic trea tm en t.

We are not asked first to consider what Cajetan, or new

schoolmen such as Ross and Mclnemy, would call the

analogical term "game" as it variously signifiesan

approach that tends to privilege some original or

paradigmatic use of the word and then systematically

derives others by way of a causal or logical argument.

Instead / the reader am asked to consider what is shared

between the various proceedingsth at we call "games,"

setting me on a path that teeters precariously between

spheres of discourse and nondiscursive practice thatis,the

ambiguous domain where tinalogy does its work.

"Don't think , bu t look "

s

the imperative tha t undermines

the tyranny of systematic thought that superimposes

discursive iden tities over related hum an activities. I am

asked to give up my assumption that, in a set of activities

similarly named,

all

share something in common. Nor can

I begin w ith a definition of "game" (tha t they are "amusing,"

that they involve winning and losing, and so forth) and

derive from this examples that instantiate the rule.

W ittgenstein asks the reader instead to 'look for example at

board-games" and then to "pass to card-games." But he

refuses to specify in words what properties the two geimes

might share; tha tis,he refuses to circumscribe discursively

the intended domain of perception. Each reader will "look"

at different board games, at different card-games, and at

different aspects of these

games,

manifesting in practice the

ad hoc na tu re of normal synthetic observations.

But which s3Tithetic observations exactly? Oddly those

indicated by a general termin this case "game." After a


18/27


sbort lap around the hermeneutic circle, tbe far side of

wb icb took us tb ro ug b tb e lonely realm of si lent refiection,

we wind up together back at tb e beginning. Tb ere we

wonder once again about relat ionships between var ious

activit ies gatbered under tbe rubric of a common term.

Now, bowever, relat ionsbips of identi ty have been left

behind , and tbe netwo rk of sim ilari t ies overlapp ing and

criss-crossing betw een gam e activit ies b as been cbara cter-

ized in term s of family resem blanc es, or al terna tively, by

analogy. W ittgenstein ask s, Isn' t my know ledge, m y

concept of a gam e, completely expressed in the exp lana tions

th a t I could give? T b at is , in m y describing exam ples of

various kinds of games; sbowing how all sorts of other

gam es can be construc ted on th e analogy of th es e; sa ying

th a t I should scarcely include this or th is am on g gam es; an d

so on Investigations, 1175). W ittgens tein is sug ge sting

th a t analogy isthe proactive m ea ns by w bicb a concept such

as game can rea ch beyond ex tan t cases, w be rea s family

resem blance provides th e retroactive m ea ns to describe th e

spacings, or relat ion ship s, the reby cre ated: two sides of th e

s a me

coin.^^

M oreover, we are now justified w he n we specify

th a t th e term gam e functions ne ithe r equivocally nor

univocally, bu t ra tb er in a m an ne r ak in to th a t described by

Cajetan; th at is , th e te rm functions analogically.

But without semantic rules to differentiate games from

non-gam es, how do we know w hen our analogies a re overex-

tende d? Analogies can certainly be m isleading, bu t w ha t

cri teriadowe use to m ake such a judgm ent? He re

The Blue

Bookhelps us:

When we say that by our method we try to counteract the

misleading effect of certain analogies, it is important that you

should unders tand th at the idea of an analogy being mislea


19/27

Daniel M. Gross 75

patterns stresses analogies between cases often far apart. And

by doing this these expressions may be extremely useful. It is,

in most cases, impossible to show an exact point where an

analogy begins to misleadus. (28)

A re we bound to say that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are two

people or the same person who merely changes? Neither,

claims Wittgenstein in he

Blue

Book All depends on how

w e use the word person. For theordinaryuse of the word

'person' is what one might call a composite use suitable

un de r the ordinary circumstances (62).Wecan try to make

u p a new notation or language game if we so desire, bu t it

will have neither use nor meaning if not tied in some

understandable way to the network of inherited language

gimes. This is W ittgenstein's argum ent against th e possi-

bility of a private language, and it

is

as well an argum ent for

the value of analogy that echoes through the writing of

Cajetan and Foucault.

In their critictd work Michel Foucault: Beyond

Structuralism and Herm eneutics Hubert Dreyfus and Paul

Rabinow draw Wittgenstein and Foucault together precisely

a t this point.^^ To the question, are the re me taru les

describing transformations? he answers that 'archaeology

tri es to establish the

system

of transform ations th at consti-

tu te change.' But this 'system' tu rn s out to be more like a

case of Wittgenstein family resemblance, where, within a

family, certain similarities persist while others drop out and

new ones show up, than like rule-governed re structu ring

of

th e so rt one might find in Piaget or Lvi-Strauss (74,

origina l emphasis). Dreyfus and Rabinow continue: In the

last analysis, in the struggle between ultimate dispersion

an d discontinuity on the

one

hand , and the rules for system-

atic change that would restore order and intelligibility on

the other, Foucavilt seems to hesitate, as if he is drawn to

both tdtematives and finds neither entirely satisfactory.

Like a true phenomenologist, whether Husserlian or

W ittgensteinian, h is solution is

to

stick as closely as possible

to the facts of dispersion and then to call the resxilting

description a 'system of transform ation'

(74).

But Dreyfus

and Rabinow believe that such question-begging fails to


20/27


ult im ately t ea se fi-om Fou cault 's late r wo rk a th eo ry of

K uh nian paradigms and practices designed to explain how

transfo rm ation s ha pp en (197-202). My the sis is precisely

that his tor ical ly sensi t ive analogies , and not paradigms,

tak e Foucault beyond s t ruc tura l ism and herm eneu t ics .

No strict rules determine how an expression can be

extended by analogy, and nothing general can be said th at

m ight circumscribe such extension. Sem antic nod es in our

language fork periodically and unpredictably, leaving

analogical ter m s behind. Bu t f i'om W ittgenste in's pe rspec-

tive, linguistic exfoliation occurs according to chance,

ci rcumstance and need, rather than according to a divine

plan. They provide a m eans to m ake un system atic moves in

a languag e gam e, to s t retch th e bound aries of lang ua ge as

described, say, by Cajetan. Bu t ult im ately such moves m us t

confront wh at W ittgenstein calls the insti tu tion of lang ua ge

and al l i t s surroun dings (Investigations, ^540) . No ne have

shown more clear ly th an Foucaul t th at th e surrou nd ings of

lfinguage one must confront when drawing analogies are

composed in te rm s of history . In th e final sec tion, I show

how Foucault 's poststruc turalist methodology crystall ized in

The History of Sexuality.

Foucault s Sym pathetic Analogies

The later Foucaul t researches how sym pathies ha ve been

systematically confined, while plotting in his own creative

com parisons new rou tes for escape. How ever, Fou cault

describes th e magical play of sym path ies first in a pas sag e

firom The Grder of Thingsa passage th a t purpor t s to

describe a f igure unique to the Renaissance, but actually

appears to be a displaced description of Foucault 's own

po ststru ctu ralist methodology. U nlike a system atic analogy,

sym path y is not content to spring from a single con tact and

speed through space; i t excites the things of the world to

movement and can draw even the most dis tant of them

togeth er. I t is a principle of m ob ili ty. . . . H ere , no pa th ha s

bee n determ ined in advance, no distance laid down, no l inks

prescr ibed (The Order of Things, 23).^* In the History of


21/27

Daniel M. Gross 77

Sexuality

it is the contingency of analogies that matters.

Analogies that could march lock-step across a grid of

categories inscribing themselves in allegory along the way

are left instead to wander from the system that justifies

them . Sympathetic ansdogies are rendered in the ir stead.

Take Foucault's pointed deconstruction of a typically modern

analogy: father:family::sovereign:society.'' (And note th at

this passage comes from a chapter of

The istoryof Sexual-

ity

on Method ):

the father in the family is not the representative of the

sovereign or the s tate ; and the latte r are not projections of the

fatherona different scale. hefamilydoesnot duplicate society,

ju st as society does not im itate the family. But the family

organization, precisely to the extent that it was insular and

heteromorphous with respect to the other power mechanisms,

was used to support the great maneuvers employed for the

Malthusian control of the birthrate, for the populationist

incitements, for the medicalization of sex and the

psychiatrization of its nongenital forms. (100)

A typically knotty passage, but one worth close scrutiny.

The point is that no strict rule, no direct causality, and no

predetermined proportionedity generates the similarity

between the father and the sovereign, or between the family

and society. Rather these insular and heteromorphous

pairings were used at a particular historical moment to

implement and justify a particular kind of social

policy.

And

it is Foucault's job to generate an argument around this

seemingly natural analogy that reinscribes its local and

accidental character. That is genealogy in its negative

moment. Its positive momentexploited by Foucault

throughout h is scholarly lifecan best be seen in volumes

two and three ofThe istoryof Sexuality.

Foucault's subtle game of argumentative defamiliarization

shapes the very last passage of his entire published

th a t planet; on the oth er heind, it can be broug ht into being by a simp le co ntactas

with thos e mourning roses tha t have been used at obsequies' wh ich, simply from

the ir former adjacency with de ath, will render all persons who smell the m 'sad an d


22/27


corpus a passage d e s i g n e ^ originally to serve as a

transi t ion to

Les Aveux de la Chair

the ant ic ipated fourth

volume of The History of Sexuality. There he a rgues th a t

the C hris tian ethics th a t we sti l l, in m an y

ways ,

view as o ur

own remain analogous to those of fourth-century Greece,

bu t derive from a different w ay of co ns tituti ng oneself as

th e ethical subject of one's sex ua l behavior. ^^ Th is hist or i-

cal claim is set up in par t by m eetin g th e rhetorical bu rde n

dem anded by analogical ter m s lur kin g in th e record. Am ong

other thing s, Foucau lt m us t explain precisely how th e sex

pathologies th at begin to em erge in au ste re m edical trac ts

ar e not exactly Ch ris tian evils, nor could they be univocally

related to m od em sex pathologies. In the se [ancient]

medical regim ens, Foucault rem ind s us ,

one sees a certa in pathologization of th e sexu al act ta ke place.

But there mus t be no m isunde rstanding on this point : the

development in question is in no way similar to the one that

occurred much late r in W estern societies, wh en sexual b ehavior

was perceived as a bearer of un he al th y deviation. . . . I t is

important to understand that this medicine of the chrsesis

aphrodision [or uses of pleasure ] did no t aim to delim it th e

p athological forms of sexu al behav ior: ra th er , it uncov ered, at

the root of sexual acts, an element of passivity that was also a

source of illness, according to the double meaning of the word

pathos. The sexual act is not an evil; i t ma nifests a p erm an en t

focus of possible ills. (142)

In fact, Foucault's genealogies regularly entail a reflexive

moment when analogical terms are carefully isolated:

isolated both from the

xmivoc l

interpretation th at produces

a mistaken history, andfromhe antihistory of equivocation.

Here Foucault does insist upon the kinship of an ancient

and a modern sexual pathology, in the scare quotes th at

remind us tha t heismaking a discursive

point

The kinship

is proposed as self-evident; one sees it at least in the

grapheme. But the next sentence insists th at an ancient

sexual pathology is

in no way similar

to the modem.

This paradox with a purpose should now be fam,iliar. In

a manner reminiscent of Hegel's dialectic, the analogical

term pathology is proposed first as necessary, and then as


23/27

DanielM.Gross 79

negates tbe otber. But, out of tbis logical contradiction, two

new directions are opened for tbougbt: first, it m akes room

for an argument detailing bow two practices can differ in

every way wbile maintaining a kinsbipin tbe sense first

described by W ittgenstein. However, unlike Wittgenstein,

Foucault believes tb at tbe precise contours of tuiy a fortiori

description are critical. It matter s wbo tells tbe story , in

wbat historical context, and what purposes are tbereby

served. In sbort, Foucault takes any weigbty description as

a function of power. Second, tb e psirticular danger of using

discursive means recklessly

to

identify tbe nondiscursive is

set before tbe eyes stylistically. ^^ It is tbe bsillmark of

Foucavdt's work, or tbe work of any rigorous analogical

tbinker, to characterize in language tbe troubled relation-

sbip between language and practice marked by tbe analogi-

cal aporia. Tbis done, tbe past is prepared for strategic use.

Foucault's passive positivities loosen tbe ties tbat bind

form to identity. His analogies do not commit tb e bisto rian

to a surreptitious metapbysics, but neitber are tbey inert

descriptions. Tbey can be used. W itness for ins tance bow

tbe classicist David Halperin structures

Saint Foucault

aroxmd tbe analogical term homosexual ascesis. Tbe term

is first elaborated as tbe spiritual exercises of etbical

self

fasbioning, by wbicb modern subjects can acbieve transcen-

dence. ^^ Tben the structviral isomorphism betw een

ancient and m odern forms of ascesis is detailed as Foucault

would do in his skeptical moments: it is secular, not

Christian

. . calls not for less pleasure but for vas tly more

pleasure, and so on. W bat a study such as H alperin's

suggests, as do works by the likes of Paul Veyne, Arnold

26.

Hayden White indeed claims th at a Rousselian nongeneralized

style

holds

Foucault 's works together, be it the certain constant man ner of speaking of

Foucault 's early texts or the

style renvers

of his genealogies. I hav e been argu ing

that the style that draws these two periods of Foucault 's work together is

specically analogical. See W hite, Foucault's Discourse: T he Histo riograp hy of

Anti-Humanism,

The Content of the Form

(Baltimore: Jo hn s Ho pkins UP , 1987),

139-40.


24/27


Davidson, and Jonathan Goldberg, is that Foucaul t ' s

revision ist histo ry of ethics far exceeds th e

tour de force

of a

clever an d co ntrary antih istorian . I t in fact provides a

posit ive historical method for scholars working in gender

studies and beyond.

Not surprisingly, a historical method that al lows one to

move fiuidly betw een d isp ara te discourses also h a s informed

cultural history, and especially its literary offspring, the

New Historicism. Analogy in a Fou cauld ian mode plays a

central role, for instance, in Jacqueline Lichtenstein's

The

Eloquence of

Color

Rhetoric and Painting in the French

Classical

ge

(a book that appeared in the Cultural Poetics

series edited

y

Stephen Greenblatt): in painting , color had

the same relation to drawing tha t the odyhad to discourse

in rhetoric: the same uncomfortable place th a t Platonic

metaphysics assigned to the visible and its images. ^^ Or

consider the diachronic analogy already formed in the title

of Kevin Sharpe and Stephen N. Zwicker's Refiguring

Revo lutions: Aesthetics and Politics from the E nglish

RevolutiontotheR omantic Revolution:

where the English

Civil War had fractured the Renaissance body politic, the

French Revolution deconstructed the rom antic self For

literary histo rians, analogies between political and aesthetic

28. Thuswecan un de rsta nd th at the eloquent body and pictorial color provoked

similar perplexities in different domains that are centuries apart. . . . Rhetoric

wished to control its eloquence with in the re gulated

discourse;

pa inting, to inscrihe

the rules of discoiirse with in its images. Jacq ueline Lich tenstein ,T he Eloquence

of Color: Rhetoric and P ainting in the French C lassical Age t rans. Emily

McVarish (Berkeley: U of California P, 1993), 6-7; Steph en G ree nbl att famously

articulates the logic of analogous thinking in

Shakespearean Negotiations: The

Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England

(Berkeley: U of California P ,

1988), 5-12. Th ere G reen blatt defines cultura l poetics as study of th e collective

making of distinct cultured practices tind inquiry into the relations among these

practices, and the n specifies the relationa l modes tha t tran sfer a social practice

to th e stage , one of which he term s metap horical acquisition : Metaphorical

acquisition works by teasing out latent homologies, similitudes, systems of

likeness, but it depends equally upon a deliberate distmcing or distortion that

precedes the disclosure of

likeness.

Hence a play will insis t upon th e difference

between its repres enta tion an d th e real, only to draw out to the analogy or

proportion linking them. Like Foucau lt describing the play of sym pathie s in the


25/27

DanielM.Gross 81

discourses are a favorite topic, while historians of science

have favored analogies between political and scientific

discourses.^ If any thing, literary and other sorts of cultu ral

historiansoverexten analogies just as W ittgenstein feared,

hopping nimbly firom one discourse to another or one

historical period to another, rather than providing causal

explanations for apparent similaritiesthe dirty work of

historical reasoning. Remember, Foucault avoids over-

extending analogies by asking in each case how discursive

similarities are a function of power. W hat purposes a re

served in comparing the pervert to the libertine? W hat

research programs created? What historical narratives

rewritten?

Though innovative insofar as power san explicit concern

when establishing sympathetic analogies, Foucault's

historical method is not completely without precedent.

Surprising is that the precedent is not established by

NietzscheFoucault's chosen masterbut rather by the

very masters of late n ineteenth-century German historicism

against whom Nietzsche's genealogical method is positioned:

Ranke, Droysen, Dilthey, and, later in the trad ition, Hans-

Georg Gadamer. For these proponents ofthe herm eneu tic

method, as for Foucault, sympathy is a basic condition for

historical knowledge. Itis,as Gadamer describes it, a form

of relationship between I and Thou, a form of love that

allows the historian to achieve an understand ing o fthe pas t

th at would otherwise be impossible. W hether the rela tion-

30.

A kind of Fou cauldia n analogy in the history of science is exemplified by

John Rogers in The Matter of Revolution: Science Poetry and Politics in the Age

of Milton

(Ithaca: Cornell U P,

1996),

who argu es in his preface th a t discourses of

seventeen th-centiuy political philosophy and na tura l philosophy are inseparable .

In a footnote, Rogers revea ls his methodological inspiration: I hav e found mo re

congenial to my own approach the h istories of science th at h ave stu died the politics

of natural philosophy with an eye to the analogical rhetoric of physical

explanation, including Carolyn Mercha nt,The Death of Nature: Wom en Ecology

and the Scientific Revolution

(San Francisco: Ha rper and Row, 1980); Ja m es R.

Jacoh and Marg aret C. Jaco b, The Anglican Origins of M ode m Science: The

Metaphysical Foimdations ofthe Whig Constitution, /sis 71 (1980): 251-67; Otto


26/27

g2 Foucault's Analogies

ship of Thucidydes to Pericles or Rsuike to Lu the r, sy m pa thy

guid es th e choice of historica l object and in itiate s in te rp re ta -

t ion. Bu t as Ga dam er is quick to point out , sjnnp athy is also

m uch more th an simply a condit ion of knowledge. T hro ug h

it , iuiother person is t ransform ed at th e sam e t ime. '^

The sym pathy (or ant ipathy ) a his to r ian feels tow ard his

or h er object is not pris tine a nd de tach ed , no r does th e object

leave the his toria n unaffected. As Fou cault reve als in his

discussion of the Renaissance episteme, sympathy is an

inten se and m utual ly t ransform at ive at t ract ion. W ha t is

m ore, i t need not be ju st an em otional condit ion rela t ing two

people; i t can relate and transfo rm way s of being as well , or

even inan im ate thing s. His tor ical analysis th at re lates

modern ethics to an ancient aesthetics of existence is

useful to Fo ucau lt precisely for th is rea son . By isola ting ,

for instance, the austere art of l iving in fourth-century

Greece from the familiar nsirrat ive that renders i t propor-

tionally analog ous to a mo de rn science of sex, Fo uc au lt frees

i t to reso na te with and tran sform ou r m od ern way of l iving.

Th us rese arch ing wh at we are n ot , or how thing s differ, is

not th e historian 's only task . On the contrary, i t is wh en

things enter into analogical resonance th a t i t becomes

wo rthwhile to think .

The University of Iowa

Iowa City Iowa


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Documents

Foucault's Analogies, or How to Be a Historian of the Present without Being a Presentist