#anti-foundationalism

[itsmightyfunny]

Supposing we met people who did not regard [the observations and axioms of physics] as a telling reason. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it? - If we call this "wrong" aren't we using our language-game as a base from which to combat theirs?      And are we right or wrong to combat it? Of course there are all sorts of slogans which will be used to support our proceedings.      Where two principles really do met which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic.      I said I would "combat" the other man, -but wouldn't I give him reasons? Certainly; but how far do they go? At the end of reasons comes persuasion. (Think what happens when missionaries convert natives).

Wittgenstein

[fourthdiscourse]

A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought the practices that we accept rest.

Michel Foucault

[sterwood-blog]

Okay, maybe someone can help me here, because I'm seriously not understanding this.

I looked up the Wikipedia page on the term 'subject' for philosophy (here) and it says that "In critical theory and psychology, subjectivity is also the actions or discourses that produce individuals or 'I'—the 'I' is the subject" So, is 'subject' just supposed to mean the conglomerate of intentions we bring along with us when trying to form the notion of a 'subject'? And then individual is supposed to mean just a single person, or an undivided substance (basically as opposed to anything multiple, or not "individuated")? Because then I don't really get what the difference is. We still intend upon individual entities, and the subject is would just be a category underneath the heading of "individual". If you're going to play into the whole notion of discourses creating a subject (which I don't think I really do), then they also play into creating the individual, and there's really no concrete between them, in that sense?

Or, as that Wikipedia article seems to imply as well, is the subject just supposed to be the container of "individual" qualities that constitute it (via Hume)? Because then there seems to be serious mereological problems with making such a distinction between the subject and the individual: subjects would be individuals, and individuals would be subjects (an idea I'm not entirely opposed to), and there'd be no reason to draw any sort of distinction between them.

I also went to the wikipedia page for postmodernism, and it said one of the tenets of a postmodern philosophy is an "anti-foundationalist concept of the subject" (here, second paragraph). So, there's no fundamental grounding upon which we can create a notion of subjectivity. Cool, I can get behind that. But that just means that the subject lacks a timeless essence, not that the subject doesn't exist. And that still doesn't really clarify why the subject couldn't be considered an "individual" and why the two terms are supposed to be kept necessarily apart.

So if anyone could help here, or even just point me in a good direction, I'd really appreciate it.

[philosomeme-blog-blog]

The original author bio image from: "Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism in Composition Studies." Pre/Text 7 (1986): 37-57.