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KesimpulanIn his essay on Kant’s ‘What is Enlightenment?’ (Was ist Aufklärung?), Foucault writes of his work as being an ‘historical ontology of ourselves’ through a critique of what we do, say and think. He makes clear throughout the essay what this form of critique is not: not a theory, doctrine, or body of knowledge that accumulates over time. Instead, it is an attitude, ‘an ethos, a philosophical life in which the cririque of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them’ (Foucault, 1984: 50). What is the motivation for this work? ‘How can the growth of capabilities be disconnected from the intensification of power relations?’ (ibid.: 48). There is no ‘gesture of rejection’ in this ethos. It moves beyond the ‘outside-inside alternative’ in the name of a critique that ‘consists of analyzing and reflecting upon limits’ (ibid.: 45). The purpose being ‘to transform the critique conducted in the form of necessarry limitation into a practical critique that takes the form of a possible transgression’ (ibid.: 45). Overall, it is genealogical in form: ‘it will not deduce from the form of what we are what it is impossible for us to do and to know; but it but it will separate out, from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think’ (ibid.: 46). The ideal lies in the possibility of setting oneself free. To examine the internal modes of the ordering of truth, but not in the name of a truth that lies beyond it, is seen to open up possibilities for its transgression.Despite criticisms that his work lacked a normative dimension (Fraser, 1989), the orientation of Foucault’s approach is clear. The issue translates into one of how one-sided states of domination can be avoided in order to promote a two-sided relation of dialogue. Foucault’s interventions were practically motivated. The journey for these investigations being from how we are constituted as objects of knowledge to how we are constituted as subjects of power/ knowledge. What we can take from Foucault is the insight that critical approaches to cultural analysis cannot practise on the presupposition that there is an essence to humanity. The idea of coming to knw ourselves differently and viewing the possibilities for transformations, is about interpreting ourselves differently. Between self-definition and social situation lies the potential to render the ‘cultural unconscious apparent’ (Foucault, 1989: 73)
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