Look Where the Concept Points: Foucault and the Epistemological Indicator
“In the history of knowledge, the notion of human nature seems to me mainly to have played the role of an epistemological indicator to designate certain types of discourse in relation to or in opposition to theology or biology or history”. — M. Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault debate: On human nature 1. The Finger and the Moon There is an old image of someone pointing at the moon while the person being addressed keeps looking at the finger. The mistake is simple: confusing the indication with what it indicates. Something similar can happen in philosophy. We encounter a familiar term and begin treating it as though it were already a clearly defined object of thought. We ask what freedom is, what justice is, what human nature is. But perhaps the term itself is telling us where to look rather than giving us something to look at. This is one way of approaching an intriguing remark Foucault makes in his 1971 debate with Noam Chomsky. Discussing the notions of life and hum...