Від структуралізму до поструктуралізму: мотивація зміни методологічної траєкторії у досвіді Мішеля Фуко

Abstract

Crises are able to change and even ruin the traditional ways of text interpretation. They also affect the production of new phenomena in culture, science, and arts. The experience of Paul-Michel Foucault (1926–1984) is a typical example of how external events lead to drastic changes in scholar’s methodological views. According to G. Deleuze, P.-M. Foucault’s way of thinking «did not evolve, but went through crises». P.-M. Foucault has repeatedly pointed out that revolutionary events are the result of a general restructuring of the episteme. Relying mostly on the works of Maurice Blanchot, Didier Eribon, James Miller, and Paul Veyne, the scientific accomplishments of P.-M. Foucault might be divided into three stages: the archeology of knowledge (until 1968), the genealogy of power (1968-1980), and the esthetics of existence (1980s). The year 1968 has marked the epistemological border between the «archaeological» and «genealogical» stages – the period of change in the methodology of his research. While delivering the course lectures «Man in Western Thought» in 1968 in Tunisia, where (as in Paris) occurred a few student protests, P.-M. Foucault took part in them. At that time P.-M. Foucault possessed expressive «political intuition» (G. Deleuze), so he realized the myth-making function of political ideology and emphasized the importance of «revolutionary energy». At the experimental Vincennes University, which was opened at the request of the demonstrators, he headed the department of philosophy, feeding on the rebellious enthusiasm of communists, Trotskyists and leftists. According to D. Eribon, it was at this time that «a new Foucault was born», the one who embodied the image of an intellectual fighter. Thus, the events of May 1968 caused «the outing of the structure on the street» and even created the new ways of interpretation. In such conditions, trying to get rid of the «shortcuts» and «privileges of structuralism», P.-M. Foucault changed his methodology, as well as articulated a «new subjectivity» in the stream of post-structuralist poetics, which became the leading methodological trend in literary studies of the second half of the XX century – the early XXI centuries.