DUE DATE: Monday 12th Nov
Answer any two questions (1, 000 words each). Questions to be answered on the basis of the course readings
Submission
To the Sophie Office, Third Floor Main Quad with the proper cover sheet attached and plagiarism disclaimer signed. The Take-Home exams will not be returned and late take-home exams will normally not be accepted. The only satisfactory excuses are illness or misadventure. All extension queries address to the coursegiver Dr John Grumley (email: John.Grumley@arts.usyd.edu.au)
QUESTIONS
1. Both Foucault and Weber provide an account of the illusions of science? Are they speaking of the same illusions and, if not, why not? What remains of science after we subtract these illusions?
2. Compare and contrast the analysis of the masses and the elite in Weber and Horkheimer? Is either of these accounts plausible from a contemporary perspective? If not, why?
3. Both Horkheimer and Foucault articulate a critique of modern subjectivity. What arguments do they use to substantiate these critiques and to what extent are their views the same? Are these critiques still relevant?
4. Weber speaks of the institutions of science giving priority to mediocrity. To what extent is this view an endorsement of Horkheimer's claim that in modernity individualism has become "ideological"? Are these views convincing?
5. Both Foucault and Habermas offer critiques of the contemporary welfare state. Compare and contrast these critiques with particular emphasis on the law (Your answer should take into account Foucault’s ‘The Political Technology of Individuals” from the Reader). To what extent are their positions compatible and, if not, why?
6. Both Adorno and Habermas speak of the crisis of modern aesthetics. Are they talking of the same crisis and, if not, what is the difference in their analyses?
7. In Discipline and Punish Foucault maintains 'in its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing and educating'. Later he argues that' Lets take the pedagogical institution...I don't see where evil is in the practice of somebody who, in a given game of truth, knowing more than another, tells him what he must do, teaches him, transmits knowledge to him, communicates skills to him.' What is the tension if any in these two positions and how does Foucault reconcile these trains of thought in the interview ‘The Ethic of the Care of the Self as a Practice of Freedom’? Is he convincing?
