Foucault and Radical Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy is a flourishing variant of democratic theory. John Dryzek and Iris Young are two of its more radical exponents, and here I bring some Foucaultian complications to their work. The radicalness I highlight in both thinkers owes to their different but comparable commitments to equality between different voices in deliberation. Foucault's histories are all histories of expert knowledges and the objects they usher into the world. In this sense, expert knowledges present problems for deliberative democracy, not only because they carry greater status than other knowledges but also because they have ontological effects. As I illustrate with the example of economics, although the programs of Dryzek and Young can cope quite well with the first, the second is a more serious problem, although possibly a positive one.     

Water and Salt (III): An Analysis and New Translation of the Yājñavalkya-Maitreyī Dialogue

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

Designing families and solid citizens: the dialectic of modernity and the Matrimonial Causes Bill, 1959

Policy-makers in the 1940s and 50s were intent on designing families which would produce solid citizens to engage in nation building. Historians offamilism treat it as an expression of modernism: a unifying, oppressive discourse now to be countered by the destabilising project of postmodernism. But this is not the whole story, for it omits the dialectical essence of 'the modern', which promises both 'progress' through technical rationality and individual achievement/self fulfilment. The other side of the dialectic has been avoided by dismissing individualism as a process of interpellation closely tied to the interests of technocratic elites. Out of the discontinuities within modernism there emerged opportunities for agency, the chance for people to make their own lives. The public controversy over the Matrimonial Causes Bill, 1959-at the height of what we are encouraged to think of as the familist decade-is explored as one instance.     

The Broken Past: Fractals in Archaeology

Many archaeological patterns are fractal. Fractal analysis, therefore, has much to contribute to archaeology. This article offers an introduction to fractal analysis for archaeologists. We explain what fractals are, describe the essential methods of fractal analysis, and present archaeological examples. Some examples have been published previously, while others are presented here for the first time. We also explain the connection between fractal geometry and nonlinear dynamical systems. Fractals are the geometry of complex nonlinear systems. Therefore, fractal analysis is an indispensable method in our efforts to understand nonlinearities in past cultural dynamics.     

Review Symposium: The Whitlam Government — three views

Gough Whitlam, The Whitlam Government 1972–1975, Ringwood, Penguin/Viking, 1985, pp.788. $40.00 (cloth), $19.95 (paper).     

Analogien in Physik und Technik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert

In this paper the use of analogies in physics and in technology is analysed. First the important role philosophically deep rooted analogies played in romantic physics is discussed. The work of Schelling and Ritter is treated in particular. Second the mechanical analogue models in the kinetic theory of gases and in electrodynamics are examined, as well as the severe philosophical criticism which they received. A sketch of the theory of the electron gas is presented as an example for the success and the shortcomings of analogue models. Finally mechanical and electric analogue models in technology are considered; moreover biological analogies in engineering research, and the principle of similitude as applied to model experiments in shipbuilding are discussed. The analysis of the historical examples shows that in the 19th and 20th century the word “analogy” is no longer a vague notion. It represents a scientific method, which, however, inevitably leads to both an extension of the original theoretical models and to special theories of mapping.