Abstract
Even a brief survey of the literature produced on Foucault’s work reveals an overwhelming interest in the question of how his work is to be classified. What ‘discipline’ can it be annexed to? What use can be made of it? What sections of the library can we find his books in? Alan Sheridan spells out quite well the kind of puzzlement a great many readers feel when they open Foucault’s books. He also spells out the reply of a certain kind of commentary:
‘Is he some kind of philosopher?’ ‘Well, yes in a way’, one answers. ‘Then why does he write not about Plato, Descartes and Kant, but about the history of madness and medicine, prisons and sexuality?’ ‘Well, he is more of a historian than a philosopher, though his approach to his material is very different from that of a historian.’ ‘Ah, a historian of ideas!’ ‘Well, no …. In fact it was to distinguish what he was doing from the history of ideas that he coined the term ‘archaeology of knowledge’.1
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Notes
For a brief historical account of the reasons for this French philosophical journalism see Foucault, ‘Le Piège de Vincennes’, 1970, pp.33–5.
Ariès, ‘L’Histoire des mentalités’ 1978, pp.411, 412; 1980, p.144; ‘La Singulière Histoire’, 1978, p.88. See also Veyne, 1978, pp.203–4, 231, 242; Bellour 1977, p.21. Veyne declares that after reading Foucault he changed his practice of history. Foucault in his turn acknowledges his debt to Paul Veyne and the latter’s influence on his last two books. UP:14.
Braudel, ‘Preface’ to Stoianovich 1976, pp.16–17; for other comments in a similar vein see Revel 1975, pp.11–12; Solé 1972, p.473; Le Goff 1978, p.15; Quétel 1981, p.17; Misrahi 1959, pp.99, 105–6.
Ariès, L’Histoire des mentalités’, 1978, p.412. Ariès’ own work on death, childhood and population has contributed to this trend. See also Veyne, 1984, p.11.
On the Same and the Other and the ‘horizon of finitude’ or the ‘finitude of the horizon’ (limits) and history, see also Derrida, ‘Violence et métaphysique’, 1967, esp. pp.165–74.
Foucault, ‘Theatrum philosophicum’, 1970, p.899.
MC:351–4; cf. Foucault, ‘Préface à la transgression’, 1963, p.758.
Foucault, ‘La Pensée du dehors’, 1966, p.528. For an excellent analysis of Foucault’s ‘archaeology’ as a ‘theory of frontiers, a marginalism’, see Michel Serres, 1968, p.195. Bourdieu (1984, p.10) also remarks ‘Foucault’s work is a long exploration of transgression, of the crossing of the social limit.’
Foucault, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in Rabinow 1984, p.45.
Foucault, ‘Préface à la transgression’, 1963, pp.755, 757; cf. ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in Rabinow 1984, p.47.
Foucault, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in Rabinow 1984, p.46.
Foucault, ‘Hommage à Jean Hyppolite’, 1969, p.132.
Foucault, ‘Débat sur la poésie’, 1964, p.76.
See Foucault, ‘Un cours inédit’, 1984, p.35.
For a similar point concerning Foucault’s methodology, Colin Gordon recalls that the historicisation of the Kantian problem is a pre-eminently Nietzschean theme.’ ‘Afterword’, in PK.236. Cf also Rajchman, The Freedom of Philosophy, 1985, pp.103–4.
Foucault, ‘On the Genealogy of Ethics’, in Rabinow 1984, p.351.
On history as an anti-metaphysical solution see Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire’, 1971, pp.150, 159; cf. ‘space. Knowledge, Power’, in Rabinow 1984, p.250. It must be emphasised that this does not mean that a ‘history of the limits’ is not devoid of its own kind of metaphysics.
Foucault ‘Le Retour de la morale’, 1984, p.40. It may be noted, however, that when asked at different stages of his career about ‘influences’, Foucault gave a variety of different answers.
AS:32; cf. Foucault, ‘Deuxième entretien’, 1971, p.193; ‘Linguistique et sciences sociales’, 1969, p.254.
Foucault, ‘Foucault répond a Sartre’, 1968, pp.21–2.
AS:31, cf. p.44; cf. Foucault, ‘Réponse à une question’, 1968, p.854.
Foucault, ‘Foucault répond à Sartre’, 1968, p.21.
See AS:31–43, chapter titled ‘Les Unités du discours’ for a detailed analysis and rejection of these categories. See also Foucault, ‘Réponse à une question’, 1968, pp.851–2; and ‘La Situation de Cuvier’, 1970, p.88.
Foucault, ‘Deuxième entretien’, 1971, p.205.
Foucault, ‘A conversation with M. Foucault’, 1971, p.192; cf. ‘Deuxième entretien’, 1971, pp.189–91; the introduction to AS and pp.225–7, 265; ‘Réponse a une question’, 1968, pp.857, 860; Foucault répond à Sartre’, 1968, pp.21–2.
Foucault, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in Rabinow 1984, p.47.
See Foucault, ‘La Poussière et le nuage’, 1980, p.44; ‘Structuralism and Post-Structuralism’, 1983, p.206. Or as Foucault puts it in ‘Theatrum philosophicum’, 1970, p.906: ‘In its fracture, in its repetition, the present is a throw of the dice’, cf. p.895. In 1970, Foucault seems to have developed quite an enthusiasm for describing history as the result of ‘a throw of the dice’: cf. ‘Croître et multiplier’, 1970, p.13 and ‘Préface à Brisset’, 1970, p.x.
Foucault, ‘Le Retour de la morale’, 1984, p.38. In reference to these rhetorical methods, Fons Elders (1974, p.288) adding his own rhetorical exaggeration, considers that Foucault’s ‘style conjures up images of a general of the Ming dynasty or a Count Dracula. He likes to reject any expression of emotion.’
Foucault, ‘La Folie l’absence de l’oeuvre’, in HF 1972, p.578.
Foucault, ‘On the Genealogy of Ethics’, in Rabinow 1984, p.351.
Foucault, ‘Vérité et pouvoir’, 1977, p. 19, trans. as ‘Truth and Power’, in Morris and Patton 1979, p.34.
Foucault, ‘Interview with Lucette Finas’, in Morris and Patton 1979, p.67.
Foucault, ‘Power and Norm’, in Morris and Patton 1979, pp.88–9.
Foucault, ‘Des supplices aux cellules’, 1975, p.16. Jean Baudrillard comments: ‘The very perfection of this analytical chronical of power is worrying’ and describes Foucault’s writing as ‘too beautiful to be true’, 1977, p.12.
Foucault, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in Rabinow 1984, p.47.
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O’Farrell, C. (1989). The Same, the Other and the Limit. In: Foucault. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13106-8_2
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