Displacements and Development: A Familiar Foucault

Abstract

“What I am attempting to do and what I have always attempted ever since my first real book Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique,” Foucault explains in a conversation dating from 1978, “is, through intellectual labor, to dispute and question various aspects of society by drawing attention towards their weaknesses and boundaries. My books are, nonetheless, not prophetic, nor do they encourage anyone to take up arms. It annoys me intensely for them to be seen in such a light. The challenge put forth by the books is, in the most explicit manner — and although the vocabulary is difficult — to elucidate the areas of bourgeois culture and institutions that have direct influence upon man’s everyday activities and thoughts.”¹