Foucault

What is Continental Philosophy? Can anyone give me an exhaustive understanding of this branch of philosophy?

As finals, and the semester, come to a close I plan on reading as much Continental Philosophy as I can. Shayan and Ray... I know you both have read a fair amount in this area and would appreciate yours and everyone else's suggestions.

Here and there I have been building notes and an outline concerning Michel Foucault and his works (pirmarily Madness and Civilization, since I haven't exhausted the work and am hesitant to move on until I do). It is sort of a hobby and I would like to share some of this and invite thoughts about my representation of Foucault and his ideas.

Foucault Bio:

Foucault was born in Poitiers, France, on June 15, 1926.

Foucault became academically established in the 1960’s and went on to hold numerous and varied positions in top French Universities (also to include a stint at UC Berkeley in 1983) before he finished out his career as the Professor of the History of Systems of Thought at the College de France, this latter position is still considered one of the highest academic positions in French education. Primarily concerned with the histories and related impacts of medicine and social sciences, Foucault’s passions lead him to protest on behalf of homosexuals and other groups he felt were marginalized in society. Foucault died in Paris on June 25^th, 1984 due to complications of the AIDS virus.

Foucault’s Most Notable Works:

“Madness and Civilization” (1961)

“The Order of Things” (1966)

“The Order of Discourse” (1971)

“The History of Sexuality” published in three volumes:

Vol. I: An Introduction [1976]

Vol. II: The Use of Pleasure [1984]

Vol. III: The Care of the Self [1984]

“Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology” (1998)

“Power” (2000)

Timeline of Madness:

~The Medieval Period: leprosy fades in prevalence and madness assumes its station in society. Madness is seen as having a dark connection with (if not inspired by) the divine. Society’s attitude toward madness in this period is marked by a curious admiration.

~The Renaissance: The 17^th Century’s full integration of madness into society; art and literature give it a voice.

FOCUS: Classical Period: 1660-19^th Century

~Foucault sees this period as giving birth to many of the lasting states of our modernity.

~Period of “Confinement” dawns with the building of the Hospital General in 1656 and with a cultural shift in practice and attitude towards madness. Madness shifts from a tolerated part of society to a threat to society’s organization, safety and progress. Society changes its identity as a result of its relation to madness.

Terms relative to Foucault’s interpretation of the Classical Period:

“Confinement:” practice, specific to the 18^th century, whereby society creates a space for social deviants to be locked up, silenced and excluded from society. Included in the list of “deviants” were: criminals, the unproductive poor and the perceived mad. Confinement, like many of Foucault’s categories and definitions, is better understood as a condition of society’s attitude toward deviance and madness rather than a physical condition of bondage or natural phenomenon. The Hospital General became a physical representation of the contrast of society’s shift in attitudes between the 17^th century’s integration of madness and “unreason,” and the 18^th century’s desire to exclude and silence it.

“Madness:” is essentially defined by Foucault as being within the construction and control of the intellectual and cultural forces which operate within society. The treatment of the mad depends fundamentally on how they are perceived. Therefore madness is not a fixed concept which natural phenomena can explain. Madness is always defined against society’s current attitudes and ideas about reason and rationality. In the middle ages, madness was associated with dark secrets and visions of the end of the world; in the classical period it was confined along with other forms of social deviance and lost its “exclusive status.” The modern idea of madness as a treatable mental disease developed from nineteenth century ideas of madness as a kind of moral evil.

“Unreason:” has somewhat of a relationship to madness in that it, too, is a non-static term defined in relation to reason. Foucault calls “unreason” reason “dazzled”. It seems that he means to say that “reason dazzled” is an alternative perspective of experience and reality which can be a symptom of madness or can also be completely distinct from it.

“Delirium:” the general move away from reason (by whatever cause) and made sustainable by a “discourse.”

“Discourse:” central to most of Foucault’s work: a totaled system of knowledge which makes certain statements either true or false. Ex: A madman’s discourse is “especially powerful” citing that it consistently allows the subject’s deviance to be sustained.

“Police:” defined by Foucault as dealing with an ideological set of practices meant to facilitate work and to protect the interests of work and the “order” it provides society. Work as being inherently “good” rose primarily as a Christian theme. Madmen and the practitioners of unreason consistently contrast to this idea of society.

~Role of the Passions:

“The possibility of madness is therefore implicit in the very phenomenon of passion.”

~M. Foucault, “Madness and Civilization”

***(Cartesian link between mind and body (soul and body), thus allowing madness???)

~19^th Century: Characterized by the end of “classical confinement” and an additional shift in attitude toward madness, making it a condition of moral evil and “treatable” in asylums by the employment of religiously influenced power relationships between doctor and patient.

Source Voices of Foucault’s madmen: King Lear, Artaud, Nietzsche and more…

“Since the end of the nineteenth century, unreason no longer manifests itself except in the lightning flash of works such as those of Hoederlin, of Nerval, of Nietzsche, or of Artaud.”

~Foucault, “Madness and Civilization”

Foucault’s Conclusions about Madness and Civilization:

Foucault claims that we don’t listen to the voice of the madman, that psychoanalysis and all other forms of “treatment” used under the guise of a positive “confinement” are a façade and a symptom of how we are bound to the paradigms of a particular era.

Foucault sees the relationship of art to madness as being the only avenue through which “unreason” and “madness” can surface to be understood and appreciated even considering the efforts of the aforementioned medical structures to hide it. Foucault also claims that art attempts to “fight against the world” and to reconcile the balance between madness and society by “asking the world disturbing questions and requiring answers.” This provides a stark contrast to the solution proposed by modern psychiatrists and psychologists who impose a perspective of moral judgment onto their captive subjects. Madness exists in the undercurrent of society in the works of mad authors and should be considered in such light to find relevance rather than to have it marginalized.

Implications for a Critique of Historical Reason: ??

With this perspective involving the historical analysis of the reason of society, Foucault hijacks the project of modern epistemology from the hands of Kant.

:::::::ITEMS TO EXPAND:::::

Form a chart from: Descartes to Foucault Does

Foucault stand Kant on his head??

General Controversy & Critique:

Historical Inaccuracy: The Ship of Fools?

Preferential sampling: artists & their interesting products are Foucault’s focus

~the mundane “madman” seems uninteresting to Foucault

~calls into question the universality of Foucault’s picture of the madman

Gen. Note~Foucault’s sentence structure can be very cloudy and unclear: intended to let the reader experience the “discourse” of the madman? or simply an inability to write clearly due to an affinity for obscurity?

Brings to mind Nietzsche:

"Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water."

~Nietzsche....aphorisms, source???

BIO POWER:

“Bio-Power” becomes Foucault’s ultimate existential conclusion which attempts to synthesize all his works. Through the synthesis all of his work, Foucault wants us to see that what and who you think you are in your heart as person and as people in a society is nothing more than an evolution of contingent historical factors. He sees the incorporation of the individual’s needs for passion, comfort and accomplishment into the state, as an empowering affirmation of life. This is the potential “bio-power” that modern politics posses to emerge from judgments and repression of the individual, into an era which transcends the chain of historical contingency.