Foucault_A Very Short Introduction
Foucault: A Very Short Introduction
* * *
VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide.
The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology.
* * *
Very Short Introductions available now:
ANARCHISM Colin Ward
ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas
ANCIENT WARFARE Harry Sidebottom
THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair
ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia
ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn
ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne
ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes
ART HISTORY Dana Arnold
ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland
THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin
ATHEISM Julian Baggini
AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick
BARTHES Jonathan Culler
THE BIBLE John Riches
BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright
BUDDHA Michael Carrithers
BUDDHISM Damien Keown
CAPITALISM James Fulcher
THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe
CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham
CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson
CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead
CLASSICS Mary Beard and John Henderson
CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard
THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon
CONSCIOUSNESS Sue Blackmore
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Simon Critchley
COSMOLOGY Peter Coles
CRYPTOGRAPHY Fred Piper and Sean Murphy
DADA AND SURREALISM David Hopkins
DARWIN Jonathan Howard
DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick
DESCARTES Tom Sorell
DRUGS Leslie Iversen
THE EARTH Martin Redfern
EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Paul Langford
EMOTION Dylan Evans
EMPIRE Stephen Howe
ENGELS Terrell Carver
ETHICS Simon Blackburn
THE EUROPEAN UNION John Pinder
EVOLUTION Brian and Deborah Charlesworth
FASCISM Kevin Passmore
FOUCAULT Gary Gutting
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION William Doyle
FREE WILL Thomas Pink
FREUD Anthony Storr
GALILEO Stillman Drake
GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh
GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger
GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin
HEGEL Peter Singer
HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood
HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson
HINDUISM Kim Knott
HISTORY John H. Arnold
HOBBES Richard Tuck
HUME A. J. Ayer
IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton
INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary
ISLAM Malise Ruthven
JUDAISM Norman Solomon
JUNG Anthony Stevens
KAFKA Ritchie Robertson
KANT Roger Scruton
KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner
THE KORAN Michael Cook
LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews
LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler
LOCKE John Dunn
LOGIC Graham Priest
MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner
MARX Peter Singer
MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers
MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope
MEDIEVAL BRITAIN John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths
MODERN ART David Cottington
MODERN IRELAND Senia Pašeta
MOLECULES Philip Ball
MUSIC Nicholas Cook
MYTH Robert A. Segal
NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner
NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and H. C. G. Matthew
NORTHERN IRELAND Marc Mulholland
PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close
PAUL E. P. Sanders
PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Samir Okasha
PLATO Julia Annas
POLITICS Kenneth Minogue
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY David Miller
POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young
POSTMODERNISM Christopher Butler
POSTSTRUCTURALISM Catherine Belsey
PREHISTORY Chris Gosden
PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY Catherine Osborne
PSYCHOLOGY Gillian Butler and Freda McManus
QUANTUM THEORY John Polkinghorne
ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway
ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler
RUSSELL A. C. Grayling
RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION S. A. Smith
SCHIZOPHRENIA Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone
SCHOPENHAUER Christopher Janaway
SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY John Monaghan and Peter Just
SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce
SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Helen Graham
SPINOZA Roger Scruton
STUART BRITAIN John Morrill
TERRORISM Charles Townshend
THEOLOGY David F. Ford
THE TUDORS John Guy
TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan
WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling
WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman
Available soon:
AFRICAN HISTORY John Parker and Richard Rathbone
THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea
BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown
CHAOS Leonard Smith
CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy
CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE Robert Tavernor
CONTEMPORARY ART Julian Stallabrass
THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman
DERRIDA Simon Glendinning
DESIGN John Heskett
DINOSAURS David Norman
DREAMING J. Allan Hobson
ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta
THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball
THE END OF THE WORLD Bill McGuire
EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn
FEMINISM Margaret Walters
THE FIRST WORLD WAR Michael Howard
FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven
HABERMAS Gordon Finlayson
HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Paul Wilkinson
JAZZ Brian Morton
MANDELA Tom Lodge
THE MARQUIS DE SADE John Phillips
THE MIND Martin Davies
NATIONALISM Steven Grosby
PERCEPTION Richard Gregory
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot
PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards
RACISM Ali Rattansi
THE RAJ Denis Judd
THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton
RENAISSANCE ART Geraldine Johnson
ROMAN EMPIRE Christopher Kelly
SARTRE Christina Howells
SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt
SOCIALISM Michael Newman
TIME Leofranc Holford-Strevens
TRAGEDY Adrian Poole
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Martin Conway
THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION Amrita Narlikar
For more information visit our web site
www.oup.co.uk/vsi/
Gary Gutting
FOUCAULT
A
Very Short Introduction
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan South Korea Poland Portugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© Gary Gutting 2005
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published as a Very Short Introduction 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Gutting, Gary.
Foucault : a very short introduction / Gary Gutting.
p. cm.—(A very short introduction)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Foucault, Michel. I. Title. II. Very short introductions. B2430.F724G86 2005
194—dc22 2004030575
ISBN 0-19-280557-6 (alk. paper)
EAN 9780192805577
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall
To Anastasia as always with love
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of illustrations
1 Lives and works
2 Literature
3 Politics
4 Archaeology
5 Genealogy
6 The masked philosopher
7 Madness
8 Crime and punishment
9 Modern sex
10 Ancient sex
References and further reading
Index
Acknowledgements
I wrote the first draft of this essay during summer 2003, in conjunction with my seminar on Foucault at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt. Many thanks to Axel Honneth for his invitation and many kindnesses, to the students in my Foucault seminar for their interest and questions, and to the staff at the Literaturhaus Restaurant (especially Oliver and Franz) for their hospitality, good food, and splendid wine.
As always, the first and best reader of my manuscript was my wife, Anastasia Friel Gutting. I am also grateful for very helpful comments from Jerry Bruns and Todd May. My thanks to Marsha Filion of OUP for suggesting and supporting this project.
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used throughout to denote works by Foucault.
Foucault’s books
AK (DL)
The Archaeology of Knowledge, tr. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1972). Also includes ‘The Discourse on Language’ (DL), a translation of L’ordre du discours, Foucault’s inaugural address at the Collège de France.
BC
The Birth of the Clinic, tr. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1973).
CS
The Care of the Self, Volume 3 of The History of Sexuality, tr. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1986).
HF
Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (Paris: Gallimard, 1972).
HS
The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction, tr. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1978).
DP
Discipline and Punish, tr. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1977).
MC
Madness and Civilization, tr. Richard Howard (New York: Vintage, 1965). This is a greatly abridged translation of HF.
OT
The Order of Things, tr. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1970). Translation of Les mot et les choses.
RR
Death and the Labyrinth: The World of Raymond Roussel, tr. Charles Ruas (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1986). Translation of Raymond Roussel. Includes an interview of Foucault by Charles Ruas.
UP
The Use of Pleasures, Volume 2 of The History of Sexuality, tr. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1985).
Collections of Foucault’s articles, lectures, and interviews
DE
Daniel Defert and François Ewald (eds), Dits et écrits, 1954–1988, four volumes (Paris: Gallimard, 1994). Includes virtually everything, other than his books, that Foucault published.
EW
The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, ed. Paul Rabinow. A three-volume translation of selections from Dits et écrits.
EW I
Volume 1, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow, tr. Robert Hurley et al. (New York: New Press, 1997).
EW II
Volume 2, Aesthetics: Method and Epistemology, ed. James Faubion, tr. Robert Hurley et al. (New York: New Press, 1998).
EW III
Volume 3, Power, ed. James Faubion, tr. Robert Hurley et al. (New York: New Press, 2000).
P/K
Colin Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (New York: Pantheon, 1980).
PPC
Lawrence Kritzman (ed.), Michel Foucault: Philosophy, Politics, Culture, tr. Alan Sheridan (London: Routledge, 1988).
These last two collections contain some important pieces not in EW.
List of illustrations
1 Foucault at the top of his class
Private collection
2 Raymond Roussel, 1895
© Rue des Archives
3 Georges Bataille
© Photos12.com/Interfoto
4 Foucault and Sartre
© Gérard Aimé
5 Foucault talking at W. Berlin Technical University, 1978
© Raymond Depardon/Magnum Photos
6 Georges Cuvier examining animal fossils
© Bettmann/Corbis
7 ‘The Holy Trinity’: Lou Salomé, Paul Rée, and Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882
© akg-images
8 Immanuel Kant
© 2004 TopFoto.co.uk
9 Gaston Bachelard
© Rue des Archives
10 Pinel Freeing the Insane (1876), oil painting by Tony Robert-Fleury Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris
© Photos12.com/ARJ