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Foucault, Health and Medicine shows how key researchers in the sociology of health and illness are currently engaging with Michel Foucault's ideas. The book's twelve chapters explore: Foucault's concept of discourse; the critique of the medicalization thesis; analysis of the body and the self; Foucault's concepts for feminist research on embodiment and gendered subjectivities; the application of Foucault's notion of governmentality to the analysis of health policy, health promotion and the consumption of health. Offering a state-of-the-art overview of Foucaludian scholarship in the area of health and medicine, this volume will provide a key reference for those working in the areas of medical sociology, health policy, health promotion and feminist studies. ... Read more

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From aesthetics to the penal system, and from madness and civilization to avant-garde literature, Foucault was happy to reject old models of thinking and replace them with fresh versions that are still being debated today. A major influence on Queer Theory and gender studies (he was openly gay and died of an AIDS-related illness in 1984), he also wrote on architecture, history, law, medicine, literature, politics, and of course philosophy. He even managed to write a best seller in France on a book dedicated to the history of systems of thought. Because he never succinctly stated his arguments, those trying to come to terms with Foucault's work have desperately sought introductory material to make his theories clear and accessible for the beginner. Here, Gary Gutting presents a comprehensive but non-systematic treatment of some highlights of Foucault's life and thought. The book begins with a brief biography to set the social and political stage. It then moves on to touch on Foucault's thoughts on literature, in particular the avant-garde scene, his philosophical and historical work and the reception he received from the historical community, his treatment of knowledge and power in modern society, and his thoughts on sexuality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Against Eumerdification
According to Gayatri Chakravority Spivak, Gary Gutting is part of a wider Anglo-American trend who want to "save [Foucault] for Philosophy... One feels the tension of making Foucault fit for the consumption of American students and colleagues; the will to regularize him, normalize him, disciplinarize him." Gutting is one of a select few philosophers -alongside Christopher Norris- who seem fairly at ease both with Anglo-American Philosophy and its Continental counterpart. Like Norris's attempts to utilise and explain Derrida in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Gutting attempts to 'save' Foucault from the many common misconceptions of his work, including the common charge that he is an epistemic relativist or a moral nihilist. Indeed, whilst there is some truth in Spivak's charge that the American appropriation of Foucault and Derrida (thanks in no small part to the works of Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty) have misrepresented their wider projects, Gutting himself manages the deft trick of showing that, while there can be multiple 'readings' of Foucault -of his life and his work- there are still ways to read him against the grain of his intentions. As such, Gutting offers a frank discussion of Foucault's life and work, and teases out the contradictions, difficulties and strengths of a brilliant but opaque individual. And he does a wonderful job, giving the limits of the format and the obtuseness of much of Foucault's work.

Gutting doesn't get it pitch-perfect. This book often requires a little background knowledge from the reader- a section on a discussion about limit-experiences and the public/private dichotomy that involves a critique from Richard Rorty moves too fast for the uninitiated. Similarly, readers more familiar with Continental Philosophy might find Gutting's discussion of whether or not Foucault commits the Genetic Fallacy a tad too analytical. But these are small blips in a book that is lucid, honest, and open.

In the end, I think Spivak's charge against Gutting is unfair and possibly even ignorant. Simplicity and clarity can be political tools just as easily as obscurantism and multiplicity, and if this book exposes people to the 'toolbox' that Foucault attempted to provide to allow them to resist oppression then so much the better. (On the topic of Foucault's often difficult prose, Daniel Dennett recounts a discussion between John Searle and Michel Foucault: 'John Searle once told me about a conversation he had with the late Foucault: 'Michel, you're so clear in conversation; why is your written work so obscure?" To which Foucault replied "That's because, in order to be taken seriously by French Philosophers, twenty-five percent of what you write has to be impenetrable nonsense."I have coined a term for this tactic, in honor of Foucault's candor: eumerdification.') This book is not impenetrable nonsense, but learned, scholarly, and a worthwhile read, both for the uninitiated and the Foucault scholar.

pretty weak
I cannot say I`m scholar on Foucault. However, I`m preparing myself for two presentations in two doctoral seminars. I was hoping this book help me to prepare. It is clearly, for me, pretty weak philosophically. You don`t have any interest to read Foucault by reading this, neither it opens you on the important subjects of this authors. I stop after 2 chapters, what is a honest chance to give to a book. The second chapter of the book, entitled Politics, focus on the personal involvement of Foucault in politics and its problem with Sartre on that matter. I understand that life and subject are interelated with Foucault, but I don`t want to read a biography! Give me the real stuff, what is his damn theory of power! What his understanding of politic is! I can`t believe they permit to publish such scrap!

"Very Short" and Very Concise
I wish I'd found this little volume before embarking on an attempt to digest Foucault's major works whole - it might have saved considerable frustration.Don't expect a categorical analysis of any of them from Gutting's survey, that's not what this is for.Do expect a more distant perspective from which the forest is no longer obscured by the trees.

Neither is this a Cliff Notes version of Foucault's work - if you haven't taken the trouble to place that within a larger philosophical context the book likely won't be of much use to you.For what it is, however, it succeeds brilliantly within the few pages allotted, and Gutting has performed a minor miracle of concision and clarification.Given the occasional verbosity of Foucault and the more than occasional turbidity of his works, that's worth the purchase price alone.

An outstanding introduction to the thought of Foucault
Gary Gutting's brief survey of the thought of Michel Foucault is not merely one of the best books in Oxford UP's Very Short Introductions series, but one of the clearest, most insightful pieces on Foucault that I've read.I haven't read much Foucault since working my way through most of his books in the late eighties.To prepare for a re-reading of those books I decided to read this book as a refresher/quick overview.Most of the secondary works on Foucault that I read back when where usually borderline impenetrable.Although Foucault is infinitely more lucid than many other French writers -- there is a world of difference between, for instance, Baudrillard and Foucault -- he is unfortunately too prone to linguistic obfuscation.Too many of Foucault's would-be disciples attempt to write in a prose style that is as opaque as anyone on the Left Bank.Gutting is in contrast a model of clarity.He writes insightfully about Foucault while making the analysis no more difficult than it needs to be.

The chapters of the book are constructed around discussions of Foucault's major works.They are thematic to the degree that those books dealt with specific ideas or subjects.In every case Gutting does a marvelous job of establishing the context of these works, how they depart from traditional discussions, how they provided innovative new ways of understanding our world, and what some of the more problematic aspects of the works are.Gutting clearly (and justifiably) believes that Foucault made some very important contributions that enable us to understand how problematic many of our unexamined assumptions about society are, but at the same time refuses to be a blind disciple.There are shortcomings to Foucault's work as well as some misconceptions.Gutting is as willing to acknowledge the former as he is to battle the latter.

I strongly recommend this to anyone wanting to read Foucault for the first time, as well as anyone (like myself) who haven't read him in a while but would like a refresher.To be frank, I believe I would have made better use of my reading of Foucault had I had an introduction this clear and insightful when I was reading him in the late eighties.

This is the place to start for Foucault.
Written in an easy-read, yet perfectly scholarly manner, Foucault: A Very Short Introduction is a great jumping-off point for the student or interested scholar of literary, cultural, and/or political theory.While brief (as promised) and cursory, it nevertheless goes to the heart of much of Foucault's work as it has influenced that of other modern thinkers.An enjoyable read that will no doubt point in many directions for further study.Contains a good bibliography as well. ... Read more

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Compelling and highly influential, Michel Foucault's Madness is an indispensable work for readers who wish to understand the intellectual evolution of one of the most important social theorists of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews (2)

A GREAT book, an early work
This is one of the earliest book of Michel Foucault. His ideas of power/knowdlege are not the central point of this text (for they are developed later in his works) but you can start to feel them. This book is about psychology and psychiatry and how those disciplines derived their methods from biology and medical pathology and it's consecuences on psychological theories.
This book plays with the notion of contradiction and the notion of paradox within the human psyche. In this book, Foucault offers a solution for the way that psychology should "diagnose" and produce theory for "mental illnes". He also analyzes the notion of mental illness and the medical discourse that makes posible to use such incorrect or paradoxical notions.

This is a GREAT book.

Tough read
Foucault has always interested me.This book is a hard read.It is an early book.It is a thin book.It takes a few days to chew through.The fairly accurate one sentence summary is: The definition of being normal relative to being mentally ill reflects philosophy more than psychiatry. Recommended. ... Read more

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Now in paperback, the second volume in the definitive collection of Foucault's shorter writings, a Voice Literary Supplement bestseller. Few philosophers have had as strong an influence on the twentieth century as Michel Foucault. Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, the second volume of Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, surveys Foucault's diverse but sustained address of the historical forms and interplay of passion, experience, and truth. Now in paperback, this volume includes commentaries on the work of de Sade, Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Roussel, and Boulez. It also includes some of Foucault's most trenchant reflections on the historical constitution of aesthetic and critical imagination, providing unique insight into Foucault's original and hugely influential philosophical program. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

For nerds and for new comers
It is not so easy to determine where Foucault is attempting to go with his published books.In this sense, the books from "Madness and Civilization" to the 3rd "History of Sexuality" can be thought of as practical works that have specific institutional anddiscursive aims.Thus, they are short in explanation of the methodologyand instead such intentions are available as they are practiced in thetexts.For example, philosophers such as Nietzsche and Marx, to name afew, are hardly mentioned in Foucault's book; however, they are oftenevoked and utilised without obvious references or footnotes.As Deleuzeonce commented: Foucault doesn't say what to do, he just does it.

Thus,Foucault's occasional essays, covering academic journals, popular press,lectures, introductions, and so on, serve to clue us, the readers, as towhere Foucault is coming from, and, furthermore, in which direction histhought is heading.

This edition, covering Foucault's superb writingson literature, his mentors, music, as well as other philosophicalmovements, situates a thinker within an intellectual context from his veryown words.In "The Archaeology of Knowledge" Foucault begins bysaying "do not ask me who I am..."To be sure, with this volume,we can begin to better understand Foucault without the interface ofcommentators and scholars.Directness of discourse is an important elementin Foucault's thought...

Although much of the pieces that appear herehave been previously translated and released in a variety of formats, Ipredict that any scholar or occasional reader would be pleased to acceptthis redundancy for the very convenience that this collectionpresents.

Some most interesting pieces include, the previously hard tofind Foucault's response to Derrida's reading of "Madness andCivilization"; Foucault's responses to the Epistemology circle; and anilluminating interview in which Foucault situates his thought in 20thCentury French intellectual life.In addition, this collection includespopular 'staple' such as "Theatrum Philosophicum,""Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," and "Nietzsche, Genealogy,History," all of which provide endless insight into Foucault evendespite numerous re-readings.

While serious followers of Foucault'sworks would benefit greatly from this collection, this would also serve asa good introduction to Foucault--maybe second only to the cartoon books onFoucault!

And to close: if Nietzsche was the greatest philosophicalstylist, this collection demonstrates conclusively that Foucault was aclose second...

?
Michel Foucault , i think should be read by anyone read and liked Nietzsche. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Indisputably Groundbreaking
These lectures -- more so than many in this excellent series -- contain novel ideas and formulations ripe for further research. From a new conceptualization of the state, to a unique account of the Protestant Reformation, and lineages of absolutist monarchy, Machiavelli criticism, and the birth of the Police state, if his approach seems fragmentary and incomplete, it is because we are reading the raw thought materials of a masterful scholar at the top of his game.

Definately worth the effort
I wish I had got around to reading this much sooner. "Security, Territory, Population" is one in a series of lectures Foucault delivered at the College de France. I started here to find out more about Foucault's development of the concept of government and was so impressed that I have come back to Amazon to order the other books in the series. This series is as clear and accessible as anything I have ever read by Foucault. The lecture format is much more conversational in style than his books but still as wide ranging and impressive in examples. The lectures are intriguing as you see Foucault's ideas literally develop and fill out week to week.

Can I quote from a lecture?
This text is as close as you will get to hearing Foucault's voice (unless of course you listen to bootlegs of his lectures or the cassette tapes at the Centre Michel Foucault in Paris). The pauses and silences are evident through the text and the sentences - sometimes convoluted and incomplete - give a real sense of Foucault thinking, especially as he makes the shift towards governmentality. Along with the extensive notes these lectures provide a useful springboard to Foucault's fully edited works and to the main sources he draws on to mount his various arguments. Unlike other published works however they are uneven. Obviously some days Foucault was in worse form than others - like in the lecture presented on February 8 1978 when he was suffering from the flue - and like a lecture, listener/reader concentration lags after 20 or so minutes as the intensity drops. Foucault's thoughts are not always clear and coherent and he sometimes dives off at a tangent, inducing a sense of vertigo. This is useful when the focus is on the process of learning and researching, but it can be distracting and tiring. Foucault was at pains to destroy incomplete works and notes and it would be interesting to hear what he would say about this publication and the reasons behind it, given his dislike of the herd learning on offer in this forum and the lack of space and time for in-depth discussion and debate.

Indespensible
These are the complete course lectures in which Foucault developed his theory and history of "governmentality" as a discursive threshold of modern society.

This volume is critical to any student of Foucault or government in general. To the Foucault student, it refines his concept of power and signifies a break from power as "domination" to power as the "conduct of conduct." This is the first printing of the full lecture series, of which only two portions were available previously, and shows the full empirical range of his study of governmentality.

To the more general student of government, this work is equally valuable. It clearly situates government as a practice contingent upondurable forms of thought and action in western history. It is primarily concerned with the shift from governing territory to governing populations with the emergence of liberalism and the collapse of feudalism. More advanced students may find this work especially useful because of its contraposition to marxism, critical theory, and mainstream liberal critiques of government. In this respect, it offers a genuinely alternative voice to the problems and prospects of modern politics - a very rare achievement.

Biopower and Governmentality
A must for understanding the notions of biopower, biopolitics, and governmentality in Foucault's corpus. ... Read more

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Based on extensive new research and a bold interpretation of the man and his texts, The Passion of Michel Foucault is a startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers.It chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Much Overrated
I'm afraid that this book is much overrated.Miller claims to expose all sorts of intimate details of Foucault's life for which he has no actual evidence--only his own imagination and a loose construction of the context--and then bases his biography on those constructs.In the end he does little do illuminate the late Foucault, doesn't engage with any of the lectures which are being translated these days (and which were available in taped form much earlier) and consequently fails to extend to his subject what most biographers would expect for themselves--a serious engagement with the life and thought.

A Pearl
James Miller, apparently familiar with homosexuality, drugs, and sadomasochism, undertakes a project which he acknowledges Foucault would have disdained--a biography. Rigorously disciplined, Miller excellently, and commendably, correlates Foucault's ideas with the man's moment in history.Puzzlingly, Miller's approach becomes a fetish--he remains focused on the finger of the prophet, rather than seeing that Foucault unconsciously points to an answer to Nietzche's questions: how did I become what I am and why do I suffer so for it? The Foucault that emerges from the biography clearly understood what it meant to be a commodity, cultivating himself as a work of art (with its attendant commercial value.)

Flawed but Interesting
Despite the late philosopher's explicit request to not compose a biography of his life, James Miller has compiled a highly competent study of Foucault's life and thought. While not purporting to be a traditional biography, Miller frequently falls into the trap of imposing a cogent narrative onto the work of this great mind in a way that is not always convincing. We are provided with very fine material on Foucault's complex youth, as well as his various political engagements as an activist/academic, but I never got the sense that Miller had really penetrated the essence of Foucault's profoundly Nietzschean project. Perhaps it is because of his background in political science that Miller tends to fall back onto Foucault's politics and let the philosophy awkwardly sit there. We are given more description of Foucault's acid trip in Death Valley than the meaning of 'The Birth of the Clinic,' for instance. Still, this is a fairly reasonable approximation of Foucault's career and why it will remain a formidable presence in the humanities for ages to come.

An Excellent Expose
I read this work as part of a postmodern philosophy of the self class, and, among the esteemed company of Nietzsche and Heidegger, this book truly stands out as a great illumination of Foucault's life. The truth of the matter is, no matter whether or not you believe learning about an author adds to your understanding and enjoyment of his works, people will always want to know more. I found Miller's writing to be extremely precise and erudite without being unnecessarily technical or prosaic as biographies can sometimes be. Miller ties in Foucault's thought and philosophies to the story of his life in a way that allows one to really understand more about what Foucault was writing and why, and provides context to said works in a way that allows the reader to grasp it. Of course, reading "The Passion of Michel Foucault" isn't the same as reading the works of Foucault--nor is it a substitute--but I found it to be a fitting start--or end--to a study of the great philosopher he was.

Pure Garbage- Why Not Illuminate the Man's Thought Instead?
This book had been recommended me, as a Foucault freak, and I must say that I was immensely disappointed.As one of the above reviewers said, he's just digging up a bunch of dirt that doesn't have much redeeming value in the end.I love S&M myself but 200 pages detailing Foucault's odd and disturbing behaviors in his personal life did nothing whatsoever to illuminate, for me, the connections between his personal life and his works.Follow Martin Heidegger's advice here: don't learn anything about the life of the philosopher you seek to know, let his works speak for him!A lot of academics were offended when Heidegger taught Plato this very way- way back in the 1920s- but believe me, it is an approach which is not yet outdated. ... Read more

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Michel Foucault's work is rich with implications and insights concerning spatiality, and has inspired many geographers and social scientists to develop these ideas in their own research. This book, the first to engage Foucault's geographies in detail from a wide range of perspectives, is framed around his discussions with the French geography journal "Herodote" in the mid 1970s. The opening of the book comprises some of Foucault's previously untranslated work on questions of space, a range of responses from French and English language commentators, and a newly translated essay by Claude Raffestin, a leading Swiss geographer. The rest of the book presents specially commissioned essays which examine the remarkable reception of Foucault's work in English and French language geography situate Foucault's project historically and provide a series of developments of his work in the contemporary contexts of power, biopolitics, governmentality and war. Contributors include a number of key figures in social/spatial theory such as David Harvey, Chris Philo, Sara Mills, Nigel Thrift, John Agnew, Thomas Flynn and Matthew Hannah.Written in an open and engaging tone, the contributors discuss just what they find valuable - and frustrating - about Foucault's geographies. This is a book which will both surprise and challenge. ... Read more

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Politics, Philosophy, Culture contains a rich selection of interviews and other writings by the late Michel Foucault. Drawing upon his revolutionary concept of power as well as his critique of the institutions that organize social life, Foucault discusses literature, music, and the power of art while also examining concrete issues such as the left in contemporary France, the social security system, the penal system, homosexuality, madness, and the Iranian Revolution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good shipping and book in good state
I received my book a few weeks after my command which is fair if you consider I live in France. It is very interesting to search in the book what you need to with Amazon.

Great finetuning of Foucault
This is great for general reading on Foucault. It does a great job tyingtogether a lot of the things Foucault tried to say in his books. If you'rea policy debater trying to become a Foucault buff, get this book. Thechapter on critique does an excellent job drawing the distinction betweencriticism and transformation. It's good stuff :) ... Read more

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An examination of the relation between war and politics, by one of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers

From 1971 until 1984 at the Collège de France, Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures ranging freely and conversationally over the range of his research. In Society Must Be Defended, Foucault deals with the emergence in the early seventeenth century of a new understanding of war as the permanent basis of all institutions of power, a hidden presence within society that could be deciphered by an historical analysis. Tracing this development, Foucault outlines the genealogy of power and knowledge that had become his dominant concern.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Grade A
The book was in excellent condition and was delivered no hassle and tout suite. C'est tres bon......

Society Must be Defended
Readers of Foucault must read this entire lecture series rather than rely upon the previous three published lectures to appreciate the full message he conveys.

Indispensable Addition to Foucault's Oeuvre
Foucault never wrote a monograph on power per se, the arguably most influential notion put forth by him. Yet this posthumous publication of his College de France lectures 1975-76 approximates one. Here one can find the most elaborate discussion of the distinction between power-as-law and power as a bunch of local techniques and force relations, and more important, the idiosyncratic conceptualization of political power based on the model of war. It is also in these lectures that Foucault gives a sustantial analysis of racism. Although these topics are already touched upon in The History of Sexuality vol. 1, unfortunately they have not been given extended space to develop thanks to Foucault's drastic modification of his writing plan. Two decades after his premature death, we are finally allowed to have a better understanding of Foucault's profound reflection upon these issues. The continual unveiling of Foucault's other lectures in print in years to come makes life worthy to live even in this depressive political atmosphere.

Offering an unusually insightful perspective
Capably and collaboratively edited by Mauro Bertani and Allesandro Fontana, "Society Must Be Defended" is a collection of French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault's eleven lectures given at the College de France from 1975 to 1976, and which are ably translated into English for an American readership by David Macey. Offering an unusually insightful perspective and wisdom on a wide variety of educational topics ranging from the origin of feudalism, to the functions and domains of racism, to Hobbes' ideas on war and sovereignty, and a great deal more, "Society Must Be Defended" is a very thought-provoking and instructive collection from a uniquely informed and informative point of view. As Michel Foucault writes about this compilation of his views: "The role of history will, then, be to show that laws deceive, that kings wear masks, that power creates illusions, and that historians tell lies. This will not, then, be a history of continuity, but a history of deciphering, the detection of the secret, the outwitting of the ruse, and the reappropriation of a knowledge that has been distorted or buried. It will decipher a truth that has been sealed". ... Read more

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The latest book in The New Press's Essential series collects key texts from the influential French philosopher.

Few philosophers have had as significant an impact on contemporary thought as Michel Foucault. His complete uncollected writings, under the title Dits et écrits, were published in French in 1994 and in a three-volume series from The New Press that brought the most important of these works—courses, articles, and interviews, many of them translated into English for the first time—to American readers. Now, Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose have collected the best pieces from the three-volume set into a one-volume anthology.

The Essential Foucault, which features a new and provocative introduction by Rabinow and Rose, is certain to become the standard text for all those interested in a comprehensive overview of Foucault's thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not so essential
While this book exposes the reader to some of Foucault's main ideas it does so in a non organized fashion, which could be attributed to the fact that a substantial part of the book is comprised of interviews Foucault has given.

While this interview format makes for interesting material it also has the negative side of lacking a structure, so at one point he will be talking about phenomenology, then will jump to Stoic asceticism, Marxism, Post-structuralism, political left in France and then go back to phenomenology. Even though it is done in a interconnected and logical fashion, I find that the reader who has not been exposed to Foucault's other books will find himself lost most of the time.

Having said that I would say the title of the book is misleading in the sense that it does not present the essential themes of Foucault, but instead works as a nice explanatory companion for those who have already read some of his books and have here the opportunity of Foucault himself elaborating on some of his main themes.
... Read more

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This book offers the first complete examination of Foucault's reflections on visual art, leading to new readings of his major texts."Foucault's Philosophy of Art: A Genealogy of Modernity" tells the story of how art shed the tasks with which it had traditionally been charged in order to become modern. Joseph J. Tanke offers the first complete examination of Michel Foucault's reflections on visual art, tracing his thought as it engages with the work of visual artists from the seventeenth century to the contemporary period.The book offers a concise and accessible introduction to Foucault's frequently anthologized, but rarely understood, analysis of Diego Velazquez's "Las Meninas" and Rene Magritte's "Ceci n'est pas une pipe". On the basis of unpublished lecture courses and several un-translated analysis of visual art, Tanke reveals the uniquely genealogical character of Foucault's writings on visual culture, allowing for new readings of his major texts in the context of contemporary Continental philosophy, aesthetic and cultural theory. Ultimately Tanke demonstrates how Foucault provides philosophy and contemporary criticism with the means for determining a conception of modern art."The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory" series examines the encounter between contemporary Continental philosophy and aesthetic and cultural theory. Each book in the series explores an exciting new direction in philosophical aesthetics or cultural theory, identifying the most important and pressing issues in Continental philosophy today. ... Read more

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Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne: the philosopher and the historian. Two major figures in the world of ideas, resisting all attempts at categorization. Two timeless thinkers who have long walked and fought together. In this short book Paul Veyne offers a fresh portrait of his friend and relaunches the debate about his ideas and legacy. ‘Foucault is not who you think he is’, writes Veyne; he stood neither on the left nor on the right and was frequently disowned by both. He was not so much a structuralist as a sceptic, an empiricist disciple of Montaigne, who never ceased in his work to reflect on 'truth games', on singular, constructed truths that belonged to their own time.

A unique testimony by a scholar who knew Foucault well, this book succeeds brilliantly in grasping the core of his thought and in stripping away the confusions and misunderstandings that have so often characterized the interpretation of Foucault and his work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best work on Foucault, in my opinion
I have read a majority of Foucault's own works and many works on Foucault's philosophy and style of thought.But nobody's work on Foucault has struck me as directly as that of Paul Veyne.I first read Veyne on Foucault via a couple of essays he had featured in a text edited by Arnold Davidson entitled "Foucault and His Interlocutors."
Veyne, being a close friend and associate of Foucault's, has perhaps a more intimate grasp of the character of the man than most writers, but it's because of his deep appreciation for the style and methods of Foucault's work that his writings are so striking.To my mind, Veyne distills the strength and sensibility of Foucault's intellectual character better than anyone else.This books is even better than I hoped it would be, and I had very high expectations.
Anyone who has been struck by the power of Foucault's works and his approach to life and thought will greatly value Paul Veyne's work. ... Read more

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The reception of Michel Foucault's work has often been divided between two unsatisfactory alternatives. On the one hand there are those who admire the detail of his concrete analyses, but wonder how the political and ethical commitments they seem to rely on can be justified. On the other, there are those who deny the need for normative foundations, but also find it difficult to explain what makes Foucault's archaeologies and genealogies critical. Rudi Visker's book is not only a lucid and elegant survey of Foulcault's corpus, from his early work on madness to the History of Sexuality, but also a major intervention in this debate. Reading Foucault against the Heideggerian backdrop to his work, Visker shows that Foucault's target is not order as such, but rather the production of ordering systems which cannot acknowledge their own conditions of possibility. Exploring along the way such intriguing issues as the ambivalence of Foucault's concepts of truth and power, and his philosophically provocative use of quotation marks, Visker portrays Foucault as neither relativist nor positivist, neither activist nor detached observer.Instead, Foucault emerges as the inventor of a new analysis of our modern mechanisms of control and exclusion: precisely of 'genealogy as critique'. ... Read more

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Su interes no se limita al campo de la medicina y de su historia; tambien los historiadores y sociologos del conocimiento se sentiran atraidos por el planteamiento original del libro: la medicina como lenguaje, como vision cientifica y como relacion interhumana. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Intensification
Jeffrey Nealon's work in Foucault Beyond Foucault is a major achievement on a number of levels.Importantly, Nealon provides the invaluable service of clearly and convincingly reading Foucault's trajectory through the "middle" and "late" works by following a Foucaultian type reading of Foucault's interests in following power through its "intensifications" (this last term being the conceptual hinge for much of Nealon's important work in the book.)Nealon's counter-reading of Foucault (which to my mind doesn't feel so much like a "reading" as it feels like Foucault himself, which I think is significant) stands against the line which would like to read Foucault as a reformed political liberal, the kind of reading where Foucault "reclaims" the enlightenment and the humanist subject in his "ethical" works.As Nealon shows, such a reading goes well against what Foucault was actually doing.
If this service weren't enough, Nealon goes on to re-intensify Foucault to go beyond Foucault, to analyze our world in the 20 some years since Foucault's death, and after the intensifications of finance capital and neo-liberal globalization.In fact, Nealon makes very good use of economic rationalities to make a number of obervations.
Nealon also reads Foucault alongside a Marxist and Deleuzian approach in a manner which, I am convinced, does not sell out or assimilate a Foucault, but productively follows the intensifications of biopower in our time.
His work on confronting the so-called "problem of agency" is also on point and significant.
All in all, this is terrific scholarship.Not only that, but it is very readable and an enjoyable read, too.It is readily relevant to both "our world" and of course to Foucault studies in particular.It's one of the most engaging works of scholarship I have had the pleasure of reading.

Very highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
In such seminal works as Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, the late philosopher Michel Foucault explored what our politics, our sexuality, our societal conventions, and our changing notions of truth told us about ourselves. In the process, Foucault garnered a reputation as one of the preeminent philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century, and has served as a primary influence on successive generations of philosophers and cultural critics. With A Foucault Primer, Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace bring Foucaults work into focus for the uninitiated. Written in crisp and concise prose. A Foucault Primer explicates the three central concepts of Foucauldian theory - discourse, power, and the subject - and suggests that Foucault has much yet to contribute to contemporary debate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent introduction to some weighty material
Perfect introduction to the complex philosophy of Foucault and to the complex and unique mind of the man...Discourse, power and the subject. I like his quote "The main interest in life and work is to become something else that you were not in the beginning".

Helpful
This is great for anyone who reads Foucault and wishes they were back in school so a professor could help explain what it all means.

Little but not light
More than any other writer, perhaps, Foucault is the poster-child of postmodernism. What little of him I knew I thought was accurate: his emphasis on the concept of power, for instance, I had mistakenly held to mean the dialectic of the powerless and disenfranchised against the rich and powerful. This book helped me to discover that this simplistic view of power is a serious misconception. Foucault's version is much more complex and profound. And I would go so far to say that until you have encountered his important ideas on this subject, you will be at a serious disadvantage in understanding the present age.

This book at first blush looks like an easy read, but rest assured it is not. The first page has a striking sentence, which I kept coming back to: "We do not believe that F provides a definitive theory of anything in the sense of a set of unambiguous answers to time-worn questions." I finally interpreted this to mean that the authors do not consider F to be a philosopher per se but rather a social theorist.

Without doubt, the most difficult chapter in this little book is the second, "Discourse." Discourse is a nebulous term, not only referring to an academic field of study such as history or psychology, but also, in F's sense of the word, to "a set of conditions which enables and constrains the socially productive imagination." Such discourses "can come into contention and struggle. This struggle is no more clearly seen than in the social sciences . . . where what Kuhn calls paradigms may compete for dominance in a particular field." The authors gradually relate discourse to what passes for truth at a particular historical period, and thence to politics and the subject of power.

Chapter three, "Power", is unquestionably the most rewarding. In brutally short terms, F writes: "We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it "excludes"; it "represses"; it "censors"; it "abstracts"; it "masks"; it "conceals". In fact, power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth." F's conception of power provides "a far more complex picture of modern society than Marxism allows". And: "He does not ask who is in power? He asks how power installs ITSELF and produces real material effects, where one such effect might be a particular kind of subject who will in turn act as a channel for the flow of power itself." Thus F sees the rich and powerful as channels,subject to the same unpredictable flows of power as are the powerless.

The book as a whole is a little on the dry side. And if you are looking for philosophy per se, you will find yourself disappointed; this is more about the analysis of society. But it is an unquestionably valuable resource, and a very challenging read. If you don't have the patience to read through F's works but want to get a non-trivial grasp of F's main ideas, there is no better place to look. ... Read more

Product Description

This book is the first to systematically reconstruct Michel Foucault’s political and philosophical thought across his career. It argues, in the areas of epistemology, power, subjectivity, resistance, politics, and ethics, that Foucault’s work represents the articulation of a consistent and progressive philosophical and political viewpoint. The work is thus an important intervention into the field of Foucault studies, where many continue to claim that Foucault’s work is contradictory, nonsensical, or nihilistic.

Product Description
French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault is essential reading for students in departments of literature, history, sociology and cultural studies. His work on the institutions of mental health and medicine, the history of systems of knowledge, literature and literary theory, criminality and the prison system, and sexuality, has had a profound and enduring impact across the humanities and social sciences. This introductory book, written for students, offers in-depth critical and contextual perspectives on all of Foucault's major published works. It provides ways in to understanding Foucault's key concepts of subjectivity, discourse, and power and explains the problems of translation encountered in reading Foucault in English. The book also explores the critical reception of Foucault's works and acquaints the reader with the afterlives of some of his theories, particularly his influence on feminist and queer studies. This book offers the ideal introduction to a famously complex, controversial and important thinker. ... Read more

Product Description
Michel Foucault's work is one of the most influential sources of ideas in the humanities and social sciences today. Clare O'Farrell offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to Foucault's enormous, diverse and challenging output. Her book provides a range of practical tools and a reference work for readers who wish to understand and apply his ideas at both introductory and advanced levels. This volume includes:
- a discussion of Foucault's situation in the contemporary context exploring his role as an iconic thinker, with clear explanations as to why his work is so difficult to come to grips with, and also importantly, why it is of interest to so many people.
 
- the location of Foucault's work within its own historical, social and political setting.

- brief summaries in chronological order of all of Foucault's major works, including the more recently published volumes of lectures.

- the organization of Foucault's work around five distinct but interrelated series of assumptions which underpin his world view: namely order, history, truth, power and ethics. Ideas for which he is well-known, such as archaeology, genealogy, discourse, discipline, governmentality, the subject and others are defined and discussed within the framework of these five assumptions.
 
- a chronology of Foucault's life, work and times. - a very extensive list of key concepts in Foucault's work with detailed references pointing to where the relevant material can be found in his writings.

- a wide-ranging list of resources and a bibliography of Foucault's work for easy consultation. ... Read more

Product Description
In these two essays, two of the most important French thinkers of our time reflect on each other's work. In so doing, novelist/essayist Maurice Blanchot and philosopher Michel Foucault develop a new perspective on the relationship between subjectivity, fiction, and the will to truth. The two texts present reflections on writing, language, and representation which question the status of the author/subject and explore the notion of a "neutral" voice that arises from the realm of the "outside." This book is crucial not only to an understanding of these two thinkers, but also to any overview of recent French thought.Michel Foucault (1927-1984) was the holder of a chair at the College de France. Among his works are Madness and Civilization, The Order of Things, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality Maurice Blanchot, born in 1907, is a novelist and critic. His works include Death Sentence, Thomas the Obscure, and The Space of Literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Compelling Examination of the Space of the Writer
Any fan of Foucault or Blanchot should greatlyappreciate these two short homages.Maurice Blanchot was originaly a literary critic who later wrote fictions, philosophical essays, and unusual hybrids of the two.Acontemporary and friend of Levinas, his work has had a huge impact on postWWII literature and continental philosophy.With astonishingly articulatelanguage (as translated by Massumi), Foucault offers both a insightfulcommentary on Blanchot and an idea of what means to exit in the space ofwriting fiction. It is difficult to categorize Foucaultswriting;perphaps he is best known as a writer who encouraged a modified(archealogical) method ofexamining history, and using this methodprolifically wrote social/cultural/philosophical commentary.Blanchotwrites on Foucaults writing with clarity and appreciation.If you areunfamiliar with these authors, this book makes for a good introduction;these writers may change the way you think, and you should read more. Ifyou know these authors then you should definitely sympathize with thehomage aspect: it's a great quick read (though you will probably need toread the layered language five times, and again late in life.) ... Read more