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Two of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers debate a perennial question.

In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War and at a time of great political and social instability, two of the world's leading intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, were invited by Dutch philosopher Fons Edlers to debate an age-old question: is there such a thing as "innate" human nature independent of our experiences and external influences?

The resulting dialogue is one of the most original, provocative, and spontaneous exchanges to have occurred between contemporary philosophers, and above all serves as a concise introduction to their basic theories. What begins as a philosophical argument rooted in linguistics (Chomsky) and the theory of knowledge (Foucault), soon evolves into a broader discussion encompassing a wide range of topics, from science, history, and behaviorism to creativity, freedom, and the struggle for justice in the realm of politics.

In addition to the debate itself, this volume features a newly written introduction by noted Foucault scholar John Rajchman and includes additional text by Noam Chomsky. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A Hodge-Podge of Disparate Previously Published Pieces
Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault are arguably two of the most influential thinkers of the late twentieth century - important contributors to Western intellectual history.Despite their significance, however, this small text has limited value.It is a hodgepodge of loosely related and previously published material much of which is available on line for free.

The book, as its title suggests, is notionally centered on the 1971 Dutch Television debate between Chomsky and Foucault moderated by Edlers on the question of whether or not there such a thing as an "innate" human nature. While the `debate' is largely an exercise in the two protagonists talking past each other; it is nonetheless an interesting small episode in contemporary intellectual history.The video and transcript have been available on-line for years.Had the remainder of the text been post-debate reflections or new analysis of the issues raised in the discussion the text could have been quite interesting.Sadly, this is not the case.

The remaining four essays are transcripts of interviews and presentations by Foucault and Chomsky on other subjects - Chomsky does offer a few small asides on the debate at the end of one interview.The two chapters on Chomsky are transcripts of 1976 interviews with Ronat.`The Philosophy of Language' is a collection of Chomsky's musings on the modern intellectual project while `Politics' provides a feel for his well known political views which range from insightful reflections on the nature and function of societal power structures to his more fringe conspiracy-type views. While interesting small pieces they have been previously published and have only a tenuous link to the earlier debate.

Michel Foucault's `Truth and Power' is a transcript of an interview with Fontana and Pasquino in the mid 70s that focuses on the evolution and focus of Foucault's thought. While "Omnes et Singulatim: Toward a Critique of Political Rason is based on lectures Foucault gave at Stanford in the 80s discussing power and reason in modern society (available on line). Again these are fine small pieces, however, in the current text they feel like filler.

Chomsky and Foucault are important and interesting thinkers.That said, I do not see the value of this text. Some original analysis of their debate could have been interesting.

Good Stuff
I wish there were more such confrontations between thinkers of Foucault and Chomsky's stature. Regardless of whom you favor, at least they managed to wrangle over serious issues, such as whether there is an absolute justice and whether we share an independent human nature or essence. In this exchange, Foucault seems to undercut Chomsky repeatedly, first moving Chomsky to concede that issues of injustice and oppression would occur even in conditions of relative anarchy, and then pinning Chomsky to a notion of absolute justice that Chomsky admits he cannot articulate. The supplementary readings in this text are, I believe, necessary to get an accurate picture of Foucault's considered position, which is not clearly represented in the exchange (where he is playing something of a devil's advocate). While this does not amount to anything like a demonstration that Chomsky was wrong--and Foucault would not have claimed to demonstrate such a thing--it does show, I think, that defenders of Chomsky's positions have some rather heavy lifting in store.

"libidinous power..."

Regarding the so-called "power conspiracy" theories--which Chomsky has refuted several times, both in print and in lectures--proponents of those theories argue not, e.g., that there are meetings between the Board of Directors of Exxon-Mobil and their major stockholders--of which there certainly are. No. Conspiracy theorists argue the case for some grand,overarching subterfuge. That is, e.g., monthly meetings between the CEOs of the New York Times, the Washington Post, et. al., Exxon-Mobil and the other Fortune One-Hundred Corporations, and high-level D.C. administrators, etc., examining all of the data on dissident factions, major protests, D.C. legislators and jurists exhibiting opposition to status quo policy making, etc., and then plotting to coordinate counter-intelligence measures to maintain their own entitlements, etc.
And, all this, considering the fierce competition, and predatory tactics amongst the Players themselves, i.e., to, daily, unman--i.e., castrate, economically speaking--any (viable or not) competitors. And, we have not even touched upon security leaks, etc., the threat of which would be ever-present (consider the thoughts of a disgruntled Player who felt cheated in a recent "deal"), and which would prove calamitous, to say the least. Nor have we entered into the equation the very real presence of trans-national Players, whose interests impinge upon our own--from hour to hour, in fact, if one considers the realities of the various Exchanges in major world markets.
Is this possible? Consider the enormity of such an ongoing effort--and it would, of necessity, have to be ongoing, since the rank-and-file are in a state of information exchange, revision, flux, etc. Again--is it possible that a grand, overarching subterfuge does, in fact, exist? Well, since anything is quote-unquote possible, let us, then, consider--more practically--what is likely, i.e., within the context of: What is really needful for Power to maintain its prerogatives and entitlements? To differentiate Power from Player: Power itself, we would do well to remember, is no respector of persons. That is, Power will readily forego the participation of this or that particular Player, but Power itself will not be as readily undermined.

At this point, Players within the Market/State/Media complex do not need to "conspire" in order for Power to exist. That is, Power, in the parlance of Social theorists, is "libidinous." "Libidinous" is a Freudian term referring to the libido, the sex drive, or sexual desire--an apt comparison. Power is libidinous--an often mindless, material striving...for its own sake. "Libido" and "desire" can be subtle drives, but none the less real for their subtlety. And, similarly, Power, as an illegitimate (i.e., non-justified), entity--i.e., Power, as the exercise of self-serving control by the few over the many--that has not been successfully opposed, or contravened, once rooted, will continue. It's as simple as that.
At this late stage in the game no overarching conspiracy is needed--no upper-echelon "meetings," subterfuge, secret envoys, etc.--to sustain Power. Yes, the names and faces of the various Players may be variable--e.g., if the CEO of Exxon-Mobil dies tomorrow some other "suit" will take over quickly--and, this, despite the fact that they would that their own personal agenda be maintained. But--and, despite that variability (q.v., the meetings, the violent takeovers, the power coups, etc.)--Power itself rolls on.
Yet--and, returning to libidinous Power--just what is there to "desire"? That is, what are the Market, the State, and the Media in pursuit of--simultaneously--that might lead one to believe that there is a quote-unquote conspiracy which correlates all of their activities, somehow in tandem, one to the other? Again: What is there to desire? In a word: MORE. "MORE," that is necessary or needful? No--just "MORE" (this is akin to the difference between Marxian "exchange value" versus "use value"). And, the pursuit of "MORE" will never, in fact, be sated.
Power itself dictates terms to its Players, i.e., the particular Players are merely incidental to Power. And, just like someone suffering from a substance-abuse type addiction, Power-as-the-pursuit-of-MORE has to be contravened and stopped. To use another analogy, it's like a juggernaut--it's out of control, i.e., it cannot stop by itself. It has to be opposed...

Highly recommended, and a welcome contribution to library philosophy shelves.
The Chomsky-Foucault Debate On Human Nature collects and presents an integral debate held between two of the world's top intellectuals, Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, held in 1971 (during the height of the Vietnam War) to wrestle with the ancient question: Is there such a thing as "innate" human nature independent of our experiences and external influences? In addition to reproducing the debate verbatim, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate On Human Nature includes later writings by each speaker: "Politics" (1976) and "A Philosophy of Language" (1976) by Noam Chomsky, and "Truth and Power" (1976), "Omnes et Singulatim: Toward a Critique of Political Rason" (1978) and "Confronting Government: Human Rights" (1984) by Michel Foucault. "The concept of legality and the concept of justice are not identical; they're not entirely distinct either. Insofar as legality incorporates justice in this sense of better justice, referring to a better society, then we should follow and obey the law... Of course, in those areas where the legal system happens to represent not better justice, but rather the techniques of oppression that have been codified in a particular autocratic system, well, then a reasonable human being should disregard and oppose them, at least in principle; he may not, for some reason, do it in fact." Highly recommended, and a welcome contribution to library philosophy shelves.

What a find!
I didn't know about this debate between these two on this subject--what a find!I am reading it now, and a line of friends are waiting for their turn. ... Read more

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Foucault’s Law is the first book in almost fifteen years to address the question of Foucault’s position on law. Many readings of Foucault’s conception of law start from the proposition that he failed to consider the role of law in modernity, or indeed that he deliberately marginalized it. In canvassing a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Ben Golder and Peter Fitzpatrick rebut this argument. They argue that rather than marginalize law, Foucault develops a much more radical, nuanced and coherent theory of law than his critics have acknowledged. For Golder and Fitzpatrick, Foucault’s law is not the contained creature of conventional accounts, but is uncontainable and illimitable. In their radical re-reading of Foucault, they show how Foucault outlines a concept of law which is not tied to any given form or subordinated to a particular source of power, but is critically oriented towards alterity, new possibilities and different ways of being.

Foucault’s Law is an important and original contribution to the ongoing debate on Foucault and law, engaging not only with Foucault’s diverse writings on law and legal theory, but also with the extensive interpretive literature on the topic. It will thus be of interest to students and scholars working in the fields of law and social theory, legal theory and law and philosophy, as well as to students of Foucault’s work generally.

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Sara Mills offers an introduction to both the ideas of Michel Foucault and the debate surrounding him, fully equipping student readers for an encounter with this most influential of thinkers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Overpowering Foucault...
Sara Mills' text on Michel Foucault is part of a recent series put out by the Routledge Press, designed under the general editorial direction of Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway, University of London), to explore the most recent and exciting ideas in intellectual development during the past century or so. To this end, figures such as Martin Heidegger, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, Paul Ricouer and other influential thinkers in critical thought are highlighted in the series, planned to include more than 21 volumes in all.

Mills' text, following the pattern of the others, includes background information on Foucault and his significance, the key ideas and sources, and Foucault's continuing impact on other thinkers. As the series preface indicates, no critical thinker arises in a vacuum, so the context, influences and broader cultural environment are all important as a part of the study, something with which Foucault would agree.

Why is Foucault included in this series? Foucault is probably second only to Jacques Derrida in influence on thinkers in the field of critical theory and cultural studies, and his impact has gone far beyond narrow intellectual confines to influence psychology, politics, literature, sociology, philosophy, linguistics, history and anthropology.Mills indicates that Foucault's primary focus is on issues of power, knowledge and discourse, with influence in the development of a lot of `posts' - post-modernism, post-colonialism, post-Marxism, post-structualism, etc.

Foucault often concentrated on the ignored, the forgotten or the overlooked in his studies.In looking at the written confession of a murderer from generations ago, or looking at prisoners in present society, Foucault looks not only at the way power operates in practical settings, but what underpins the kind of power relationships.Heavily influenced by the events of 1968, with various forms of war and open rebellion going on across the globe (including Foucault's native French society), he had an inherent distrust for the kinds of power and society relationships considered standard.His work with prisoners and those classified as mentally ill challenged prevailing notions of the intentions of incarceration and even classification - perhaps we can see even more clearly in today's mass-media-saturated society the inconsistencies, not only of application, but of intention in the development of considering who is a criminal (and what their punishment and rehabilitation is likely to be) and who is considered mentally ill - the shift care to confinement and isolation (effective removal) from society gains new meaning from Foucault's analysis.

Foucault looks at power from a very basic position, not that of macroscopic geopolitical entities, but rather interpersonal relationships on a more local level, even exploring the way society uses body and sexuality as a root resource in formulating power relationships.It is worth noting that this issue is over the idea of the `body', and not the `individual', which for Foucault are not strictly synonymous.Looking at the history of sexuality (the freer periods of sexual frankness vis-à-vis the more strict and reserved periods such as the Victorian age) leads to another set of power relations often internalised and often overlooked.

One of the useful features of the text is the side-bar boxes inserted at various points. For example, during the discussion on Foucault's development of Power and Institutions, there are brief discussions, set apart from the primary strand of the text, on the Marxist idea of ideology, developing further this idea should the reader not be familiar with it, or at least not in the way with which Foucault would be working with ideas derived from it. Each section on a key idea spans approximately twenty pages, with a brief summary concluding each, which gives a recap of the ideas (and provides a handy reference).Some of the concluding sections in this volume (unlike other volumes in the series) are not as handy as a recap, but do connect the primary ideas with the next chapter.

The concluding chapter, After Foucault, highlights some key areas of development in relation to other thinkers, as well as points of possible exploration for the reader. Foucault's thought vis-à-vis feminist thought is dramatic and interesting, given Foucault's generally androcentric (and often misogynistic) stance in writing - still the issues of power relations and society are crucial to feminist critique.His post-colonialist ideas, again springing from the reformulation of power relationships in society after a dominant, foreign power is displaced, influenced further thinkers such as Edward Said.Foucault has (perhaps unintentionally) become useful for the anti-psychiatric lobby, as Foucault sees much defined as madness to be social construct rather than actual ailment (Foucault saw talk-therapy as a kind of modernised `confessional').

There was only one point at which I had a serious disagreement with Mills in her analysis of Foucault.At one point in discussing his tendency toward not developing fully thought-out theories, she speculates that his kind of approach could possibly be used `to justify fascism or to deny the existence of the Holocaust'.I would disagree with this assessment, given that this would not in fact discredit systems of power, but merely replace one with another.If fascism or Holocaust-deniers were not a power-in-potential, that might be true.But then, this is a point upon which much discussion could continue!

As do the other volumes in this series, Mills concludes with an annotated bibliography of works by Foucault (primarily those available in authoritative English translation), works on Foucault, and even internet references.

While this series focuses intentionally upon critical literary theory and cultural studies, in fact this is only the starting point. For Foucault (as for others in this series) the expanse is far too broad to be drawn into such narrow guidelines, and the important and impact of the ideas extends out into the whole range of intellectual development. As intellectual endeavours of every sort depend upon language, understanding, and interpretation, the thorough comprehension of how and why we know what we know is crucial. ... Read more

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This is a major international reference series providing comprehensive accounts of the work of seminal educational thinkers from a variety of periods, disciplines and traditions. Michael Foucault is undisputedly a major thinker in education. Lynn Fendler's volume offers the most coherent account of Foucault's educational thought. This work is divided into: intellectual bibliography; critical exposition of Foucault's work; the reception and influence of Foucault's work; and, the relevance of the work today. It is the most ambitious and prestigious such project ever published - a definitive resource for at least a generation. The thinkers include: Aquinas, Aristotle, Bourdieu, Bruner, Dewey, Foucault, Freire, Holt, Kant, Locke, Montessori, Neill, Newman, Owen, Peters, Piaget, Plato, Rousseau, Steiner, Vygotsky, West and Wollstonecraft. ... Read more

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This collection of essays on the philosophy of Foucault assesses his various work from a variety of perspectives: his place in the history of philosophy; his style and method of philosophical expression; his notions of political power; his ethical thought; and his attitude to psychoanalysis. ... Read more

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What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? René Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Frustrating but ultimately rewarding
Foucault is a difficult read. His concepts and language require much of the reader, making re-readings and multiple contemplations frequent requirements. So why is he so intent to make us read so much of it unnecessarily? That's not to say that This is Not a Pipe is not worthwhile. On the contrary, its reconsideration of the meaning of representation and originals is both thought-provoking and whimsical (in the best meaning of that word). However, the book (shall we say "long essay"?) is needlessly tedious and leads the reader too often to frustratingly conclude that this bit or that seems to have covered already. That said, what is covered (and re-covered) is a quite ingenious examination of the nature of art and its representation of the original. Foucault's assessment of René Magritte's work, which comprises the bulk of the discussion, is imminently interesting, especially when he strays from the titular Pipe paintings and goes toe to toe with a series of Magritte's works stressing the limitations of the perceptions of assumed representation. Where Foucault stumbles and drags is in his (thankfully limited) treatment of Kandinsky and Klee, whose work receives short shrift via a greatly underdeveloped evaluation of their integration of representations, essentially serving as rather weak counterpoints to Magritte. Nevertheless, this short and useless digression aside, Pipe is a challenging consideration of our concepts of reality, perceptions, images and the manner in which they are all represented in art and in the imagination.

Art theory + semiotics + Foucault = you will like it!
I really enjoyed the book. It is art theory, semiotics and Foucault in the same plate. Based on the analysis of Margitte's "This is not a pipe", he argues that modern art became autonomous from the language that lied buried in representational realism. While Klee and Kandinsky used abstraction to destroy syntax of the traditional (XV-XIX c.) visual art, Margitte used literalism to undermine itself.

It is not an easy reading but since you have picked the book (for whatever reason you did so), I believe you will enjoy it. Take your time, don't swallow it all at once, consume the words along with the images in the back of the book and I bet you won't regret it.

My favorite quote: "A day will come when, by means of similitude relayed indefinitely along the length of a series, the image itself, along with the name it bears, will lose its identity. Campbell, Campbell, Campbell, Campbell."

intermixture of thought, play, and literary drum 'n' bass
This essay entitled "This Is Not A Pipe" is a fascinating excursion into the intriguing art of the great 20th C. Belgian painter. In this essay Foucault blurs the space between the critic and the subject being criticized. His thorough analysis inculcates his own hypertextual "isms" and replicating terminology that adequately reciprocates Magritte's offbeat beauty. From Foucault's view of what he considers the two principles that ruled painting (European painting?) from the 15th C. to the 20th C., to the relationship between resemblance and similitude, the mystery and static of a Magritte painting is transported onto the pages of this book. Ultimately this text is an interesting display of the interplay between text, image and the elements inculcated in the analysis thereof.

a fine work
if you consider this treacle then you certainly lack any real insight into philosophy or art criticism of the 20th century; either that, or you're carrying some kind of baggage or childish grudge.

foucault offers us just one interpretation of magritte's _pipe_, and some thought in general about art, representation and the sign.it's really just part of an on-going discussion.it'sa shame he's dead; he'd have loved usenet.

in any case, this book is one voice in a chorus of discussion on the matter; his is also an informed, intelligent, and original voice - albeit controversial (see review below for ruffled feathers).

this book stands on its own, but is definetly not a good introduction to foucault per se; I think it's best to start with a history of sexuality volume I, then read the introduction of history of sexuality volume II, and then you can pretty much read any foucault from there.

Language is a Prison
I read this in college while studying semiotics and surrealism, yet the message of Foucault should not be relegated to the exotic and extreme "isms" of academia.I found "Pipe" to be a marvelous and playful illustration of the tryanny of language and the Orwellian control of thought which follows.Readers of Postmodern thought, Zen, Marxism, Film Theory, Psychoanlysis, and Modern Art will find moments of illumination throughout. ... Read more

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This is an important introduction to and critical interpretation of the work of the major French thinker, Michel Foucault.Through comprehensive and detailed analyses of such important texts as The History of Madness in the Age of Reason, The Birth of the Clinic, The Order of Things, and The Archaeology of Knowledge, the author provides a lucid exposition of Foucault's "archaeological" approach to the history of thought, a method for uncovering the "unconscious" structures that set boundaries on the thinking of a given epoch.The book casts Foucault in a new light, relating his work to Gaston Bachelard's philosophy of science and Georges Canguilhem's history of science. This perspective yields a new and valuable understanding of Foucault as a historian and philosopher of science, balancing and complementing the more common view of him as primarily a social critic and theorist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

intense intellectual complexity
I like the idea of counter memory consisting of actual events that most people would never think about. Millions of people never read this book.

Brilliant
A remarkable collection of essays and lectures all of which revolve around the subject of language. For Foucault, Discourse represents a context within which power relations exist. The two most noted essays in this collection are 'What is an Author?' and 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.'It is in the latter that one can discern the enormous impact that Nietzsche has made on Foucault's archaeological project. He engages in a discussion on the nature of history as it relates to power relations and truth. Foucault writes: "The successes of history belong to those who had used them, to disguise themselves so as to pervert them, invert their meaning, and redirect them against those who had initially imposed them; controlling this complex mechanism, they will make it function so as to overcome the rulers through their own rules" (151).

This is a remarkable collection with lectures and essays ranging from Borges and Holderlin to Deleuze. One can also find his explication of the 'History of Systems of Thought' as a discipline which would dominate his attention in the final years of his life. ... Read more

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Whilst Foucault's work has become a major strand of postmodern theology, the wider relevance of his work for theology still remains largely unexamined. Foucault both engages the Christian tradition and critically challenges its disciplinary regime. This text brings together a selection of essays by leading Foucault scholars on a variety of themes within the history, thought and practice of theology. Revealing the diverse ways that the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) has been employed to rethink theology in terms of power, discourse, sexuality and the politics of knowledge, the authors examine power and sexuality in the church in late antiquity, (Castelli, Clark, Schuld), raise questions about the relationship between theology and politics (Bernauer, Leezenberg, Caputo), consider new challenges to the nature of theological knowledge in terms of Foucault's critical project (Flynn, Cutrofello, Beadoin, Pinto) and rethink theology in terms of Foucault's work on the history of sexuality (Carrette, Jordan, Mahon). This book demonstrates, for the first time, the influence and growing importance of Foucault's work for contemporary theology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

From the cover:
From back cover of book:
This book brings together a selection of essays by leading Foucault scholars on a variety of themes within the history, thought and practice of theology. Revealing the diverse ways that the work of Michel Foucault (1926-1984) has been employed to rethink theology in terms of power, discourse, sexuality, and the politics of knowledge, the authors examine power and sexuality in the church in late antiquity (Castelli, Clark, Schuld), raise questions about the relationship between theology and politics (Bernauer, Leezenberg, Caputo), consider new challenges to the nature of theological knowledge in terms of Foucault's critical project (Flynn, Cutrofello, Beadoin, Pinto) and rethink theology in terms of Foucault's work on the history of sexuality (Carrette, Jordan, Mahon). This book demonstrates, for the first time, the influence and growing importance of Foucault's work for contemporary theology. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Was Modernity Racist At Its Core?
To bring her book to a close, Ann Stoler uses a Foucaldian shock-effect by presenting a "gynecological study" by a Dutch doctor at the end of the 19th century that mixes a quasi-pornographic presentation of Javanese women's naked bodies and genitalia with conventional counseling to European women on health and hygiene under the tropics. This striking example of "scientia sexualis", with its eroticization of colonial subjects and its marking of racial and social distances, could have played the role that Foucault ascribed to the Narrenschiff or ship of fools at the beginning of Madness and Civilization, or to Bentham's Panopticon in Discipline and Punish: a metaphor that condensates a whole argument and generates a vivid image that prepares the reader for the demonstration that follows.

Instead, Stoler writes her whole essay against the easy interpretations that one could draw from such a text: that power was always about sex, that colonial domination was a sublimated expression of frustrated desires in the West, and that the Orient was the stage where the repressed bourgeois self played its revenge. Such a view posits desire as a pre-cultural instinct or a as a set of norms that emerged fully constituted in the West. But as Foucault writes, "one should not think that desire is repressed, for the simple reason that the law is what constitutes desire and the lack on which it is predicated." Stoler adds that the imperial domain was where a good part of the education of modern desire took place.

The central argument of the book is that race and racism, as they were codified in the colonies, played a constitutive part in the making of the European bourgeois self. Consequently, we should not treat metropole and colonies as distinct analytical fields, but we should instead consider colonies as "laboratories of modernity", as testing grounds where Europe's bourgeois order was first modeled and experienced.

This claim has now become a central tenet in the field of post-colonial studies, and various authors have presented similar arguments. As Stoler notes, "Sidney Mintz has suggested that the disciplinary strategies of large-scale industrial production may have been worked out in the colonies before they were tried out in European contexts. Timothy Mitchell has placed the panopticon, that supreme model institution of disciplinary power, as a colonial invention that first appeared in the Ottoman Empire, not Northern Europe. French policies on urban planning were certainly experimented with in Paris and Toulouse, but as both Gwendolyn Wright and Paul Rabinow have each so artfully shown, probably in Rabat and Haiphong first."

Note the use of the qualifiers "suggest" and "probably". Unfortunately, the empirical evidence sustaining the thesis of "colonies as testing grounds" is suggestive at best. As the author confesses, "whether the Indies was central to the construction of nineteenth-century Dutch bourgeois culture is still difficult to affirm given the compartmentalization of Dutch historiography." In other words, more work is needed, and Stoler defers to later the proof of the argument on which her essay is based.

If the proposition that colonies played a role in shaping modernity sounds plausible and deserves further enquiry, the claim that liberalism was racist at its core sounds utterly preposterous. This is however the interpretation that Stoler draws from Foucault, or more precisely from a series of lectures that the French philosopher gave in 1976 and that were still unpublished at the time the author wrote her essay. Foucault's argument is more genealogical than historical and evolves around the history of the Norman conquest of Saxon England, or the Trojan and Germanic myths of France's origins. The idea is that the discourse on class that pits one social group against the other derives from an earlier discourse on race, and not the other way around. In other words, racism emerged "not as the ideological reaction of those threatened by the universalistic principles of the modern liberal state, but as a foundational fiction within it."

This discourse on "the dark side of the Enlightenment" is by now familiar and indeed gained credence at the time the 200th anniversary of the French revolution was celebrated. But I simply don't buy it. I wish that Ann Stoler, who writes beautifully and develops a nuanced analysis of Foucault's work, would have critiqued that argument instead of taking it as a starting point.

The Roots of the Invisible American Empire
Drawing on the extensive postcolonial studies of the 1990's, Stoler critiques Foucault (and Freud) by making the startlingly obvious observation that neither in their respective theories of sexuality recognized one suspect member of the bourgeois family: the servant (and that servant's breathren in the colonies).She writes that "[w]ithin this racialized economy of sex, European women and men won respectability (especially within the colonies) by steering their desires to legitimate paternity and intensive maternal care, to family and conjugal love; it was only poor whites, Indies-born Europeans, mixed-bloods and natives who...focused too much on sex. To be truly European was to cultivate bourgeois self in which familial and national obligations were the priority and sex was held in check--not by silencing the discussion of sex, but by parcelling out demonstrations of excess to different social groups and thereby gradually exorcising its proximal effects."

Missing from her study, and that of post-colonial studies generally, was the manner in which this discourse was recuperated following the Second World War.Today, far from being held in check, the world is increasingly understood psychosexually as bourgeois households come to identify, albeit from a distance and mediated by the commodities they purchase, with those whom they perceive as 'dangerous.'
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A perfunctory work
I would have cared to hear more about Foucault's romances in the Ugrian mountains ranges, yet he still manages to capture the
mind and imagnination of anyone who has lost a dog to the savagery of a freeway. Word of warning: have a box of tissues handy!

Interesting collection of essays on Foucault and the self.
"Technologies of the self" contains essays by Foucault-scholars and Foucault himself. It concentrates on Foucault's later works, where there is a shift of focus from the power/knowledge axis to the axis of ethics. This collection of should be of interest to anyone who are interested in Foucault's work on ethics and subjectivity. I found one essay particularly illuminating; "Foucault and the Liberal View of the Individual" by Alessandro - something. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Extraordinary
This collection of lectures delivered at the College de France from 1973-1974 is a remarkable update of Foucault's thinking on psychiatry and its constitutive transformations. There is a substantial revision of the early work in `History of Madness,' which Foucault now feels was a history of representations. At this later stage, the vantage point of his analysis has shifted, and he is no longer interested in representations or institutional analyses, but rather with the morphology of power relations that compose apparatuses of knowledge. This series traces, albeit in a preliminary fashion, the precise transformations from psychiatric power in the early 19th century all the way up to the development of psychoanalysis. There is much that is left wide open for further research here, and Foucault's conclusions remain preliminary gestures towards his larger archaeology of knowledge.

Foucault-Shmoucault
This late addition to the Foucault corpus is a further installment in the College de France courses which have surfaced in the enduring craze for all things Foucault.This volume is no disappointment, as it carries within its pages that wit and offbeat genius that we enjoyed in his earlier work on madness, prisons, and the constitution of reality.Anyone who enjoys working out their gray matter or who was fascinated by the better lecturers in college will find this delightful and thought-provoking. ... Read more

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When he died in 1984, Michel Foucault was widely regarded as one of the most powerful minds of this century. Hailed by historians and lionized in America, he continues to provoke lively debate. This meticulously documented narrative debunks the many myths and rumors surrounding the brilliant philosopher to consider that all Foucault's books are "fragments of an autobiography". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not perfect, but easily the best biography currently available
Of the three full-length biographies on Foucault currently available in English (the other two are those by James Miller and David Macey), Didier Eribon's is unquestionably the best, but unfortunately it doesn't really fill the need for a first-rate intellectual biography.Almost thirty years after his death, Foucault is a more potent intellectual presence than ever and the need for a definitive biography is growing.Eribon's biography is solid as far as it goes, but it leaves you wanting far more than you get.

It isn't that Eribon does anything wrong.There is plenty of information on most periods of his life,The weakness of the book is that there simply isn't enough information.It is generally stated that Wittgenstein and Heidegger were the two great philosophers of the 20th Century, but it is beginning to appear that they were the two great philosophers of the first half of the 20th Century, while Habermas and Foucault were the two most important philosophers of the second half.While some important philosophers of the late 20th Century seem to have been more of a fad or of temporary influence (Derrida is a good example), Foucault is one philosopher whose influence and importance (like that of John Rawls) appears to be increasing.

Given Foucault's dominance and importance, a comprehensive and exhaustive biography would seem not only desirable, but crucial.And with many of those who knew him aging, hopefully someone is engaged in conducting interviews with them.Until we get that biography, we will have to rely on Eribon and the two other biographies, the slightly less helpful biography by Macey and the considerably less helpful biography by Miller.The latter two, as I write this the other two volumes are in print, but Eribon is sadly only available used.I would recommend seeking this one out rather than relying on either of the other two biographies.

An example of the lack of information provided by Eribon is his very slim treatment of the lectures he gave each year at the College de France.They provide a great deal of additional detail on his thinking throughout the final fourteen years of his life, but Eribon barely touches upon them.Also, though the final volume of The History of Sexuality was very close to completion, his literary executors made the decision not to allow its publication.However, many of his students have copies of that manuscript and it would have been nice to have the contents discussed in greater detail.

But until we get a better biography, this is likely as good as we are going to get.I'm excited by Paul Veyne's memoir of Foucault that is due to appear very shortly in English translation, but the real need is a full length critical biography that details his intellectual development.

Just the facts, ma'am
As the two other biographies of Foucault (David Macey's and James Miller's flame thrower of a biography) are no longer in print, this objective and fair biography will suffice.

Eribon concerns his work primarily withFoucault's academic activities (a proverbial who's who of twentieth centuryFrench intellectual life) as well as his political engagements. Surprisingly these two aspects bring out a highly contradictory Foucault:on the one hand, we find a determined academic who succeeds to the Collegede France and becomes an important institutional figure in the FrenchAcademy; but on the other hand, there is teh Foucault who was committed tosocial justice, human rights, and a dedicated iconoclast who mistrustedpower, authority, and the institution.

But what is lacking is apenetrating account of Foucault's last years.Eribon fast-forwards from1977 (the year of Volonte du Savoir) to Foucualt's untimely death in 1984. This comes as a great disservice for in those seven years Foucault's work,in its absolute silence, underwent a significant and startling change. Also, missing from this period is Foucault's re-engagement withCatholicism, not as a practitioner nor a believer, but as an austereintellectual who felt great affinities with the tradition of the Church andScholarship.

On this note, the recent collection 'Religion and Culture'includes a revealing preface by James Bernauer which reflects on Foucault'sfinal years as he conducted research for the last two volumes of theHistory of Sexuality in a Catholic library. ... Read more

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Postmodern theorist Michel Foucault is best known for his work on "power/ knowledge", and on the regulation of sexuality in modern society. Yet throughout his life, Foucault was continually concerned with Christianity, other spiritual movements and religious traditions, and the death of God, and these themes and materials scattered are throughout his many writings. Religion and Culture collects for the first time this important thinker's work on religion, religious experience, and society. Here are classic essays such as The Battle for Chastity, alongside those that have been less widely read in English or in French. Selections are arranged in three groupings: Madness, Religion and the Avant-Garde; Religions, Politics and the East; and Christianity, Sexuality and the Self: Fragments of an Unpublished Volume. Ranging from Foucault's earliest studies of madness to Confessions of the Flesh, the unpublished fourth volume of his History of Sexuality, his final thoughts on early Christianity, Religion and Culture makes Foucault's work an indispensable part of contemporary religious thought, while also making an important link between religious studies and cultural studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A mixed bag
As the English speaking world is lacking the definitive collection of Foucault's numerous occasional writings for journals, newspapers and forwards to books, any addition to the ever-expanding oeuvre oftranslations is a plus.

Most of the selections here have been publishedpreviously in other collections.However, this collection includes someinteresting pieces that were previously hard to find.My favorite may be"Who are you, Professor Foucault?" an interview conducted shortlyafter Les Mots and les choses, in which Foucault dismisses the criticism ofanti-humanism by referring to humans as mere functioning species.Classic. Also, the essay, "Is It Useless to Revolt?" is a stunning andconflicting piece of political writing.Beautifully written (andtranslated).The editor includes a selection of Foucault's final lectureswhich outlines the intended fourth volume to the History of Sexuality: TheConfessions of the Flesh.

In all, these essays provide an interestingcontrast between Foucault's aesthetic views and views on spirituality andreligion.Indeed, the mystical side of Foucault are highlighted in hisessays on Klossowski and modern French fiction when read alongside hiswritings on the Church and mystical experiences.

Oh, and thiscollection includes a marvellous brief memoir by James Bernauer.Goodstuff... ... Read more

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What does it mean to write "This is not a pipe" across a bluntly literal painting of a pipe? René Magritte's famous canvas provides the starting point for a delightful homage by French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault. Much better known for his incisive and mordant explorations of power and social exclusion, Foucault here assumes a more playful stance. By exploring the nuances and ambiguities of Magritte's visual critique of language, he finds the painter less removed than previously thought from the pioneers of modern abstraction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Frustrating but ultimately rewarding
Foucault is a difficult read. His concepts and language require much of the reader, making re-readings and multiple contemplations frequent requirements. So why is he so intent to make us read so much of it unnecessarily? That's not to say that This is Not a Pipe is not worthwhile. On the contrary, its reconsideration of the meaning of representation and originals is both thought-provoking and whimsical (in the best meaning of that word). However, the book (shall we say "long essay"?) is needlessly tedious and leads the reader too often to frustratingly conclude that this bit or that seems to have covered already. That said, what is covered (and re-covered) is a quite ingenious examination of the nature of art and its representation of the original. Foucault's assessment of René Magritte's work, which comprises the bulk of the discussion, is imminently interesting, especially when he strays from the titular Pipe paintings and goes toe to toe with a series of Magritte's works stressing the limitations of the perceptions of assumed representation. Where Foucault stumbles and drags is in his (thankfully limited) treatment of Kandinsky and Klee, whose work receives short shrift via a greatly underdeveloped evaluation of their integration of representations, essentially serving as rather weak counterpoints to Magritte. Nevertheless, this short and useless digression aside, Pipe is a challenging consideration of our concepts of reality, perceptions, images and the manner in which they are all represented in art and in the imagination.

Art theory + semiotics + Foucault = you will like it!
I really enjoyed the book. It is art theory, semiotics and Foucault in the same plate. Based on the analysis of Margitte's "This is not a pipe", he argues that modern art became autonomous from the language that lied buried in representational realism. While Klee and Kandinsky used abstraction to destroy syntax of the traditional (XV-XIX c.) visual art, Margitte used literalism to undermine itself.

It is not an easy reading but since you have picked the book (for whatever reason you did so), I believe you will enjoy it. Take your time, don't swallow it all at once, consume the words along with the images in the back of the book and I bet you won't regret it.

My favorite quote: "A day will come when, by means of similitude relayed indefinitely along the length of a series, the image itself, along with the name it bears, will lose its identity. Campbell, Campbell, Campbell, Campbell."

intermixture of thought, play, and literary drum 'n' bass
This essay entitled "This Is Not A Pipe" is a fascinating excursion into the intriguing art of the great 20th C. Belgian painter. In this essay Foucault blurs the space between the critic and the subject being criticized. His thorough analysis inculcates his own hypertextual "isms" and replicating terminology that adequately reciprocates Magritte's offbeat beauty. From Foucault's view of what he considers the two principles that ruled painting (European painting?) from the 15th C. to the 20th C., to the relationship between resemblance and similitude, the mystery and static of a Magritte painting is transported onto the pages of this book. Ultimately this text is an interesting display of the interplay between text, image and the elements inculcated in the analysis thereof.

a fine work
if you consider this treacle then you certainly lack any real insight into philosophy or art criticism of the 20th century; either that, or you're carrying some kind of baggage or childish grudge.

foucault offers us just one interpretation of magritte's _pipe_, and some thought in general about art, representation and the sign.it's really just part of an on-going discussion.it'sa shame he's dead; he'd have loved usenet.

in any case, this book is one voice in a chorus of discussion on the matter; his is also an informed, intelligent, and original voice - albeit controversial (see review below for ruffled feathers).

this book stands on its own, but is definetly not a good introduction to foucault per se; I think it's best to start with a history of sexuality volume I, then read the introduction of history of sexuality volume II, and then you can pretty much read any foucault from there.

Language is a Prison
I read this in college while studying semiotics and surrealism, yet the message of Foucault should not be relegated to the exotic and extreme "isms" of academia.I found "Pipe" to be a marvelous and playful illustration of the tryanny of language and the Orwellian control of thought which follows.Readers of Postmodern thought, Zen, Marxism, Film Theory, Psychoanlysis, and Modern Art will find moments of illumination throughout. ... Read more

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A comprehensive survey and introduction to the range of Michel Foucault's thought dealing with philosophy in general, sociology, political science, art, literature, and history in particular. ... Read more

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This introduction and commentary to Kant's least discussed work, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, is the dissertation that Michel Foucault presented in 1961 as his doctoral thesis. It has remained unpublished, in any language, until now.

In his exegesis and critical interpretation of Kant's Anthropology, Foucault raises the question of the relation between psychology and anthropology, and how they are affected by time. Through a Kantian "critique of the anthropological slumber," Foucault warns against the dangers of treating psychology as a new metaphysics, explores the possibilities of studying man empirically, and reflects on the nature of time, art and technique, self-perception, and language. Extending Kant's suggestion that any empirical knowledge of man is inextricably tied up with language, Foucault asserts that man is a world citizen insofar as he speaks. For both Kant and Foucault, anthropology concerns not the human animal or self-consciousness but, rather, involves the questioning of the limits of human knowledge and concrete existence.

This long-unknown text is a valuable contribution not only to a scholarly appreciation of Kant's work but as the first outline of what would later become Foucault's own frame of reference within the history of philosophy. It is thus a definitive statement of Foucault's relation to Kant as well as Foucault's relation to the critical tradition of philosophy. By going to the heart of the debate on structuralist anthropology and the status of the human sciences in relation to finitude, Foucault also creates something of a prologue to his foundational The Order of Things. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Immersed in the Matrix: Interrogating Kant's Idealism
The Matrix - great movie, right? A visual restatement of Plato's Cave, but set in modern times...where we are all seated in front of a fire and immersed in our own shadows (the matrix) on the wall, or what Schopenhauer called the Veil of Maya. So Kant comes along and says, like Plato, that we can choose to stand, exit the Cave, and be awash in a transcendental, universal truth. Wow! What a promise!

French thinker Michel Foucault, conversely, remains overtly unsure of - or even hostile to - this vague promise of any metaphysical realm that exists "out there;" rather, he is more interested in how we determine Selfhood empirically, that is, via our shared space as "citizens," i.e., through culture, language, etc. As Foucault writes in his commentary to this text, he is seeking to investigate the "self which is object and present only in its phenomenal truth."

Foucault's project in this slim volume, then, is to juxtapose Kant's Idealism with Kant's Anthropology. Although I have read just about everything else both Kant and Foucault have written, I still struggled mightily with this book. Frankly, it was stiff and boring at first. I lost track of what Foucault was trying to accomplish. Yet, I stuck with it, and slowly, the text began to shine. Perhaps: it was not the text that shone, really, but Foucault's project in general - psychology not as some metaphysical, ghostlike object, but rather, as embedded within our empirical, everyday lives.

Logistically, Introduction to Kant's Anthropology was Foucault's "complementary doctoral thesis," and is not well known outside of academic circles. As such, it reads like a doctoral thesis, which is to say, it is not as smooth reading as his other brilliantly accessible texts are, nor is the thesis as clearly developed (and restated) as his other work. Despite some rough translation, a few typos, and some hard to penetrate ideas, the book is well-worth a good read.

If any of this makes sense, then I think you will enjoy this slim but philosophically dense volume. It really is a niche book...and it might even make you rent The Matrix one more time.

A must for any Foucault library!
... Read more

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In this remarkable book Michel Foucault, one of the most influential thinkers of recent times, calls us to look critically at specific historical events in order to uncover new layers of significance. In doing so, he challenges our assumptions not only about history, but also about the nature of language and reason, even of truth. By analyzing the methods of observation that underpinned the origins of modern medical techniques, Foucault is able to identify "that opening up of the concrete individual, for the first time in Western history, to the language of rationality, that major event in the relationship of man to himself and of language to things." The scope of such an undertaking is vast, but it is Foucault's skill that, by means of his uniquely engaging narrative style, his penetrating gaze is able to confront our own. After reading his words our perceptions are never quite the same again. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Sarcophagus State
Upon Further Consideration:

This work stresses the political economy less than 'Birth of the Prison'. One chapter does mention post-Revoultionary France's justification for caring for the impoverished as experimental work to prevent the diseases of the elite but the implications are not stressed and are not part of the primary conclusion of the book.

This work is smart in its hint at the occult/spiritual and secretive aspects of medicine (and the French Revolution?): doctors as 'body priests' and 'genii' working with societal 'chains', and the revelation that modern medicine (and modern society) changed when the taboo of mutilating corpses was finally lifted. (Fast-forward 200 years to today's for-profit 'organ farms'.)

Enter the 21st century Culture of Death and the land of the Lynchian living-dead where we are all forever exposed to the new Sacrament of the Ghoulish Gaze (taught in every medical school, hyped by National Geographic and now automated by HIPAA with threat of penalty). We are all subjects of the clinician-priests and the clinical society, that in its rather promethean and insipid lust for tabulation, information and the secrets of death (vs. the Hellenistic lust for perfected life) has created a giant, cultural sarcophagus: a perverse microscopial entombment that further and further distracts from the work of life.

Foucault's brilliance is in opening doors and leaving them open.
... Read more