Michel Foucault: The Will to Truth

by Alan Sheridan

First Published in 2004. Michel Foucault: The Will to Truth is the first full-length study of Foucault in any language. It covers the whole of his work to date, including material unavailable in English, and provides invaluable information on recent French intellectual history. Foucault emerges as an essential thinker for our time: his 'political anatomy' implies a radical critique not only of established intellectual positions, and social institutions, but also most of the alternatives offered by the opposition.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Theory

254 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1980

About the author

Born Alan Mark Sheridan-Smith, Sheridan read English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge before spending 5 years in Paris as English assistant at Lycée Henri IV and Lycée Condorcet.[1] Returning to London, he briefly worked in publishing before becoming a freelance translator. He has translated works of fiction, history, philosophy, literary criticism, biography and psychoanalysis by Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Robert Pinget and many others. He was the first to publish a book in English on Foucault's work and has also written a biography of André Gide, plus two novels.

Reviews

[Tom Lobban]

A decent introduction to Foucault's work (up to 1980) by his many a time English translator Alan Sheridan. Contains good outlines of Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison and The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction, as well as Nietzsche's influence on Foucault, and Foucault's concept of "Power".

Pros:
- Outlining of Foucault's major works with heavy quotation (up to 1980 - ignore the Goodreads description which suggests that this book was first published in 2004.)
- Second half, The Genealogy of Power is a good description of Foucault's concept of "Power" and his appropriation of Nietzsche.
- Summary outlining Foucault's work in relation to contemporary movements.
- Bibliography of Foucault's work and works on Foucault.

Cons:
- Uncritical of Foucault and hagiographic in places; also gets quite snitty at times in the summary (particularly with regards to Althusserian Marxism).
- First half, The Archaeology of Knowledge, is particularly dense. The book consists of three sections per half, each of which runs through a complete work of Foucault's without any further division or signposting. This works for the second part of the book, but is quite exhausting in the first.
- The complete absence -outside of the bibliography- of any reference to Jacques Derrida (who, according to Geoffrey Bennington, generates "the most telling critique of Foucault"). This is readily apparent in the summary.

[Tom Monahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing was fantastic, but the chapters were very long, and the content often felt like it was buried under the prose. Given that it is already difficult content to understand, I wish that the presentation was a little more straightforward and less decadent.

[Bernard English · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sections on knowledge and power are very good. I had some real trouble understanding Sheridan's explanations of Foucault's view on sexuality and power, hence the 3 stars.

I've read some severe criticisms of Focault's use of episteme, but it seems to me Sheridan puts it in perspective and shows that Focault doesn't claim as much for it as some interpreters imply.