Foucault

by Gilles Deleuze

Giles Deleuze (1925-1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII. He is a key figure in poststructuralism and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. In Foucault, Deleuze presents one of the most incisive and productive analyses of the work of Michel Foucault. This is a crucial examination of the philosophical foundations and principal themes of Foucault's work, providing a rigorous engagement with Foucault's views on knowledge, punishment, power, and the nature of subjectivity. Translated by Seßn Hand.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, France, Politics, Sociology, Academic

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Deleuze is a key figure in poststructuralist French philosophy. Considering himself an empiricist and a vitalist, his body of work, which rests upon concepts such as multiplicity, constructivism, difference and desire, stands at a substantial remove from the main traditions of 20th century Continental thought. His thought locates him as an influential figure in present-day considerations of society, creativity and subjectivity. Notably, within his metaphysics he favored a Spinozian concept of a plane of immanence with everything a mode of one substance, and thus on the same level of existence. He argued, then, that there is no good and evil, but rather only relationships which are beneficial or harmful to the particular individuals. This ethics influences his approach to society and politics, especially as he was so politically active in struggles for rights and freedoms. Later in his career he wrote some of the more infamous texts of the period, in particular, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These texts are collaborative works with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and they exhibit Deleuze’s social and political commitment.

Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.

He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

We must take quite literally the idea that man is a face drawn in the sand between two tides: he is a composition appearing between two others, a classical past that never knew him, and a future that will no longer know him.

I remain leery of those who profess to "know" Foucault, all the epistemological breaks and fissures lead one to count more on a fluid awareness of Foucault's thought, rather than any fluency of sorts. This is one of the theses flashed by Deleuze. He rejects those who demarcate a solid position and resign Foucault to that corner exclusively.

Today wasn't a smart day for me personally. I treasure those. Today, however I woke early and began clawing through this volume. Sundays are generous in this encouragement. Deleuze's Foucault is one of statements, not propositions. He archives rather than constructs. It is a process swimming with Power, Knowledge and Self. The self folds these other experiences inwards, internalizing them, letting rummy ripples sequence outwards. This isn't a question of dualities but rather multiplicities. There is no hierarchy here, just a diagram, that peerless positioning of concepts and forces. I'm not sure I have a handle on the diagram's significance, it is a slippery notion. Ultimately the foundation for Foucault's experience is the visual and the articulable. Deleuze's survey skips from the power books on the clinic, the asylum and the prison. A leap is then made to the History of Sexuality and another parallel on towards a project involving Heidegger.

In truth, one thing haunts Foucault - thought. The question: 'What does thinking signify? What do we call thinking?' is the arrow first fired by Heidegger and then again by Foucault. He writes a history, but a history of thought as such.

This leads us towards Deleuze's final section, the appendix which some reviewers found to redeem this whole project. The title is On the death of Man and Superman. This draws some wonky post-human thoughts into the fore and I wish there would have been more.

[Deep · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book sets out to explain the work of Michel Foucault it's certainly not an introduction. Written in Deleuze's dense jargon, it demands some prior knowledge of the author's theoretical terms to parse the implied meanings and connections. Deleuze does explain these terms contextually, but I found myself flipping back and forth (and in and out of Wallerstein's excellent Swedish foreword) as earlier paragraphs suddenly became much clearer a page or two later. I'd thus recommend François Zourabichvili's Deleuze: A Philosophy of Event before engaging this work and The Deleuze Dictionary close at hand. This made my first attempt at this book grind to a halt midway. But now, a few Deleuze books later, I decided to give it another try. Still, expect to read a chapter or two before it 'clicks'.

With this in mind 'Foucault' is an excellent and rigorous analysis of the namesake's theory (through Deleuze's characteristic 'doubling' of his own). It unpacks Foucault's theory into the many parts (statement, given light, given speech, thresholds, power, knowing and so on) which distinguishes it from earlier methodologies such as hermeneutics; how Foucault applies these to the more famed topics of 'the care of the self', history, and knowledge. A historian not of subjects, but subject formation. It's therefore, more than anything else, a book about what Foucault does. A welcome change as in my experience too many authors do not move beyond what Foucault says (reducing him to a mere 'historian of the clinic/prison/sexuality' and limiting their engagement to mere exegesis if Foucault is 'factually' correct).

[Maria Ferreira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gilles discursa sobre a obra de Foucault de quem era amigo e admirador.

Este ensaio pretende dar pistas sobre o pensamento de Foucault, dos seus devaneios sobre a Luz e a Linguagem, isto é, sobre o ver e o falar e, da importância destes dois sentidos na concepção do saber, assim como da formação dos relacionamentos das forças que dá origem ao Poder.

Não sendo da minha área de trabalho e estudo, confesso que me perdi um pouco no alcance destas problemáticas e não entendi parte do que Gilles refere, quanto Eu de-Fora e o Eu de-Dentro nem da relação com "finitude constituinte", mas valeu o esforço.

[Pedro Pirata]

He leído este libro como introducción tanto al pensamiento de Foucault, como a la lectura de Deleuze. No sé si he acertado porque no tengo referencias, el tiempo lo dirá. Sea como fuere, lo he disfrutado muchísimo y pienso que es una gran obra en la que Deleuze sintetiza todo el pensamiento de su colega y lo expone, desde sus propias posiciones, de una manera magistral. Quizás echo en falta alguna crítica por parte del autor, puesto que no creo que Foucault haya dado con el sistema perfecto y definitivo de pensar el mundo, aunque comprendo el sentido de su ausencia. En resumen, un estudio extraordinario en el que se reflejan ambos pensamientos y sus correlaciones, que me ha generado un enorme interés por la obra de Foucault, y también un gran homenaje a una amistad más que intelectual.

"La obra de Foucault está en la línea de las grandes obras que han cambiado para nosotros lo que significaba pensar".

[Jinzhou · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's said to be the best introduction out there to Foucault's philosophy. Without previous knowledge of Foucault I came to this book as a friend who does research under Foucault's framework highly recommends it. I've read some of Deleuze's own philosophy in difference and repetition, where he revolutionizes metaphysics of the western tradition from one to many, from static to dynamic. With this knowledge, it's not difficult for me to find deep similarities between them, although it may be the result of Deleuze's Deleuzian reading of Foucault. But this should not be over stressed since these two were close and admired each other when both were alive. For a deeper reason, Foucault's tremendous novelty in revealing the knowledge being, power being and thought being owes much to a metaphysics of multiplicity that Deleuze logically develops in his own works and uses in analyzing Foucault. Without such a ground Foucault's philosophy will appear not so philosophical or consistent. To be continued...

[Alex Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Deleuze's most abstract books. Foucault is pretty abstract to begin with. But Deleuze here, as a tribute to his friend, puts Foucault's work into perspective by showing how the formation of expressive content within discourse can be understood as a generative apparatus through external constraints. In many ways, Foucault is chasing shadows. Discourse is a reactive trace of external agencies. Foucault mines these agencies through a genealogical search of historic formation. The changes that occur to outline a formation of an episteme mark the introduction of new logical expressions of agency. Literally, the formation of content is the appearance of structure as its own principle.

There are some interesting areas that can be explored, but Deleuze does not wish to create a master narrative of sorts. He is out to explicate Foucault's internal engine. And in his characteristic way, he does this well, showing how his own tool box of forms can be utilized within Foucault's search for a discursive center for human organization.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, like many of Deleuze's other works, is commendable not on the uniqueness of its contents (the theory being applied is in my eyes effectively identical to that in Difference and Repetition) but because of the small-scale variations inflicted upon these contents which unveil new potentials for their use.

Unlike most of Deleuze's works, his book on Foucault provides an articulation of his broad metaphysics in the context of its implications for politics and society. These implications are brought about by elaborating theoretically a series of equivalences, via a readaptation of Foucault's corpus: difference/repetition=memory/forgetting, plane-of-immanence=diagram, bodies/paradoxies/events=power/desire/knowledge, corporeal/incorporeal=visible/articulable, and so on.

That said, there is still much from this book that I cannot claim to have understood. A general criticism which deserves to be voiced against all of Deleuze's works on the history of philosophy is that he presumes each time that his reader has an exhaustive knowledge of his 'partner' - and I know far less Foucault than I do Deleuze. Do not approach this work expecting a critical introduction to Foucault; expect from it the creative exercise of thought for which Deleuze is best known.

[Pete · Rating 2 out of 5]

Deleuze spends most of the book translating Foucault into his own spatializing metaphors (diagrams, lines, folds), which is interesting, but he generally doesn't contribute much to my knowledge of Foucault. If anything, the Appendix is the best part, since it contains the clearest statement of what Deleuze thinks is important about Foucault's overall project.

I also thought that Deleuze gives more credit to Foucault than he is actually due in terms of the seriousness of his engagement with linguistics and his treatment of 'statements'.

One valuable overarching theme that I extracted was Deleuze's reframing of Foucault's early works in terms of knowledge and visibility, which I think nicely complements some current work on the history of science (e.g. Daston and Galison's Objectivity).

More than anything I read it to get a taste of Deleuze's style, since I've never read him before. Think I might read his book on Nietzsche next.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es freut mich zu sehen, dass Deleuze anscheinend nach den an ein Delirium erinnernde Zusammenarbeit mit Guattari im Anti-Ödipus wieder in seine alte Brillanz zurückgekehrt ist (wobei der Anti-Ödipus durchaus hochinteressant ist, aus Lesersicht allerdings etwas…).

Meiner Meinung nach hat man es mit diesem Buch mit einem wissenschaftlichen Werk zu tun, das als Vorbild für viele andere dienen kann. Deleuze setzt sich hier mit dem Werk seines Freundes Foucault auseinander, und zwar mit dessen Gesamtwerk. Die Kompaktheit des Bandes ergibt sich aus der Reduktion des Foucault’schen Werkes auf die wichtigsten Kernbotschaften und Elemente. Deleuze fasst Foucault zusammen und interpretiert ihn damit gleichzeitig. Gliederungsmäßig beginnt er zunächst mit der Extraktion der Kernelemente aus der „Archäologie des Wissens“ und geht dann zu „Überwachen und Strafen“ über. Im Prinzip werden anhand dieser beiden Werke die wichtigsten Elemente Foucaults, das, wie es Deleuze nennt, Sagen (Archäologie des Wissens und Ordnung der Dinge) und das Sehen (Überwachen und Strafen, Geburt der Klinik) einmal zusammengefasst und definiert.

Im zweiten Teil, der Topologie: Anders denken, setzt sich Deleuze dann mit weiteren Ebenen des Foucault’schen Werkes auseinander, dem Wissen, der Macht und der Subjektivierung. Dabei verwendet er teils eigene Konzepte wie die Faltung, was aber nicht wirklich negativ auffällt, da trotzdem immer der Fokus auf Foucaults Werken bleibt.

Die Stärke dieses Werkes liegt auf mehreren Ebenen. Einerseits hat man sprachlich eine zwar hochkomplexe, aber immer wieder durch zusammenfassende Abschnitte aufgelockerte Zusammenfassung mit den Kernaussagen Foucaults (bzw. der Interpretation der Kernaussagen nach Deleuze).

Andererseits ergibt sich bereits durch die Tatsache, dass Deleuze mit Foucault befreundet war, eine gewisse Gravität in den Ausführungen. Im Gegensatz etwa zu heutigen Forschern, die über Foucault schreiben, hat Deleuze mit Foucault kommuniziert. Dieser Gedankenaustausch ist natürlich hundertmal mehr wert als Archivforschung oder eine hermeneutische Auseinandersetzung mit den Werken Foucaults alleine.

Alles in allem eine wirklich empfehlenswerte Lektüre zu Foucault, die mir einerseits durch ihre Klarheit sehr weitergeholfen hat, andererseits die Komplexität von Foucault noch einmal herausstreicht und dadurch mein Verständnis auch soweit erweitert hat, dass ich nun sagen kann: Ich weiß, dass ich (fast) nichts zu Foucault weiß :-)

[Virga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deleuze'o rašomos klasikų interpretacijos skirtos dar ir dar paaiškinti paties Deleuze'o filosofiją, taip ir šita. Palaipsniui ėmė atrodyti, kad iš tikrųjų skaitau Skirtumą ir kartotę (pradžioj knygos, kur apie kalbą ir mąstymą) arba Tūkstantį plokštikalnių (į galą knygos, kur rodoma tarsi kažkas panašaus į Foucault ontologiją).
Labai gera interpretacija (jokio skirtumo, ką galvojo/ galvotų pats Foucault), po jos šiek tiek kitaip (nebe sausai sociopolitiškai) atrodo galios ir jėgos santykis, kalbos ir galios santykis, ir galia apskritai. Po jos norisi dar kartą skaityti ir Foucault (Daiktų tvarką pirmiausiai), ir Deleuze'ą (ir jį su Guattari). Taigi maža knygelė, ir be ypatingų tikslų ir šūkių, bet daug padaro.

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will undoubtedly be a book that I revisit in more favourable circumstances later. Deleuze's thought in many ways is like a Moebius strip - complex and recursive with a mesmerising oasis of depth (in the sense that one can feel the depth and density of what is on display, but is ever cautious of the extent of the depth one thinks it to be - a constant game of recursive judgement). Whilst I do not think that I gained a better understanding of Foucault - it's been pointed that out bald theory man is subordinated and used to illustrate Deleuzian thought - I do think that what has been discussed was an overall favourable journey. Like a comedy, full of misunderstandings, recognition, reconciliation and affirmation.

[Raquel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma preciosa introdução à obra de Michel Foucault, escrita por um filosófo de mérito.

Indispensável enquanto introdução ao pensamento de Foucault.

[Nazli_maza · Rating 3 out of 5]

فکر نکنم بتونم چیزی به معنی ریویو بنویسم
از متن خود کتاب نقل میکنم :
قدرت موش کوری است که راه خود را فقط در شبکه دهلیز هایش و در سوراخ زیرزمینی بس گانه اش پیدا میکند
قدرت بر مبنای نقاطی بیشمار اعمال میشود قدرت از پایین می آید اما دقیقا از آن رو که خود قدرت سخن نمی‌گوید و نمی‌بینید موجب دیدن و سخن گفتن میشود

اگر مناسبات قدرت متضمن روابط دانش است در مقابل روابط دانش نیز مستلزم مناسبات قدرت است ...

سه قرن پیش ایلخانی متعجب بودند که چرا اسپینوزا با آنکه اعتقادی به آزادی انسان یا حتی وجود خاص او ندارد خواستار آزادی انسان است امروز ابلهان جدیدی یا همان تناسخ یافتگان متعجب اند که چرا فوکو در مبارزه های سیاسی شرکت میکند همو که از مرگ انسان سخن گفته بود آنان علیه فوکو به آگاهی جهان شمول جاودانه حقوق بشر که باید مصون از هر تحلیلی باقی بماند استناد میکنند این نخستین بار نیست که توسل به امر جاودانه نقابی می‌شود برای اندیشه ای بیش از حد کودن و محدود که حتی از آنچه میتواند منبع تغذیه اش باشد بیخبر است ....
در خود انسان است که باید زندگی را آزاد کرد زیرا خود انسان شیوه ای از حبس کردن زندگی است هنگامی که قدرت را ابژه خود قرار میدهد زندگی به مقاومت در برابر قدرت بدل میشود ، باز هم در این جا هر دو عمل به افقی واحد تعلق دارند (این نکته را در به خوبی در مسئله سقط جنین میبینم وقتی که ارتجاعی ترین قدرت ها به «حق زندگی»متوسل میشوند


اسپینوزا می‌گفت نمی‌دانیم بدن انسان اگر از انضباط های انسان آزاد شود چه میتواند بکند و فوکو میگوید نمی‌دانیم انسان از این لحاظ که زنده است یعنی به منزله مجموعه ای از نیرو ها که مقاومت می‌کنند چه میتواند بکند
در آخر بگم که ترجمه اش باعث میشد گاهی گیج تر بشم
بعضی کلمات مثل نمودار غیر صوری که خیلی یادم مونده باعث میشدن توی دست انداز کنجار رفتن با کلمات بیافتی و خود مفهوم به قدر کافی پیچیدگی داره که اضافه تر کردنش به نظرم لطفی نداره

[Leonardo]

El pasaje de la sociedad disciplinaria a la sociedad de control no está articulado explícitamente por Foucault, pero permanece implícito en su obra. Seguimos los excelentes comentarios de Gilles Deleuze en esta interpretación. Ver: Gilles Deleuze, Foucault.

Imperio Pág.23


Para una excelente explicación sobre el concepto del diagrama de Foucault, ver Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trad. Seán Hand (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), pp. 34-37.

Imperio Pág.144

[Rui Coelho · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a saying in my country that states: one cannot please both Greeks and Trojans. But in Foucault, you have a book that is confusing for begginers and boring for veterans, boldingly pleasing no one at all.

[Federico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lettura deleuziana della filosofia focaultiana attraverso i tre assi di sapere, potere e soggettivazione. Questo volumetto in particolare è la sintesi in 140-150 pagine di un corso universitario, suddiviso in tre momenti secondo la tripartizione appena accennata, tenuto da Deleuze sul suo collega e amico nel semestre invernale '85-'86 a Parigi; il libro qui recensito è quindi il "riassunto" scritto a posteriori da Deleuze stesso, mentre la trascrizione intera del corso si protrae per tre volumi, acquistabili separatamente, contando in totale circa 600 pagine.

Se vogliamo parlare dell'aspetto contenutistico del libro, Foucault rientra qui nell'empireo dei filosofi che hanno ricevuto la benedizione di essere stati soggetti di analisi deleuziana, assieme peraltro a Nietzsche, Spinoza, Bergson e via dicendo. Deleuze quindi non gli risparmia lo stesso trattamento: non si tratta di una spiegazione né di una mera interpretazione; si tratta invece di fare emerge il non-detto dello scritto foucaultiano, di portare alla luce ciò che era rimasto inosservato, di leggere tra le righe delle righe, di spingere un poco più in là la linea del pensiero, dove neppure lo stesso Foucault avrebbe osato avventarsi. Ogni ri-lettura deleuziana è anche una forzatura, e bisogna tenerlo presente soprattuto in questo caso, dato che alcune questioni, come quella del corpo, per esempio, sono volontariamente tralasciate per concentrarsi su altro.

Detto ciò, il libro è molto complesso anche se si conosce Foucault, ma, fortunatamente, su youtube è presente un micro-corso universitario di 18 ore, tenuto dal professor Marco Di Napoli, avente come soggetto proprio questo illuminante corso di Deleuze su Foucault.

Slay-schizo, slay-rizoma.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"it is true that Foucault has never accorded great importance to universal or eternal questions: they are merely massive or global effects arising out of a certain distribution of particular features, in a particular historical formation and a particular process of formalization. Beneath the universal there are games or transmissions of particular features, and the universal or eternal nature of man is merely the shadow of a particular and ephemeral combination carried by a historical stratum."

Ja, goed boek. Wel weer echt Deleuze. En dat staat gelijk aan heel wat koppijn en gefrustreerd onbegrip, afgewisseld met glinsteringen en fonkelingen van een hoop op begrip.

[Zosia · Rating 5 out of 5]

great crossover episode

[Mavibi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine if Deleuze wrote a book about Foucault. That is this book.

[Hagar]

I am still a very early and amateur Foucault reader, so I found it more expedient to skim through the book in search for interesting ideas. I found many! Foucault's philosophy extends from one on logic and epistemology to power and law. I'll need this book in the future.

[Peter]

Deleuze was a big fan of Foucault.

[Tristan Laing]

If you think Deleuze and Foucault have fundamentally divergent ontologies, Deleuze's account will challenge your assumptions. And stop reading so much Hallward!

[Melusine Parry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Etonnamment lisible, cette étude de six aspects de l'oeuvre de Foucault par Deleuze est très intéressante mais il faut être très calé sur Foucault.

[Budaallmusic · Rating 5 out of 5]

The single most important book I've ever read. Will have to come back to it. Suspect that it will be important for the rest of my life.

[August Denys · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book; however, do not let the title fool you because it is on much more than just Foucault. While he is the primary focal point of the book, this study, while a little on the short side, applies a plethora of other authors and researchers from the likes of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Kant, Darwin, and more. It is because of this that I must recommend this only after one has a conception of philosophy already, and to that point a conception that realizes the faults and shortcomings of simply Analytic Philosophy. Yes, this work is very much in what one would consider
Continental Philosophy, yet that does not mean it is gibberish or nonsense. As most other sources will tell you, including the book itself, this is one of the first forays into a Philosophical understanding of Foucault, and into the philosophy it goes. To use a euphemism this enquiry goes deep into the rabbit hole which is philosophy including such topics as Phenomenology, Ontology, and Epistemology.

This is not a once and done book, this is not even a coffee table book (although that may be how I slightly treated this book). This book is of the sort that needs to be reread once you have finished it to make some connections that you may have missed just because you are not sure what these phrases may mean, and in certain aspects, it will help with the understanding of the whole. In short, I will be rereading this again at another time.

Before reading this, I have not read any of Foucault's works. I am familiar with some others usage of his ideas, but one even needs to be careful of the because of the possible reductionism of other philosophers and social scientists not comprehending the full scope of his importance. Do I believe that I was missing out by not reading the works of Foucault first? Yes and no. I believe that in terms of reading Foucault's works first or this book first, I believe that either will work; however, that is only if, as stated earlier, that one has a conception of philosophy. Deleuze may first and foremost be a philosopher of Nietzsche, and he does read much of Nietzsche into this book, but he does read the others I have mentioned. However, it may be the case that Deleuze does this only because, as one would know when they read this book, that Deleuze is actually determining the "Strata or Historical Formations" of Foucault, which is the title of the third chapter of the book (this also has the subtitle of Knowledge). Deleuze also has a great knowledge of Kant's Critical philosophy and Heidegger. In regards to these two, the formation of the thoughts of Foucault was similar to that of Kant's Critical Philosophy, and Foucault draws much from the Heideggerian sense of Being. From the latter, the book focuses on the ideas of Language-Being, Knowledge-Being, and Power-Being. If one is not familiar with Heidegger's Being-in-the-world, then Deleuze will pose a problem for those unfamiliar with it. One does not need to be a Heideggerian or a Kantian, at least this is what I currently believe; rather, they need familiarity with the subject.

I'm sure as I read more philosophy my opinions will change. As I just stated, only being familiar with certain aspects can get the person through the work; however, that is not very convincing if you become a part of a philosophical debate. In that sense, this book is great for understanding the Universals of the picture, but it does not, or I have not gained the sense of the implication of the particulars.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This is Foucault's major achievement: the conversion of phenomenology into epistemology. For seeing and speaking means knowing [savoir], but we do not see what we speak about, nor do we speak about what we see; and when we see a pipe we shall always say (in one way or another): 'this is not a pipe', as though intentionality denied itself, and collapsed into itself. Everything is knowledge, and this is the first reason why there is no 'savage experience': there is nothing beneath or prior to knowledge. But knowledge is irreducibly double, since it involves speaking and seeing, language and light, which is the reason why there is no intentionality.”

“Time becomes a subject because it is the folding of the outside and, as such, forces every present into forgetting, but preserves the whole of the past within memory: forgetting is the impossibility of return, and memory is the necessity of renewal. For a long time Foucault thought of the outside as being an ultimate spatiality that was deeper than time; but in his late works he offers the possibility once more of putting time on the outside and thinking of the outside as being time, conditioned by the fold.”

“Memory is the real name of the relation to oneself, or the affect on self by self.
According to Kant, time was the form in which the mind affected itself, just as space was the form in which the mind was affected by something else: time was therefore ‘auto-affection' and made up the essential structure of subjectivity. But time as subject, or rather subjectivation, is called memory. Not that brief memory that comes afterwards and is the opposite of forgetting, but the 'absolute memory' which doubles the present and the outside and is one with forgetting, since it is itself endlessly forgotten and reconstituted”

“the intellectual or even the writer can (at least potentially) participate all the more in current struggles and resistance, now that these have become 'transversal'. So the intellectual or the writer becomes adept at speaking the language of life, rather than of law.”

“There is no model of truth that does not refer back to a kind of power, and no knowledge or even science that does not express or imply, in an act, power that is being exerted. All knowledge runs from a visible element to an articulable one, and vice versa; yet there is no such thing as a common totalizing form, not even a conformity or bi-univocal correspondence. There is only a relation of forces which acts transversally and finds in the duality of forms the conditions for its own action and realization.”

“The integrating factors or agents of stratification make up institutions: not just the State, but also the Family, Religion, Production, the Marketplace, Art itself, Morality, and so on.
The institutions are not sources or essences, and have neither essence nor interiority. They are practices or operating mechanisms which do not explain power, since they presuppose its relations and are content to 'fix' them, as part of a function that is not productive but reproductive. There is no State, only state control”

[Kassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all of Deleuze's studies of other authors, it functions more as an elucidation of Deleuze's thought than of the person whose name is in the title. Paul Bové's foreword identifies one important difference between Deleuze and Foucault, namely that Foucault was never quite as unequivocal in his rejection of the negative as Deleuze and Guattari. As I was reading, I found another.

In order to make his analytic schema of the discursive and the visible work across the totality of Foucault's works, Deleuze has to unreasonably expand the meaning of "visible" to include all sensoria. One might wonder why he did not just use the word "sensible" instead. It becomes clear, as the final chapter attempts to settle accounts with phenomenology, why that is, as the sensible would sound too similar to Merleau-Ponty's approach to phenomenology. That last chapter is the weakest, because Foucault's critique of phenomenology is not Deleuze's, and because it is the chapter that attempts to address the History of Sexuality. If one were to mistake Deleuze's earlier explications of his schema for a faithful rendition of Foucault's approach, then one would imagine Foucault to be a philosopher who can do all his work with his mouth, eyes, and ears, a disembodied head with its nose cut off out of spite. This image would be not unlike Deleuze himself, Husserl, or most other philosophers--and such a philosopher would never have been able to write HS, with its multiplicities of tactile and olfactory pleasures. Foucault, like Merleau-Ponty, was a rare philosopher capable of theorizing with the entire body. In the poststructuralist critique of phenomenology, Foucault is to Merleau-Ponty as Deleuze is to Husserl, and therefore, superior in every respect.

A positive note, however: The second chapter is a strong explication of Discipline and Punish, and is more explicit about that study's political implications than Foucault himself ever was. It can be read on its own, and if one is more interested in Foucault than in Deleuze, but lacking the time to read DP in its entirety (e.g. in an undergraduate survey course), perhaps it should be.

[Hayden Berg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first exposure to Deleuze and I had a really mixed experience with it.

On the one hand, I don't think this is a good introduction to Foucault's work. I personally really struggled to understand his analysis of those works of Foucault's which I hadn't already read. I find Foucault himself a much clearer and more exciting writer. I'd recommend this book to someone who has read some Foucault already and wants to see how his ideas can be developed further - the book didn't present an introduction to Foucault as much as an interpretation of Foucault through a Deleuzean lens. I felt, as others here have noted, that much of the clearest and most illuminating aspects of the work come in the very brief appendix on the death of man and superman.

On the other hand, while I genuinely struggled to understand much of the book - in large part due to the fact that Deleuze seems to have constructed his own language unique to his philosophical system and/or makes use of language from myriad traditions that I'm not familiar with - there were moments of clarity that excited me and caused me to think about Foucault's work in a completely different light. The idea of power as diagrammatic, the insight that Foucault seems interested in articulation/visibility (language/image), and a clear analysis of Foucualt's (somewhat Kantain) historical project. I'm not ready to dismiss Deleuze as an elitist Continental obscurantist who babbles on about "the folding" and "the curve of the outside farther from all exteriority, yet closer than interiority itself", etc., etc. I'm more inclined to think that I haven't yet experienced enough of (1) Deleuze's work and (2) the works he references/builds upon to merit a deep understanding of the work.

The book made me excited to read more Foucault (The Use of Pleasure, in particular) and once I've further familiarized myself with his ouvre (as well as some more Heidegger), I'm sure I'll return to this volume and have a much greater understanding and appreciation for it.

[Uğur · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 20th century was not empty in terms of thought. It is very enjoyable to read how Deleuze and Foucault, who are among the important thinkers of the 20th century, opened up a field of thought on each other's philosophies as well as their philosophies.

With this work, Deleuze discusses the topology of knowledge through Foucault and evaluates the areas where thinking can expand, on the other hand, he puts forward a Foucaultian thought on the subjectivation of human and the qualities of power. In fact, what is told is not Foucault, but Deleuze's interpretations of Foucault. I think Deleuze made the most accurate analyzes in Foucault, as he did in Nietzsche.

While dealing with human in the context of power-subjectivation, he did not miss his psychological analyzes. This is the most unique aspect of the book. Finally, Deleuze ended up with Nietzsche, one of the names he was most influenced by, by connecting the phenomena of knowledge, thought, subjectivity and power to the concept of superhuman. It's quite a beautiful piece of work. I recommend you to read.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course Deleuze would give Foucault the golden child treatment. On the other hand, it gives definition to what Foucault said throughout History of Sexuality- that church was not at fault for sex being repressed. Plus an odd little appendix about the death of language and how it relates to the Nietzschean Superman.