Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling: The Function of Avowal in Justice

by Michel Foucault, Fabienne Brion (Editor), Bernard E. Harcourt (Editor)

Three years before his death, Michel Foucault delivered a series of lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain that until recently remained almost unknown. These lectures—which focus on the role of avowal, or confession, in the determination of truth and justice—provide the missing link between Foucault’s early work on madness, delinquency, and sexuality and his later explorations of subjectivity in Greek and Roman antiquity.

Ranging broadly from Homer to the twentieth century, Foucault traces the early use of truth-telling in ancient Greece and follows it through to practices of self-examination in monastic times. By the nineteenth century, the avowal of wrongdoing was no longer sufficient to satisfy the call for justice; there remained the question of who the “criminal” was and what formative factors contributed to his wrong-doing. The call for psychiatric expertise marked the birth of the discipline of psychiatry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as its widespread recognition as the foundation of criminology and modern criminal justice. Published here for the first time, the 1981 lectures have been superbly translated by Stephen W. Sawyer and expertly edited and extensively annotated by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt. They are accompanied by two contemporaneous interviews with Foucault in which he elaborates on a number of the key themes. An essential companion to Discipline and Punish, Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling will take its place as one of the most significant works of Foucault to appear in decades, and will be necessary reading for all those interested in his thought.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Ebooks, Theory

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Paul-Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationships between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, psychology, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, Marxism and critical theory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.

Reviews

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to rate this book because some lectures are way more interesting than others in my opinion. So even if at some point this book seems boring to you, don't give up because awesome fragments are also waiting.

[Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to read and study the "Corpus of Foucault" but directed towards an "Existential Aesthetics" which is the point of interest and research. I read for this:
1.- Hermeneutics of the subject
2.- The Government of the self and of others
3.- The Courage of Truth
4.- Technologies of the self
5.- Speech and truth in ancient Greece
6.- «Modifications» of the History of Sexuality II compiled in Volume IV of Dits et Ecrits, compiled by Daniel Efert and Francois Ewald
7.- «On the genealogy of ethics» by Dreyfus and Rabinow (yes)
8.- Acting wrongly, telling the truth
9.- The origin of the hermeneutics of the self

In this course what I really liked is the treatment and approach to confession, its antecedents and consequences, which is then replicated in the «origin of the hermeneutics of the self».
As a lawyer, I find your approach to the issue of judicial confession quite interesting, but in truth, I must admit that theoretically it is a very good treatment, but I would say, it seems to me, that it is a very optimistic analysis. That is to say, I believe that in real life judicial confession is a chimera.
What I do appreciate from this course is the study and correlation of truth, confession and all its baggage with Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex."
In short, as I would not expect from Foucault, it is a course that is worth studying in depth and keeping in mind because months later he died as we all know.

[Paulina Palacios Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometida a un cambio considerable en muchas cosas, la guía a través de procesos en tragedias, la consideración en el prederecho, la aproximación al ámbito canónico de la construcción de la confesión, sus nexos hacia el coraje de la verdad, únicos.

[Patrycja · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Guada]

88/360

[Travis Culley]

Incredible analysis of Grecian Law. Essential Foucault.

[Maxi Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goat

[Karim Malak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Foucault is Foucault; there is young Foucault and late Foucault. Late Foucault formulates the most interesting discussion of interpellations and subjectivity. From discussing human rights, his misinterpreted position on the Khomeni regime and humanism, late Foucault is extremely insightful. His discussion of avowal- as a material form of truth telling and what is already an established truth- opens up deeper questions vis-a-vis subjectivity and had me revisit the Foucault Derrida debate. Derrida does not come close to Foucault at all. This is an extremely crucial read for everyone but more so for those outside Europe since it features small discussions of different subjectivities in the Mediterranean and monasticism as it originated from Egypt.