The Politics of Truth

by Michel Foucault, Sylvère Lotringer (Editor), Lysa Hochroth (Editor)

In 1784, the German newspaper Berlinische Monatsschrift asked its audience to reply to the question "What is Enlightenment?" Immanuel Kant took the opportunity to investigate the purported truths and assumptions of his age. Two hundred years later, Michel Foucault wrote a response to Kant's initial essay, positioning Kant as the initiator of the discourse and critique of modernity. The Politics of Truth takes this initial encounter between Foucault and Kant, as a framework for its selection of unpublished essays and transcripts of lectures Foucault gave in America and France between 1978 and 1984, the year of his death. Ranging from reflections on the Enlightenment and revolution to a consideration of the Frankfurt School, this collection offers insight into the topics preoccupying Foucault as he worked on what would be his last body of published work, the three-volume History of Sexuality. It also offers what is in a sense the most "American" moment of Foucault's thinking, for it was in America that he realized the necessity of tying his own thought to that of the Frankfurt School.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, History, Ebooks, Cultural, France

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

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

[Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

i dont feel smart when i read this.

[Andrew Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chapter 1 is one of the best essays I have ever read.
Chapter 4 hints of Stalinist apologia.

[Joeri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lectures collected and published in this book of Foucault offer interesting reflections on the question what Enlightenment and Critique might mean in our age. Focuault interestingly shows what the task of the philosopher can be when we try to define and position ourselves in the modern age. In this sense, Enlightenment and Critique always concerns how we ourselves are historically formed, and disciplined as subjects through the narrow interplay of knowledge and power. In increasing our selfknowledge in relation to this, we might find new possibilities of transgressing ourselves, find new possibilities of experience, and try to escape from certain forms of governance.

Foucault shows how philosophy offers help in this enterprise: "The game is to try to detect those things which have not yet been talked about, those things that, at the present time, introduce, show, give some more or less vague indications of the fragility of our system of thought, in our way of reflecting, in our practices." (p. 137).

Another beautiful quote also, in my view, reflects nicely on how philosophy can help us become more critical:

"Never consent to be completely comfortable with your own certainties. Never let them sleep, but never believe either that a new fact will be enough to reverse them. Never imagine that one can change them like arbitrary axioms. Remember that, in order to give them an indispensable mobility, one must see far, but also close-up and right around oneself. One must clearly feel that everything perceived is only evident when surrounded by a familiar and poorly known horizon, that each certitude is only sure because of the support offered by unexplored ground. The most fragile instant has roots. There is here a whole ethics of tireless evidence that does not exclude a rigorous economy of True and False, but is not reduced to it, either." (p. 127).

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had forgotten about this book. Literally. I mean that when I saw it on my bookshelf, I did not even know there was a book by Michel Foucault called the Politics of Truth. What a pleasant surprise. The book is a series of lectures and interviews by Michel Foucault on the subject of the Enlightenment, specifically on Kant's essay, What is Enlightenment. The editors were smart enough to include Kant's essay, which is really an elegant and delightful defense of intellectual inquiry. The Foucault lectures and interviews then take up this question, and Foucault fits his own project squarely within the questions that Kant opens up in the essay. What follows are a wonderful summary of Foucault's major strategies for philosophical inquiry: not only why he wrote about what he did (prisons, mental institutions, sexuality), but also why these are illustrative of this approach to philosophical inquiry. He offers succinct descriptions of genealogy, archaeology, power/knowledge and history that offer a good introduction or useful reminder of his project. A pleasure to read.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The always controversial Michel Foucault brings a long and fascinating collection of old essays and lecturer notes. As always, the writing style and language usage is never easy to understand for newcomers to Foucault's work. However, at the very least offers a fun question which is sure to bring out discussion: "What is enlightenment?".

[Vasile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to jump in and get everything but it takes time to digest and to understand.

[Iany Mcgrawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don´t like the politic but this book was great

[Mr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An all together excellent collection of essays and interviews by the late Foucault. This gathering of philosophy revolves around Kant's 'What is Enlightenment' essay, (which is included in the book), and provides Foucault's complex and well reasoned response. The Kantian notion of Enlightenment was contingent on a form of political freedom which enabled man to free himself from external authority and think rationally. Foucault traces the historicity of this mode of thought, and ultimately argues that the Enlightenment was a system of connectivity between power relations, and that humans were not truly "mature" intellectually in the Kantian sense.

This volume also has excellent discussions on revolution, the development of critique in philosophical discourse, and Christianity and Confession. An excellent presentation of his thought, and somewhat clearer than his published books.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent for understanding Foucault's self-differentiation from Kant: the first half of the book collects essays, interviews, addresses in which Foucault discusses Kant's essay, "What Is Enlightenment?," and in which he begins to develop the method of an 'ontology of the present,' for te sake of self-transformation, in distinction from a Kantian transcendental critique. The second half is two lectures, one on Greco-Roman disciplines and the other on the emergence of the Christian pastoral, that illustrate a transformation toward the historic Western emphasis on truth as confession.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite Foucault book. He’s always thought of as the foundation of postmodernism with his suit, swagger, and formal writing style. But here he lets his guard down. He’s outspoken to authority in his retaliation against political and legal norms. This is inspiring and full of hope. It’s sad that not much of his written work achieved this attitude. His societal critiques will always be pillars of postmodernism, but in my opinion Foucault at his best was spontaneous and inquisitive, not pensive and methodical.

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very accessible Foucault volume - a nice introduction to his main theories (archaeology and genealogy, power, discourse, etc). His essay titled "Christianity and Confession" is especially interesting - basically a genealogy of the self, which focuses on penance, guilt, and obedience.

[Estelle McInnis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is largely about Kant and the Enlightenment.

[Soso Chauchidze]

Late Foucault is much more interesting to read.