In this short book that forms a worthy companion to his classic "Madness and Civilisation," Michel Foucault first traces the history of medical care from the days when people were usually treated at home by their families, to the early nineteenth century, when public health became a political issue. The outcome of this process was the "clinic," which Foucault defines a field of confinement where those labelled ill, the Other, were monitored and treated to further the reciprocally-linked goals of the health of society and the furtherance of medical knowledge.

Foucault's well-documented narrative concerning the evolving socio-political perception of health and medicine, however, pales in erudition and philosophical significance when compared to the primary thrust of the book ; namely, in detailing how the medical profession ordered and analyzed not only disease, but later the human experience itself. Both seeming to have pushed back the finality ! of death through conjoining to it to the experience of life, and isolating disease not as a phenomenon in itself, but like life and death, simply as a discursive manifestation of visible and invisible symptoms, the medical profession acquired for itself the mantle of positivism that is still basically unquestioned by the public even today.

" The birth of the Clinic " is an attempt by the philosopher and the learned historian to decipher the secret of medical perception. Only when the chaotic and subjective clinical experience is transcended to the objective language, we have the medicine as a scientific subject as today. As a physician myself , I think understanding " clinical gaze " helps me to define the place of modern medicine, of doctors and patients and of medical organisation in this fast changing world.

Foucault has been interpreted in the US as a pretentious standard-bearer of postmodernism - as an almost "evil" figure who threatens to undermine the foundations of Western knowledge with his problematisation of conceptual categories. It doesn't help that his work has been taken up to justify just about any subversive perspective, whether well-conceived or not. This is only a pitifully small perspective on the man and his work. Foucault should be seen first as a historian, not a philosopher; second, his work should be lauded for the contribution it makes to Western knowledge rather than the superficial "threats" it makes to perspectives whose time has come in any event. Every revolution of perception has been accompanied by vociferous resistance, yet a great many of those sounding their disapproval loudly probably don't really understand what the late Michel was really on to.

The Birth of the Clinic, MF's most accessible work, is a well-researched, brilliantly interpreted account of the development of the clinical "gaze" in the wake of modern medical knowledge and practice. Foucault problematises the institution of the clinic, showing how clinical perception is the result of a historically specific constellation of knowledge and power. His ultimately emancipatory analysis is substantiated every step of the way with textual and historical examples. No metaphysics here, just a radical questioning of the nature of knowledge within institutional practice.

So, sorry (Objectivists!) if this is too much to handle. It's good research, plain and simple. Don't dismiss Foucault as a lightweight postmodernist - try to see him where he would situate himself, in the tradition of reflexive historical sociology.

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir of a fascinating but so troubled human being. As a Catholic myself, I am especially impressed by how wonderful the people who surrounded Herculine were. Here these simple people were faced with a most complex and mystifying problem and they treated Herculine with so much kindness. As all were Catholics, I enjoy this memoir as a fine Catholic book.

The question of Herculine Barbin is one of profound impact within the realm of M. Foucault's work. Placed within the central problematic of "The Body" the question is not explored anywhere else within the book but in M. Foucault's introduction. The book plays out the vital issues. The subtitle tells it all: "Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth Century French Hermaphrodite." - The problem is executed and explored in this book within the framework of the "Archive" - of 4 parts. The book is divided into M. Foucault's introduction, Barbin's Memoirs, The Dossier, and Oscar Panizza's "A Scandal at the Convent." M. Foucault begins his introduction with:

"Do we truly need a true sex? With a persistence that borders on stubbornness, modern Western societies have answered in the affirmative. They have obstinately brought into play this question of a "true sex" in an order of things where one might have imagined that all that counted was the reality of the body and the intensity of its pleasures."

Here he sets up the problematic that sexuality revolves around institutions of power - the law, the church, the medical establishment, and society in general. Within this framework, sexuality then ceases to be a continuum and falls subject to our ever changing moods. Where exactly does a Hermaphrodite fit in, in all this? Is the Hermaphrodite male with female qualities? Is the reverse true? Who decides? What is the impact of what is decided? This is what the book tries to explore. The Dossier is a collection of the socially constructed perspectives - similar to "I Pierre Riviere..." (Also available on Amazon.com) before it; the editors take aim at the various perspectives and conclusions drawn by people within the framework of Power/Knowledge. We see how Barbin is constructed - outside of his/her voice (his/her voice we get from part 2 - "My Memoirs"). The memoirs paint a painful story of one's struggle to fit in within a very unforgiving structure that would allow Barbin to be neither a "girl" nor a "boy". It paints a tragic figure of a person torn within this framework to conform, to "be". Lastly, Oscar Panizza's "A Scandal at the Convent" is a fabrication, a poor rendition that stretches the Barbin story from the medico-legal issue that it is to one of sheer erotica. The movie that follows is an abomination to the archive the M. Foucault and his ilk uncover. Or is it simply a portrayal of the "edge" that discourse has in terms of Power/Knowledge. M. Foucault writes:

"The result is indeed remarkable. Panizza kept a few important elements of the case: the very name of Alexina, the scene of the medical examination. For a reason I have trouble grasping-perhaps because, relying on his memories of his reading without having Tardieu's book at hand, he availed himself of another study of a similar case that he had at his disposal-he altered the medical reports. But the most radical changes were those he made in the whole narrative. He transposed it in time; he altered many material elements and the entire atmosphere; and, above all, he took it out of the subjective mode and put it into objective narration. He gave everything a certain "eighteenth-century" manner: Diderot and his Religieuse do not seem far off. There is a rich convent for girls of the aristocracy, a sensual mother superior who shows an equivocal affection for her niece, intrigues and rivalries among the nuns, an erudite and skeptical abbe, a credulous country priest, and peasants who go - after the devil with their pitchforks. Throughout, there is a skin - deep licentiousness and a semi-naive play of not entirely innocent beliefs, which are just as far removed from the provincial seriousness of Alexina as they are from the baroque violence of The Council of Love.
But in inventing this whole landscape of perverse gallantry, Panizza deliberately leaves in the center of his narrative a vast area of shadow and that is precisely where he places Alexina. Sister, mistress, disturbing schoolgirl, strayed cherub, male and female lover, faun running in the forest, incubus stealing into the warm dormitories, hairy-legged satyr, exorcized demon-Panizza presents her only in the fleeting profiles which the others see. This boy-girl, this never eternal masculine-feminine, is nothing more than what passes at night in the dreams, the desires, and the fears of everyone. Panizza chose to make her only a shadowy figure, without an identity and without a name, who vanishes at the end of the narrative leaving no trace. He did not even choose to fix her with a suicide, whereby she would become a corpse, like Abel Barbin, to which curious doctors in the end assigned the reality of an inadequate sex.
I have brought these two texts together, thinking they deserved to be published side by side, first of all because both belong to the end of the nineteenth century, that century which was so powerfully haunted by the theme of the hermaphrodite-somewhat as the eighteenth century had been haunted by the theme of the transvestite."

In the end, the tragedy of Barbin allows one to take a step away from the theoretical to see the real impact all this power relations have. I revisit M. Foucault when he concludes his introduction:

"Most of the time, those who relate their change of sex belong to a world that is strongly bisexual; and their uneasiness about their identity finds expression in the desire to pass over to the other side-to the side of the sex they desire to have and in whose world they would like to belong. In this case, the intense monosexuality of religious and school life fosters the tender pleasures that sexual non-identity discovers and provokes when it goes astray in the midst of all those bodies that are similar to one another."

Pause. Think. Consider.

Miguel Llora

Just thought I'd correct the one stupid review that has been written about this book. They must not have paid attention in that college class, because HELLO: it is not a novel. A novel is a work of fiction. This is a memoir, or autobiography, actually written by Herculine herself, contrasted with both the real medical documents about her, and a novella some guy wrote about her after she died. The foreword by Michel Foucault (...)is interesting. And Herculine's own writing style is touching, melodramatic, sad, humourous, and loving. Lots of exclamation points, professions of love, and a fascinating peek into the 19th century world of convent schools...oh what those schoolgirls do after lights-out! Her ambiguous gender was such an offront to societal ideas of the time that she was forced into a role she was completely unable to fill, leaving her suicidal. A great read, almost unbelievable, but totally true.

The collection of interviews contained in this volume is a great guide to anyone interested in examining the work of Michel Foucault, whose work broke new ground through his sustained examination of the interplay between the forces of pwer and the production of knowledges. For those who have previously read works such as The History of Sexuality or Discipline and Punish, this volume is sure to have many jewels that both clarifies and compliments the ideas presented in those works.

Spanning an important period in Foucault's development the interviews included here deal with essential themes for anyone interested in the trajectory of Foucault's work and social concern, French philosophy or literary theory in general. Themes expanded upon includes discussions of the discrusive role of discourse(s) in shaping the parameters of power and the concommitant boundries of knowledge that such a relationship implies; the symbolic, metaphoric and noumenal implications of the body as both flesh and as a site for the inscription of various repessive regimes; or the nature and evolution of the influence of panoptical surveillance in all of its varied formulations.

Part and parcel to Foucault's thinking in this area is the necessary representation of the body as both a dynamic physicality and at the same time a living palimpest onto which the ideologies of culture and society are written--sometimes forcibly, but more often through self-reproduction and latent self-repession. For those who want to know these ideologies are promulgated in panaoptical society, this book will provide many provocative answers as well as an indispensible aide to untangling the complex web of ideas that Foucault used to explicate the structure of modern society.

The relationship between knowledge, truth and power are critical elements in cross-cultural sociological study. Foucault details the relationship between these elements. The relationship between these elements relates directly to global media. If media is predominately produced in one geographic region and exported to another, power in terms of the right to representation, is automatically usurped by the production of truth, by the production of culture, production nationalistic images, by the production of media. Foucault's writings on the Archaeology of Knowledge and it's relationship to geography have a direct relation to geo-political structures and their interdependency with media forms and media audiences. Institutions, such as universities, which reinforce their own forms of knowledge, are likewise either undermined or reinforced by media forms. The relationship between these social components is never neutral, according to Foucault.
"Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising power." Power is much more abstract, by Foucault's definitions than any previous theorists described it. It is not necessarily a conscious, intentional application of force. Power can be the relationships between components of a society or the relationship between societies. This very subtly makes the analysis of power, more complex and yet more engaging.
Media continues the construction of knowledge. Universities and other such institutions begin the process and sanction it -- provide it "an expert system" by which it is validated. However, the media reinforces this validation by replicating it in mass quantity. The media can, likewise, have the opposite effect, depending on its representation. If a given BBC program highlights the academic excellence of Harvard University, but bemoans the loss of academic excellence in al Azhar, for example. Then the media is undermining the construction of knowledge and the institution of al Azhar while simultaneously reinforcing the disequilibrium of political and economic structures surrounding al Azhar. Foucault's Power/Knowledge provides the platform from which to analyze these transformations.

(Before I begin, if you're looking for Foucault's analysis of the specific intellectual v. the universal intellectual, you can find it here in Chapter 6).

Read Power/Knowledge after you have a general understanding of Foucault's themes. This compilation does an excellent job in clarifying Foucault's vocabulary, and provides a rich assortment of analyses of his critiques of law, historical methodology, culture, science, and political economy.

It's difficult to describe this book briefly. Power/Knowledge provides a series of brief exploratory peeks that probe the whole body of Foucault's work. A central theme is his attack on traditional political interpretations of history. Foucault's unique mode of historical analysis rejects the methodology that has allowed many historians and philosophers to get away with teleological or over-generalized understandings of historical periods. With Foucault, revered thinkers like Locke, Hobbes, Marx, and Freud suddenly seem immature: their grand theories of human history are shown to be totally unsatisfactory.

Another theme is the mutual presupposition of power and knowledge. All knowledges are historically contingent and culturally specific; each society has a general regime of truth that establishes the criteria for determining what is true and what is false. Seemingly neutral knowledges such as criminology, biology, psychiatry, and physics are often strongly influenced by struggles. For example, France's adoption of the metric system was brought about by the French Revolution, rather than by any neat internal developments within the study of physics.

On the other hand, however, knowledges always have concrete effects on the operations of power. In his books, "Madness and Civilization," "The Birth of the Clinic," "The Archaeology of Knowledge," "The History of Sexuality," "Discipline and Punish," and "The Order of Things," Foucault has analyzed the way the human sciences (as well as discourses on sexuality and delinquency) have produced new objects of study and control. For Foucault, the "criminal," the "population," the "soul," "madness," and "sexuality" all came into existence at the moment of their theorization. As such, that which thinkers often "create" rather than "discover" the truth.

It is important to remember, however, that Foucault is not denying that there is absolute truth. He is simply analyzing the contingency and cultural sepcificity of all truth claims, and analyzing how these truths are more than just transparent ideas. Ideas do things; they can liberate; they can enslave. They can have massive effects on the level of practice. That is why truth is dangerous (although not necessarily "bad"), and why critique such a powerful force for change.

Foucault suggests that the very idea of order as such, along with the larger idea of episteme, which through implication that "The Order of Things" was organized around cultural totalities, was a mistake. In this book Foucault makes a huge reversal. We know also that outside "The Archaeology of Knowledge" Foucault does not limit himself to discourse, even though it remains central. And within it, he clearly allows for primary relations between institutions, techniques, social forms, etc., which are not discursive in nature. We are left with weak answers. Maybe, because "The Archaeology of Knowledge" really deals with knowledge, discursive relations are sufficient. Knowledge is found for the most part in texts, documents, books. Maybe we can excuse the oversight by the fact that it was only after "The Archaeology of Knowledge" that Foucault clarified the intimacy of power and knowledge and went beyond the early view that power in knowledge simply controlled and excluded discourse. Moreover, how do we deal with the problem of savoir and connaissances - granted one finds there the visible/invisible couple, the question of epistemic knowledge (savoir) and accumulated knowledge (connaissances), the concept discursive practice, the critique of systems, and the Center (or, the principles of the Author, the Origin, and so forth). But, by what right, do we introduce the axis of fact, and the dimension of knowledge production? Are they not interpreters' inventions? I'll say this much, as much as "The Archeology of Knowledge answers it begs more questions. Let me just close by saying to be fair to Foucault that it was an "in-between" book - assessing where he came from and outlining where he was going. Complicated? Yes, but a valuable resource in understanding "Discourse" - good luck.

Miguel Llora

Let's be childish enough to use coarse categories: "Discipline&Punish" is Foucault's most beautiful book. "The Order of Things" is the most brilliant (that's why it made him a star). Let's also say "The History of Sexuality" is his most exciting book. Then "The Archaeology of Knowledge" is the most fascinating: it is Foucault's attempt to write a theory of what he is doing. And it is a brilliant failure: this is the only time that we see Foucault, the master of brilliant formulation, completely naked. It is endearing to watch how he is trying to write a piece of philosophical theory, while all his other books demonstrate how unnecessary such theory is.

This is no light reading and the English translation is barely comprehensible. I bet that there is a serious mistranslation on any given page. With good translations at hand, some notorious readers (Foucault lovers and Foucault enemies alike) might actually have understood what the words "discourse" and "dispositif" mean. Countless articles and books would not have been written. That's why a good German translation would have been even more desirable (the one in print is as miserable as the English one, same bet)...

This is my favorite volume in The History of Sexuality. In The Care of the Self, Foucault traces the shift towards a greater concern over sexual praxis which initiated a more severe ethical code from the one found in the Greek antiquity of his The Use of Pleasure. It is here that Foucault shows us the seeds of moral anxiety that would permeate later Christian sexual ethics. However, Foucault makes clear that this is not the sexuality found in the Christian era--there are still several substantial differences.

So what is the nature of the changes presented in this volume? First is the newfound and pivotal concern for the self nearly absent in the writing examined in the preceding volume. The Greeks seemed concerned for the self only insomuch as an untamed, desirous self would have no right to rule over others within the domestic or political sphere (Use 70-72). These political conceptions of the good, moderate citizen, in conjunction with any special birthrights, were to dominate the life of the individual men (I use this word literally) who would make up a Greek city (Use 72). But within the first two centuries of our own era, there was a new concern for the self and a general disconnection of its relation to the political sphere (Care 67-68). It was through the care of the self that one would discover how to relate to the political realm, and this would be regardless of class strata or other "external" difference (Care 87-94). In many ways, the development of more personal practices of the self would more definitely shape the greater moral code--this code would be more relativized, more individualized.

But this would certainly not mean that men could absolutely develop their own ethical code without regard to the discursive features of the period. It was not absolutely relative to the individual in question. The second theme, thus, was a shift in emphasis in practices related to the body, boys and marriage. In all of these realms, there was an increasing idea of the frailty of the fiber--morally and physically--of the self. For instance, the Greek's valorization of sexual moderation shifted nearly to idealization of sexual abstinence in Roman writings (122). What was once an anxiety over the effects of too much sexual activity became an anxiety over sexual pleasure generally--due very visibly to the new emphasis on the care of the self for the self's own sake (123).

Within this thematic of shifting values the question of marriage and of relations with young men was re-cast. Marriage became a much more personal institution; the idea of love, mutual care and fidelity began to dominate discourse on marriage. Where before the husband was not expected to have sexual relations exclusively with his wife (Use 180), it was now a weakness if he did not (Care 175). Marriage was idealized as the most perfect, most complete formulation for sexual relation. Therefore, Foucault writes, when the love of young men was posed, it would often be contrasted with this more "perfect" marital relation and held against a valorization of intentional virginity--ideally meant until the more excellent marital union might be realized (228-32). The love of young men became a weakness of the self in this ideational restructuring.

This is perhaps where I would call into question Foucault's hermeneutical method. While he makes it very clear that he is only analyzing an elite medico-philosophical discourse from the period (235), he does not mention exactly what this means: what he is leaving out. Martial's Epigrams, for instance, was a contemporaneous personal exposition into as many sexual acts and practices as one might imagine. Further, Garland's poetry from the same period speaks of a love for a boy held above any other love one might find in the earthly realm. Foucault can only (albeit convincingly) speculate that the early Roman discourse he is uncovering matriculated into the formation of the Christian Roman Empire (235), and that it was not, for instance, an inconsequential reaction to the varied "decadences" one might find in these other literary works. There is simply not a lot of methodological certainty about why or how this elite and small conversation between philosophers and medics diffused itself so completely into the later empire.

Nonetheless, I still think that this is the most exciting volume of Foucault's history. Its presentation is more complex and subtle then the almost schematically frigid The Use of Pleasure, and its articulation is more intentional and deliberate than the broad strokes of the Introduction. Moreover, this volume, I believe, shows us the very first seeds of the discourse that would eventually insist on an essential sexuality revelatory of the truth of the self: the idea of sexuality we all live with today.

Introduction
The third and last volume Le Souci de soi or The Care of the Self M. Foucault's history progresses to ancient Rome. In the middle of all the "sexual discourse," M. Foucault does have some fascinating things to say concerning "the culture of the self." M. Foucault sketches the emergence of subjectivity -- how it evolved into an mindset, a way of behaving and set all over ways of living. Foucault considers how society develops and inculcates through techniques of objectification. Sex became a social practice within the realm subjectivity that gives rise to inter-individual relations. These exchanges and communications would at times become an occasion to create social institutions.

The Final Piece
In May 1984 M. Foucault delivers this Le Souci de soi or The Care of the Self, the final manuscript (of the third volume of his history of sexuality) to his publisher Gallimard. Two weeks later, on June 2, he collapsed and was hospitalized. For two years he had found himself suffering from frequent semi-debilitating illnesses. M. Foucault had AIDS. The end was sudden; on June 25 M. Foucault died. Along with the rest of the losses -- a brilliant thinker -- was the planned series of either 5 or 6 books relating to the history of sexuality. Le Souci de soi or The Care of the Self was to be the last. His funeral attracted hundreds of mourners. These included celebrities from all sectors of Parisian cultural life, many of who were deeply moved. Didier Eribon recalls this in his fine biography "Michel Foucault" (Also available on Amazon.com and I highly recommend it as well):

"Le Monde carried an article by Pierre Bourdieu on its front page. 'There is nothing more dangerous,' wrote Bourdieu, 'than to reduce a philosophy, especially one so subtle, complex, and perverse, to a textbook formula. Nonetheless, I would say that Foucault's work is a long exploration of transgression, of going beyond social limits, always inseparably linked to knowledge and power.' The sociologist ended with these words: 'I would have liked to have said this better -- this thought that was so bent on conquering a self-mastery, that is, mastery of its history, the history of categories of thought, the history of the will and desires. And also this concern for rigor, this refusal of opportunism in knowledge as well as in practice, in the techniques of life as well as in the political choices that make Foucault an irreplaceable figure.' Inside were two pages filled with testimonials and analyses; here Veyne discussed the work of his lost friend: 'Foucault's work seems to me to be the most important event of thought in our century.'" (Eribon, 1991: 328)

Despite thorny intellectual disputations, M. Foucault was a compassionate character. Several colleagues looked upon him as a special accomplice. New researchers like myself simply see him as an inspiration and portal to new spaces of thought. The sad irony of this piece, Le Souci de soi or The Care of the Self is that it stands as the bookend of one of the greatest of his already vast oeuvre.

Conclusion
Last few comments on Le Souci de soi or The Care of the Self: Foucault brilliantly brings to light the previously unexamined assumptions and hidden undercurrents and structures as well as techniques of the past. This book is no exception. However, as a caution, The Care of the Self shares with the inspirations that it draws from a sense of coherence. The arguments are artfully constructed but the book seems to fall short in places. Foucault seems oblivious of the ordinary folk he seems to be describing. It all seems to revolve around the elite -- the philosophers and literati of that Greco-Roman era. It falls short in the examination of the every day. As if pontificating from a distance, the master of the "gaze" peers into the past and sometimes fails to break through the veil. Foucault's interest in sexuality is based also on solipsistic examination. Greeks and Romans were far less interested in sex in relations of right and wrong. Both Greeks and Romans were interested rather in how to put sexuality to use in order to achieve a healthy balance. "The Care of the Self" is far softer than "The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction" and less technical than "The Use of Pleasure" (both also available on Amazon.com). Foucault writes concerning the "problematization" of sex and the growing vilification of sex, which will have its effects up to the present day. This is where the book is its most powerful -- Foucault is one of those thinkers whose work sheds light and brings to presence our modern day dilemmas. We can learn much from him.

Miguel Llora

As a teacher with strong philosophical opinions that are essentially anti- teacher and anti- school, its important to find a text which sheds more light on where you see yourself inside an educational institution as a practitioner. This book does that job. Brilliant.

The single best source I have found that takes Foucault's challenging ideas and applies them to educational theory (and to some extent, practice). In particular, a meaty opening essay by Popkewitz is clear and insightful, representing Foucault comprehensibly--skillfully applying his insights to important contemporary issues like the construction of "the child", cumpulsory schooling, conceptualizations of curriculum, and school "reform". I strongly recommend this for people who had given up on trying to find something coherent from "post-" discourses to apply to educational theory. I have assigned it as a reading in a graduate course on critical theories of education and students have responded well to it.

In the second volume of his history of sexuality L'Usage des plaisirs or The Use of Pleasure M. Foucault turns to ancient Greece, an era opulent in honest eroticism. Sexuality is so key to our development that all sorts of restrictions are found in the most primitive of societies. According to M. Foucault, even in the animal kingdom, sexual practice is followed by something remarkably resembling the seeds of moral behavior. We must move outside the confines of society, if only for a short time, if we wish to escape the confining practices of sexual morality. Within this framework, the bathhouse and the orgy chambers may be said to offer refuge transgression from the constraints of civilization. It seems that the only place in society where sexuality has ever been entirely free of moral hindrances has been the fantasizing adolescent mind. For more on this topic, kindly refer to History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction and History of Sexuality Volume 3: The Care of the Self (Also available on Amazon.com).

Miguel Llora

Although it is not as theoretically courageous, The Use of Pleasure is tenfold more interesting and approachable than the first volume in this trilogy on the history of sexuality.

Foucault delves deep into the recesses of our occidental world by attempting to answer the question, "Why is it that sexuality has become morally problematic?" Why and when did we attribute a negativity to certain sexualities? And what does this imply about sexuality itself?

Foucault works with irresistible sources (e.g. Plato's Republic; Hippocrates' Ancient Medicine) in an effort to reconstruct the Hellenic approach to sexuality. The result: a clear and fascinating delineation of the similarities and differences between modern sexual consciousness and "pagan license".

SylverHawke, my eldest sister to whom I owe my life. -Claudia!

A real treat to read! This book contains reviews/critiques of all of Kundera's major works begining with his first novel, The Joke, up to 1996's Slowness with heavy emphasis placed on analysis of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. The highlight of this collection are the four interviews with Kundera. He is a fantastic interviewee and we, of course, gain further insight into the workings of his mind. To maximize enjoyment of this collection I recommend that the reader be familiar with all of Kundera's output.

Like the other viewer said, I think this is a useful book for anyone looking to understand Foucault particularly the Order of Things but I should warn you before you buy it that this book is slightly dated as you may have guessed by the title. The interview in the back of my edition is also helpful but in all of his interviews Foucault tries to redo parts of his work so read it closely and in relation to his other interviews.

This book has been numbered as the most authoritative interpretation of Foucault. The main question of the book is how to classify Foucault¡¯s thought. Foucault has been characterized as a typical structuralist. But as the subtitle of this book implies, he is not a structuralist, authors argue. He attempted to overcome the dichotomy of structuralism and hermeneutics. Early works like ¡®The Order of Things¡¯ and ¡®The Archaeology of Knowledge¡¯ might be seen as a breakthrough in structuralist line. But late works like ¡®Discipline and Punishment¡¯ and ¡®The History of Sexuality¡¯ have some flavor of hermeneutics. In this regard, Foucault could not be classified as structuralist or hermeneutist. Then Foucault¡¯s thought, one might guess, seemed to shift from structuralism to hermeneutics. To clear the confusion, we should visit Foucault¡¯s conception of discourse. The discourse is actually how the human-being understand and construct its world. Then the question of ¡®what is discourse?¡¯ is translated into ¡®what is understanding the world?¡¯ the most dominant approaches to that question are phenomenology, hermeneutics and structuralism. But they hasn¡¯t presented satisfactory solution. In Husserlian approach, the world is understood by meaning-giving transcendental subject. In structuralist approach, both meaning and subject give way to objective law (structure). Structure governs the subject. Hermeneutics is a bit subtler than them. Human-being is a meaning-giving subject, but meaning is located in the social practices like tradition or convetion, routine. (for more details, see my review on Eagleton¡¯s ¡®Literary Theory: An Introduction) Foucault gyrates along those three positions, which makes Foucault hard to be pinpointed. The trajectory Foucault traced reveals how he attempted to set up his own solution.
The questions raised by hermeneutics and structuralism converges into the question, ¡®What lies beyond discourse?¡¯ structuralism answers ¡®it¡¯s the structure.¡¯ In the world of structuralism, the concept of meaning is altogether eliminated. Hermeneutics, according to Gadamer, answers ¡®it¡¯s the profound understanding of Being embedded in traditional linguistic practices.¡¯ They all focus on linguistic practices, the discourse. It seems that in the early works, ¡®The Archaeology of Knowledge¡¯ and ¡®The Order of things¡¯, Foucault followed the structuralist doctrines: the discourse appears as self-regulating and autonomous. The methodology he hired, archaeology is indifferent to the meaning in the discourse, just as ethnologists methodically distantiate themselves both from one¡¯s own culture and from the culture under investigation. With the method of structuralist archaeology, Foucault could achieve such a distanciation. Discourse in mere object to be dissected. But the influences from social institution, which is the essential to Foucualt¡¯s conception of discourse, couldn¡¯t be seen. According to Giddens, discourse has always some intended effect to bring about. So it plays some role in social life. As demonstrated in vivid manner on ¡®Madness and Civilization¡¯, discourse not only talks about object-being-there, but also makes it. Madness emerged as the effect of discourse. It was not naturally there. Here comes the conception of power. Early method of archaeology serves to isolate and analyze discourse. But it doesn¡¯t mean that Foucault turned to hermeneutics. Actually, he denied the meaning-giving subject with advocating the disappearance of the subject. Unlike Wittgenstein or Giddens, power is the attribute not of individual social actors but of dominating system. So discourse is not the business of individuals. In the ¡®History of Sexuality¡¯, he showed how the deep meaning like identity is related to social dominance, in other word practices of power. The subject speaking deep truth or meaning is actually the product of power. But it makes it the elusive question, where the power resides in or what the power is at all. The authors are right when saying Foucault is neither structuralist nor hermeneutist. But Foucault¡¯s position is inherently ambiguous: he seems stuck in middle, I think.

Indeed, Dreyfus and Rabinow have "cleared up" much of Foucaults difficult methods. I would say that reading this does not excuse anyone from Foucaults works; it could be read alongside them to help clarify themes and connect seemingly useless portions that most people would like to skip through. Besides, without actually reading Foucault you are missing out on some of the most profound, stylistic, and original philosophy of the twentieth century. An excellent introduction and guide, but comprehensive enough to warrant FIVE stars. Trust me. Dreyfus and Rabinow have written a surprisingly original book here; their view and support of Foucault as "beyond structuralism and hermeneutics" is brilliantly explained.