Thanks forFirstly
Secondly, nevertheless, there seems to be à light flaw in your
translation of asylum: "a" is not the latin ablative (like in "a
priori") but the greek privative (meaning "not" or "without"): although
the modern sense of asylum, as an institution, does not obviously point
to it, asylum is a place (generaly sacred) where there is not right of
seizure, luckily.
As for the "historical a priori"(independant of or not given in
experience, but appliable to any object of possible experience,
universal and necessary), which, indeed, is central in the foucaldian
definition of experience it poses some analytical questions too, as to
how Foucault builds and applies a (several) rule(s) of transformation to
the kantian a priori: does it relate to the (transcendantal) subject as
such(constitutive of conditions and a little more), to the categories
(concepts, conditions of objects, or representations), or to the forms
of intuition -internal: time, or external: space-(conditions of
apparition or presentations). Or/and does it relate to the synthetic a
priori judgement (rule of construction of an object in experience or
practice, ie synthesis between a concept, or a conceptuel determination,
and an ensemble of "spatio-temporal"-i am not sure of the english
equivalent- determinations, which allows a synthesis between -at
least-two heterogeneous concepts)?
And these, of course, are just a beginning, staying within the first of
the critics.
Kevin Turner a écrit:
Firstly, Happy New Year to One and All.
Secondly:
If we can say that Foucault’s analysis in "Discipline and Punish"
relates not, or not exclusively, to the birth of the bricks and mortar
we call prison, but rather to a modern experience in which ‘the soul
is the prison of the body’ (DP: 30); then we can say, with regard to
the analysis he undertakes in "Madness and Civilization," that what he
is attempting to account for is not simply the “experience of
madness,” nor 'The Birth of the Asylum,' but rather the historical a
priori for the constitution of a field of possible experience in which
"reason is the asylum (seizure [1]) of the mind (i.e. soul)?
[1] Latin /asylum/, from Greek /asylon/, from /a-/ and /sylon/, /syle/
right of seizure.
Regards - Kevin.
--
Pr. Xavier Delcourt
Vice-Président Politique européenne et relations internationales
Université Robert Schuman (Strasbourg 3)
delcourt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
tel (33)0388144514
fax (33)0388144535