Dear Loren,
Foucualt and Derrida had a direct exchange regarding the perception given in
Foucault's *Madness and Civilization* that Foucualt was not just writing a
history of madness but in some way was seeking to speak its silenced
language. See Derrida's "Cogito and the History of Madness" (originally
delivered as a paper in 1963, translation available in Derrida's *Writing
and Difference*).
Foucault did not respond directly to this critique until Derrida had become
famous in his own right, choosing the publication of the second edition of
the French version of *Histoire de la folie* in 1972, to include "My Hand,
This Paper, This Fire", as an appendix to that edition (translation
available in *Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology* essential works vol. 2).
In 1991, Derrida returned to Foucault in the context of his relation to
psychoanalysis in a paper available in translation as '"To Do Justice to
Freud": The History of Madness in the Age of Psychoanalysis', which may be
found both in Derrida's *Resistances of Psychoanalysis* and in Arnold I.
Davidson (ed.) *Foucault and His Interlocutors*. In the latter book, there
is also a contribution from Foucault which I think comes from the French
version of *History of Madness* and which is useful for getting a sense of
Foucault's interest in the relations between madness and literature, a
series of connections which provide an interesting counter-point to both of
Derrida's discussions.
I don't know if this exhausts the exchange (the last Derrida essay of course
being more in memory of rather than as an attempted exchange with Foucault).
I am sure that there would be other references to each other in their works,
but I can't don't know of any that are significant in their own right.
Does anyone else know of anything that might be of interest?
cheers
sebastian
Foucualt and Derrida had a direct exchange regarding the perception given in
Foucault's *Madness and Civilization* that Foucualt was not just writing a
history of madness but in some way was seeking to speak its silenced
language. See Derrida's "Cogito and the History of Madness" (originally
delivered as a paper in 1963, translation available in Derrida's *Writing
and Difference*).
Foucault did not respond directly to this critique until Derrida had become
famous in his own right, choosing the publication of the second edition of
the French version of *Histoire de la folie* in 1972, to include "My Hand,
This Paper, This Fire", as an appendix to that edition (translation
available in *Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology* essential works vol. 2).
In 1991, Derrida returned to Foucault in the context of his relation to
psychoanalysis in a paper available in translation as '"To Do Justice to
Freud": The History of Madness in the Age of Psychoanalysis', which may be
found both in Derrida's *Resistances of Psychoanalysis* and in Arnold I.
Davidson (ed.) *Foucault and His Interlocutors*. In the latter book, there
is also a contribution from Foucault which I think comes from the French
version of *History of Madness* and which is useful for getting a sense of
Foucault's interest in the relations between madness and literature, a
series of connections which provide an interesting counter-point to both of
Derrida's discussions.
I don't know if this exhausts the exchange (the last Derrida essay of course
being more in memory of rather than as an attempted exchange with Foucault).
I am sure that there would be other references to each other in their works,
but I can't don't know of any that are significant in their own right.
Does anyone else know of anything that might be of interest?
cheers
sebastian