i would like to say, first of all, that this response is purely opinion and
was written impromptu.
it has been a while since i read derrida's lecture or mad/civ, but, as i
remember it, derrida's fault (as i saw it) lied in the way he tried to
"force" an interpretation of foucault's history that portrayed foucault as
pitting madness (unreason) and civilization (reason) in pure opposition to
one another. in other words, derrida is accusing foucault of the "original
sin" of structuralist critique, i.e., of claiming that historical discourses
develop primarily through the (totalizing) dichotomies of mutually defining
opposites. according to derrida, foucault takes the side of "unreason" and,
on that sole basis, rejects the side of "reason" out-of-hand. the
credibility of derrida's interpretation becomes all the more dubious once we
realize that it is based on only three pages out of foucault's 673-page work
(it should be noted in passing that the three pages in question do not
appear in the shortened english translation).
what foucault (i think) is actually talking about is a "silence" is a far
more complex situation in which madness is relegated WITHIN society (not so
much in opposition) such that its significance in the development of
civilization is denied through a discourse of rationality tied to a practice
of confinement. to elaborate more on this would require a closer examination
of the text on my part. but i think his invocation of nietzsche, bataille,
etc. in a small way shows the persistence of that which is nominally
dismissed as "madness."
brian
>From: Sebastian Gurciullo <sebtempo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: foucault/derrida
>Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 13:01:57 +1000
>
>I have recently been trying to come to grips with the Foucault-Derrida
>encounter, an encounter which it seems to me may be of import not only for
>a
>critical understanding of Foucault's early writings but perhaps beyond to
>Discipline and Punish, The Will to Knowledge and the eventual breakout of
>an
>aesthetics of existence in the late phase. I have attempted a reading of
>the
>1963 Derrida paper but found it difficult to follow and somewhat obscure
>(perhaps a translation problem?).
>
>As an addition to the question posed by John then, again if you (or anyone)
>have the time or passion, how does the 'totalising' claim relate to
>Derrida's charge regarding the impossibilities of Foucault's statement that
>he sought to speak the language of madness itself (rather than the history
>of its being silenced by a psychiatric discourse in some measure owing to
>an
>event in Descartes' meditation on the cogito)? Is there something
>approaching 'madness' in Foucault's claim here?
>
>Also, how does this question of 'totalisation' relate to Foucault's
>valorisation of a number of writers who go 'mad' (I am thinking here
>principally of Raymond Roussel and his treatment in Foucault's Death and
>the
>Labyrinth, written around the same time Histoire de la Folie first
>appeared,
>but also the other writers who may fit into this conception of literary
>production: Nietzsche, Artaud, Bataille, Blanchot), writers who push
>literature to the point at which the work (of art) falters and the writer
>is
>in some way effaced?
>
>cheers
>
>sebastian
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