First of all, I?d like to apologize for my English. Now, there have been
some comments on Derrida?s notion that Foucault is attempting "to speak
the silenced language of madness":
?He's just writing a history--if not a standard kind of history (though
I don't know how it's so unstandard, either), at least he's writing it
in a standard kind of way, a standard kind of language. It's not an
attempt at "writing madly"
and
?It's a history and we're allowed to see how 'power' and 'knowledge'
come together in form of Tuke and Pinel and the whole psychology/madness
industry that grows up in the nineteenth century?.
That?s certainly correct. But may be it?s only one story we can find in
?histoire de la folie?, probably the one who is most carried out as a
concrete historical inquiry. However, there can be isolated a disparate
level of methodological statements and allusions, even if they don?t
characterize the historical analysis. For instance, even if Foucault
isn?t writing ?madly? ? how would that look, anyway? ? he nevertheless
describes himself the language of ?histoire de la folie? in terms which
suggest a kind of history-making that is incompatible with common
history (sorry for the sacrilege of french quotation, but I don?t have
an english translation):
?C?est qu?en dehors de toute référence à une ?vérité? psychiatrique , il
fallait laisser parler, d?eux-mêmes, ces mots, ces textes qui viennent
d?en dessous du language, et qui n?était pas faits pour accéder jusqu?à
la parole.? (?Tous ces mots imparfaits, sans syntaxe fixe, un peu
balbutiants, dans lesquels se faisait l?échange de la folie et de la
raison. (...) Tous ces propos vains, tous ces dossiers de délire
indéchiffrable. (...) Tous ces mots sans langage.?) ?Il fallait donc un
langage assez neutre (assez libre de terminologie scientifique, et
d?options sociales ou morales) pour qu?il puisse approcher au plus près
de ces mots primitivement enchevêtrés, et pour que cette distance
s?abolisse par laquelle l?homme moderne s?assure contre la folie.?
(Dits et Écrits I, 160, 162 and 166 = Préface de la première edition de
l?histoire de la folie).
So what Foucault, in order to shorten our distance from madness, tries
to do is to approach, through carefully exposing some kind of
pre-language between sens and nonsense, the strange point of
indifference at which reason and madness still communicate together (the
latter now understood as ?la folie elle-même? and not as a historical
discourse or experience). In 1960, when he had finished ?histoire de la
folie?, Foucault himself judged this uncovering to be the most important
part of his book, what deserves our attention as I think, even if he
later prefered to deny it. ?Aller jusqu?au fond? (166), "remonter vers
la décision qui lie et sépare à la fois raison et folie" (164): It is a
paradox undertaking as Foucault knew himself too, paradox as every kind
of his counter-sciences.
Except his lucid critique on this point Derrida suggests an interesting
interpretation: Accordingly, ?histoire de la folie? doesn?t solve this
problem by formulating and arguing but rather by practicing the
solution. That means, that Foucault doesn?t say the silence of madness
in the logos - that?s impossible - but he makes it present
metaphorically and through the pathos of his text (cf. L?ecriture et la
différence, 62 f., german edition). This could make clear how Foucault
is writing like a reasonable man but nevertheless is following a target
transcending ?normal? history. This ambivalence would further explain
the combination of two overlapping story-plots. For there is not only
the neutral story of changing historical structures - including notions,
juridical measures and scientific concepts (164) - but also a sometimes
apocalyptical story of decline and ?alienation?. The latter story makes
no sense without reference to an unexplained imagination of ?la folie
elle-même?.
In this sense one can possibly say that Foucault is attempting "to speak
the silenced language of madness" ? and that he necessarily failed in
doing so.
Besides: Roland Barthes wrote a beautiful essay about this problem (in
French). It was published two years before Derrida?s more complexe
Cogito-Essay in: Critique Nr. 17, 1961, 915-922.
Dino
PS
Anybody working on Foucault and law/rights/democracy?
some comments on Derrida?s notion that Foucault is attempting "to speak
the silenced language of madness":
?He's just writing a history--if not a standard kind of history (though
I don't know how it's so unstandard, either), at least he's writing it
in a standard kind of way, a standard kind of language. It's not an
attempt at "writing madly"
and
?It's a history and we're allowed to see how 'power' and 'knowledge'
come together in form of Tuke and Pinel and the whole psychology/madness
industry that grows up in the nineteenth century?.
That?s certainly correct. But may be it?s only one story we can find in
?histoire de la folie?, probably the one who is most carried out as a
concrete historical inquiry. However, there can be isolated a disparate
level of methodological statements and allusions, even if they don?t
characterize the historical analysis. For instance, even if Foucault
isn?t writing ?madly? ? how would that look, anyway? ? he nevertheless
describes himself the language of ?histoire de la folie? in terms which
suggest a kind of history-making that is incompatible with common
history (sorry for the sacrilege of french quotation, but I don?t have
an english translation):
?C?est qu?en dehors de toute référence à une ?vérité? psychiatrique , il
fallait laisser parler, d?eux-mêmes, ces mots, ces textes qui viennent
d?en dessous du language, et qui n?était pas faits pour accéder jusqu?à
la parole.? (?Tous ces mots imparfaits, sans syntaxe fixe, un peu
balbutiants, dans lesquels se faisait l?échange de la folie et de la
raison. (...) Tous ces propos vains, tous ces dossiers de délire
indéchiffrable. (...) Tous ces mots sans langage.?) ?Il fallait donc un
langage assez neutre (assez libre de terminologie scientifique, et
d?options sociales ou morales) pour qu?il puisse approcher au plus près
de ces mots primitivement enchevêtrés, et pour que cette distance
s?abolisse par laquelle l?homme moderne s?assure contre la folie.?
(Dits et Écrits I, 160, 162 and 166 = Préface de la première edition de
l?histoire de la folie).
So what Foucault, in order to shorten our distance from madness, tries
to do is to approach, through carefully exposing some kind of
pre-language between sens and nonsense, the strange point of
indifference at which reason and madness still communicate together (the
latter now understood as ?la folie elle-même? and not as a historical
discourse or experience). In 1960, when he had finished ?histoire de la
folie?, Foucault himself judged this uncovering to be the most important
part of his book, what deserves our attention as I think, even if he
later prefered to deny it. ?Aller jusqu?au fond? (166), "remonter vers
la décision qui lie et sépare à la fois raison et folie" (164): It is a
paradox undertaking as Foucault knew himself too, paradox as every kind
of his counter-sciences.
Except his lucid critique on this point Derrida suggests an interesting
interpretation: Accordingly, ?histoire de la folie? doesn?t solve this
problem by formulating and arguing but rather by practicing the
solution. That means, that Foucault doesn?t say the silence of madness
in the logos - that?s impossible - but he makes it present
metaphorically and through the pathos of his text (cf. L?ecriture et la
différence, 62 f., german edition). This could make clear how Foucault
is writing like a reasonable man but nevertheless is following a target
transcending ?normal? history. This ambivalence would further explain
the combination of two overlapping story-plots. For there is not only
the neutral story of changing historical structures - including notions,
juridical measures and scientific concepts (164) - but also a sometimes
apocalyptical story of decline and ?alienation?. The latter story makes
no sense without reference to an unexplained imagination of ?la folie
elle-même?.
In this sense one can possibly say that Foucault is attempting "to speak
the silenced language of madness" ? and that he necessarily failed in
doing so.
Besides: Roland Barthes wrote a beautiful essay about this problem (in
French). It was published two years before Derrida?s more complexe
Cogito-Essay in: Critique Nr. 17, 1961, 915-922.
Dino
PS
Anybody working on Foucault and law/rights/democracy?