The long awaited unabridged english translation of the
original french text 'Histoire de la folie a l'age
classique' is due for release this week by Routledge
publishing; englished as 'History of Madness in the
Classical age'.
I, along with Andrew Scull, although for very
different reasons, am convinced that its reception
will be an unfavourable, even hostile one. Scull
believed- hoped- that a full length english
translation of the original french text would finally
put it, and the controversy it spawned, to rest by
bringing to light in the anglo-saxon world the
inadequacies of its arguments, "resting", as it does,
"on the shakiest of scholary foudations", "riddled
with errors of fact and interpretation", and thus
presenting a "grave danger" to "credulous" young minds
by alienating them from 'the truth'. I, with Allen
Megil, see it as "unacceptable" to "normal schools of
scholary standards" precisely because it does not
accept, from the outset, prior to any analysis, the
normal standards of acceptable scholarship, but
rather, holds them in abeyance and even calls them
into question (as an effect attendent upon it, of the
order of 'results'). In any case, "its appearance will
doubtless provoke a reassessment of Fouaults work on
the history of psychiatry."
Michael Bibby
Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com
original french text 'Histoire de la folie a l'age
classique' is due for release this week by Routledge
publishing; englished as 'History of Madness in the
Classical age'.
I, along with Andrew Scull, although for very
different reasons, am convinced that its reception
will be an unfavourable, even hostile one. Scull
believed- hoped- that a full length english
translation of the original french text would finally
put it, and the controversy it spawned, to rest by
bringing to light in the anglo-saxon world the
inadequacies of its arguments, "resting", as it does,
"on the shakiest of scholary foudations", "riddled
with errors of fact and interpretation", and thus
presenting a "grave danger" to "credulous" young minds
by alienating them from 'the truth'. I, with Allen
Megil, see it as "unacceptable" to "normal schools of
scholary standards" precisely because it does not
accept, from the outset, prior to any analysis, the
normal standards of acceptable scholarship, but
rather, holds them in abeyance and even calls them
into question (as an effect attendent upon it, of the
order of 'results'). In any case, "its appearance will
doubtless provoke a reassessment of Fouaults work on
the history of psychiatry."
Michael Bibby
Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com