Michel Foucault was a French philosopher and historian of ideas, whose work focused on critical studies of social institutions and systems of power. He explored the relationship between knowledge and power, examining the discourses that shape our understanding of medicine, psychiatry, and the prison system. His methodology, influenced by Nietzsche, sought to uncover the historical roots of our modern thought systems. Foucault's influence on academic circles remains profound.
Foucault's 1978 lecture reinterprets his philosophical project through Kant's "What Is Enlightenment?" by framing critique as a moral stance that challenges existing power dynamics and fosters self-formation within the "politics of truth." This volume includes the first critical edition of this pivotal lecture, an unpublished talk on self-culture, and debates from 1983 at UC Berkeley, where Foucault links Enlightenment ideas to Greco-Roman thought while advocating for a contemporary "new ethics" that transcends conventional religious and scientific frameworks.
Foucault's lectures and interviews from 1978 in Japan are presented in English for the first time, offering insights into his thoughts and philosophies. The book explores the historical context of these discussions while highlighting their ongoing significance and relevance in contemporary society. Through this collection, readers gain a deeper understanding of Foucault's ideas and their implications for modern thought.
Foucault's exploration of the history of sexuality, initiated in the 1960s through his lectures, reveals significant insights into his evolving ideas. This collection marks the first English publication of these pivotal lectures, providing readers with an opportunity to engage with Foucault's foundational thoughts on sexuality that have shaped contemporary discourse.
Foucault's History of Sexuality changed the way we think about power, selfhood and sexuality. In this fourth and final volume, he turns his attention to early Christianity, exploring how ancient ideas of pleasure were modified into the Christian notion of the 'flesh' - a transformation that would define the Western experience of sexuality.
Now in paperback, this collection of Foucault’s lectures traces the historical formation and contemporary significance of the hermeneutics of the self. Just before the summer of 1982, French philosopher Michel Foucault gave a series of lectures at Victoria University in Toronto. In these lectures, which were part of his project of writing a genealogy of the modern subject, he is concerned with the care and cultivation of the self, a theme that becomes central to the second, third, and fourth volumes of his History of Sexuality. Foucault had always been interested in the question of how constellations of knowledge and power produce and shape subjects, and in the last phase of his life, he became especially interested not only in how subjects are formed by these forces but in how they ethically constitute themselves. In this lecture series and accompanying seminar, Foucault focuses on antiquity, starting with classical Greece, the early Roman empire, and concluding with Christian monasticism in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Foucault traces the development of a new kind of verbal practice—“speaking the truth about oneself”—in which the subject increasingly comes to be defined by its inner thoughts and desires. He deemed this new form of “hermeneutical” subjectivity important not just for historical reasons, but also due to its enduring significance in modern society.
Three years before his death, Michel Foucault delivered a series of lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain that until recently remained almost unknown. These lectures--which focus on the role of avowal, or confession, in the determination of truth and justice--provide the missing link between Foucault's early work on madness, delinquency, and sexuality and his later explorations of subjectivity in Greek and Roman antiquity. Ranging broadly from Homer to the twentieth century, Foucault traces the early use of truth-telling in ancient Greece and follows it through to practices of self-examination in monastic times. By the nineteenth century, the avowal of wrongdoing was no longer sufficient to satisfy the call for justice; there remained the question of who the "criminal" was and what formative factors contributed to his wrong-doing. The call for psychiatric expertise marked the birth of the discipline of psychiatry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as its widespread recognition as the foundation of criminology and modern criminal justice. Published here for the first time, the 1981 lectures have been superbly translated by Stephen W. Sawyer and expertly edited and extensively annotated by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt. They are accompanied by two contemporaneous interviews with Foucault in which he elaborates on a number of the key themes. An essential companion to "Discipline and Punish," "Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling" will take its place as one of the most significant works of Foucault to appear in decades, and will be necessary reading for all those interested in his thought
The book explores the essence of justice beyond traditional court systems, emphasizing that true juridical acts stem from the regulated progression of disputes rather than judicial intervention. It argues that the core of legal order lies in how individuals confront and engage with one another, highlighting the interplay between rules and struggle. The text redefines the concept of justice, focusing on the dynamics of conflict resolution rather than merely the decisions of judges or magistrates.
This volume collects a series of lectures given by the renowned French thinker Michel Foucault late in his career. The book is composed of two parts: a talk, Parrēsia, delivered at the University of Grenoble in 1982, and a series of lectures entitled “Discourse and Truth,” given at the University of California, Berkeley in 1983, which appears here for the first time in its full and correct form. Together, they provide an unprecedented account of Foucault’s reading of the Greek concept of parrēsia, often translated as “truth-telling” or “frank speech.” The lectures trace the transformation of this concept across Greek, Roman, and early Christian thought, from its origins in pre-Socratic Greece to its role as a central element of the relationship between teacher and student. In mapping the concept’s history, Foucault’s concern is not to advocate for free speech; rather, his aim is to explore the moral and political position one must occupy in order to take the risk to speak truthfully. These lectures—carefully edited and including notes and introductory material to fully illuminate Foucault’s insights—are a major addition to Foucault’s English language corpus.
