Synopses & Reviews
This volume presents a systematic and comprehensive overview of Foucault's major themes and texts, from his early work on madness through his history of sexuality, and relates his work to significant contemporary movements such as critical theory and feminism. The volume includes the first English translation of George Canguilhem's much cited essay on The Order of Things, and a pseudonymous dictionary entry on Foucault that was probably written by Foucault himself shortly before his death.
Review
"The Cambridge Companion series has as its goal to offer overviews of the major themes and concerns of important thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition. The Cambridge Companion to Foucault fulfills this task admirably and in addition presents several important new substantive perspectives on Foucault's works. This is unsurprising, since the authors of the various chapters include almost every major Foucaultian thinker outside of France." Ethics"I found the individual chapters to be consistently of high quality and remarkably free of the somewhat inscrutable language I, as a layman, find in Foucault. In short, it meets the claim Gutting establishes early on, "this set of essays does hope to provide an informal and reasonably accessible guide to most of Foucault's major works and themes" (vii)." Perspectives on Political Science
Synopsis
New readers and non-specialists will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Foucault currently available.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 321-352) and index.
Table of Contents
Preface; Biographical chronology; Introduction Michel Foucault: a user's manual Gary Gutting; 1. Foucault's mapping of history Thomas Flynn; 2. Foucault and the history of madness Gary Gutting; 3. The death of man, or exhaustion of the cogito? tr. Catherine Porter George Canguilhem; 4. Power/knowledge Joseph Rouse; 5. Ethics as ascetics: Foucault, the history of ethics, and ancient thought Arnold Davidson; 6. The ethics of Michel Foucault James Bernauer and Michael Mahon; 7. What is enlightenment?: Kant and Foucault Christopher Norris; 8. Modern and countermodern: ethos and epoch on Heidegger and Foucault Paul Rabinow; 9. Foucault and Habermas on the subject of reason David Ingram; 10. 'Between Tradition and Oblivion': Foucault, the complications of form, the literature of reason, and the aesthetics of existence Stephen Watson; 11. Foucault, feminism, and questions of identity Jana Sawicki; 12. Foucault, Michel, 1926 tr. Catherine Porter, Maurice Florence.