Foucault's previously unpublished doctoral dissertation on Kant offers the definitive statement of his relationship to Kant and to the critical tradition of philosophy. This introduction and commentary to Kant's least discussed work, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, is the dissertation that Michel Foucault presented in 1961 as his doctoral thesis. It has remained unpublished, in any language, until now. In his exegesis and critical interpretation of Kant's Anthropology, Foucault raises the question (...) of the relation between psychology and anthropology, and how they are affected by time. Though a Kantian “critique of the anthropological slumber,” Foucault warns against the dangers of treating psychology as a new metaphysics, explores the possibilities of studying man empirically, and reflects on the nature of time, art and technique, self-perception, and language. Extending Kant's suggestion that any empirical knowledge of man is inextricably tied up with language, Foucault asserts that man is a world citizen insofar as he speaks. For both Kant and Foucault, anthropology concerns not the human animal or self-consciousness but, rather, involves the questioning of the limits of human knowledge and concrete existence. This long-unknown text is a valuable contribution not only to a scholarly appreciation of Kant's work but as the first outline of what would later become Foucault's own frame of reference within the history of philosophy. It is thus a definitive statement of Foucault's relation to Kant as well as Foucault's relation to the critical tradition of philosophy. By going to the heart of the debate on structuralist anthropology and the status of the human sciences in relation to finitude, Foucault also creates something of a prologue to his foundational The Order of Things. Michel Foucault is widely considered to be one of the most important academic voices of the twentieth century and has proven influential across disciplines. (shrink)

This article deals with the importance that Foucault attributes to the Critic of Pure Reason, in his book, The Order of Things . According to Foucault, the Critic occupies a symbolic place because of the problematic of finitude that this work inaugurates in the history of philosophy. First of all, Kant thinks about finitude from itself, and this differentiates him from Descartes, to whom this concept is referred to the infinite. Then, the Kantian finite transcendental subject is (...) not an empirical one, in contrast to the modern analyses of finitude, which confuse the empirical with the transcendental. In this respect, the Critic does not belong to the Classical Age any longer, because it bypasses the representation. But it cannot be included in the modern analyses of finitude either, such as those of the naturalistic positivism, the dialectic, and the phenomenology. Foucault thus suggests that the Critic brings with itself the possibility of an anthropology, in the sense it is a thought that imparts a transcendental value to the empirical contents, even if it does not belong to them. (shrink)

While increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the relation between Foucault’s conception of critique and Kant’s, much controversy remains over whether Foucault’s most sustained early engagement with Kant, his dissertation on Kant’s Anthropology, should be read as a wholesale rejection of Kant’s views or as the source of Foucault’s late return to ethics and critique. In this paper, I propose a new reading of the dissertation, considering it alongside 1950s-era archival (...) materials of which I advance the first scholarly appraisal. I argue that Foucault manifests a fundamental ambivalence to Kantian anthropology, rejecting it in theoretical terms while embracing its practical (‘pragmatic’) conception of the subject. Furthermore, I take these texts to collectively evidence Foucault’s attempt to situate himself within the anthropological-critical tradition rather than extricating himself from it. If we interpret Foucault to reject this tradition’s appeal to an essentialized, theoretical conception of subjectivity, what remains of anthropology is its inherent practical reflexivity in structure. Thus, I situate Foucault’s conception of ethics as one’s relation to oneself in continuity with this tradition. (shrink)

C'est sur cette note que s'achevait la breve Notice historique que Michel Foucault avait place en tete de l'edition de sa traduction de l'Anthropologie de Kant (Vrin 1964).

Notes prises par Jacques Lagrange lors du cours d'anthropologie donné par Michel Foucault en 1954-1955 à l'École Normale Supérieure.

On May 27, 1978, Michel Foucault gave a lecture to the French Society of Philosophy where he redefines his entire philosophical project in light of Immanuel Kant's 1784 text, "What Is Enlightenment?" Foucault strikingly characterizes critique as the political and moral attitude consisting in the "art of not being governed in this particular way," one that performs the function of destabilizing power relations and creating the space for a new formation of the self within the "politics of (...) truth." This volume presents the first critical edition of this crucial lecture alongside a previously unpublished lecture about the culture of the self and three public debates with Foucault at the University of California, Berkeley in April 1983. There, for the first time, Foucault establishes a direct connection between his reflections on Enlightenment and his analyses of Greco-Roman antiquity. However, far from suggesting a return to the ancient culture of the self, Foucault invites his audience to build a "new ethics" that bypasses the traditional references to religion, law, and science. (shrink)

As coletâneas não são concebidas para reunir pensadores diversos em torno de uma temática, mas fundamentalmente para, a partir dessa diversidade de autores em torno de uma unidade temática, fazer com que nós, leitores, exerçamos uma experiência de pensamento. A nosso ver, foi dessa forma que foi concebida a coletânea, publicada em 2012 (e que agora propomos apresentar aqui), pela revista francesa Rue Descartes, cujo tema versa sobre Kant, Foucault e a renovação da antropologia filosófica, e organizada por (...) Diogo Sardinha, do Collège International de Philosophie. (shrink)

A tradução de Foucault da Antropologia de Kant, realizada como tese complementar à História da loucura na idade clássica e publicada pela primeira vez em 1964, é precedida, na edição que ora vem a lume (Vrin, 2008), de uma longa introdução originalmente apresentada à comissão julgadora e posteriormente omitida pelo autor – que contraria assim a recomendação da banca e prefere considerá-la como uma espécie de esboço preparatório ao dito “livro dos signos”, publicado em 1966 com o título (...) de Les mots et les choses – une archeologie des scienes humaines.1 Os anos que separam de sua publicação a redação desse estudo não puderam mitigar o valor das considerações de Foucault, que têm o duplo interesse de esclarecer a trajetória de seu pensamento no decorrer dos anos 60 e de instigar o interessado por Kant a quem sabe adotar novas perspectivas no estudo de sua filosofia. (shrink)

_Resumo_: este artigo analisa a interpretação de Foucault sobre Kant com o foco na complexidade das relações entre o trabalho filosófico, em geral, e o mundo concreto. O escopo do artigo é delimitado por esta análise de Foucault, especialmente, sobre dois textos de Kant: _O que é o iluminismo? _e _Antropologia de um ponto de vista pragmático_. Investiga-se a possibilidade de um acesso a um espaço anterior a qualquer orientação ética específica, deslocando-se, assim, do conjunto de (...) elaborações éticas da tradição filosófica. Primeiramente, destacam-se os diferentes posicionamentos possíveis assumidos pelos filósofos, em geral, em seu trabalho perante o mundo concreto. A seguir mostra-se a existência de uma ambigüidade latente no trabalho filosófico, a qual permite concluir que há sim um espaço prévio, dentro do qual o filósofo pode ou não compreender a sua situação histórica e o seu lugar no mundo. Todos estes elementos são expostos mediante o acompanhamento da análise realizada por Foucault. (shrink)

This paper problematizes the claim that Michel Foucault's work is normatively lacking and therefore possesses only limited political relevance. While Foucault does not articulate a traditional normative framework for political activity, I argue that his work nonetheless reflects certain normative commitments to, for example, practicing freedom and improving the state of the world. I elucidate these commitments by sketching out Foucault's notion of critique as a mode of existence characterized by practices of the self, arguing that such (...) practices possess political significance within the context of what Foucault refers to as a way of life, and analyzing points of intersection and departure between Kant's and Foucault's respective responses to the question `What is Enlightenment?' in order to clarify the connection Foucault makes between self-practices and freedom. Through this analysis I also show that Foucault reconceptualizes normative concepts such as obligation, freedom, autonomy and publicity in non-normalizing, politically compelling ways, and argue that his work opens onto a similar reconceptualization of the notion of political unity. I conclude with a preliminary investigation into the political efficacy of Foucault's ethos by discussing its relevance specifically for feminist politics. (shrink)

The article discusses Foucaults reading of Kants "Anthropology" (in French).

This chapter begins with an exposition of Foucault's genealogical account of critique as an untheorized attitude and mode of existence, that of being critical. Foucault finds the sources of philosophical critique in practices of resistance to politicized forms of pastoral power transposed from Hebraic and Christian traditions at the time of the Protestant Reformation. The next section explores Foucault's identification of the first theoretical formulation of this attitude of being critical in Kant's essay “ What is (...) Enlightenment?”. The ensuing section sketches Foucault's reading of Kant's piece, with an eye to the distinction between the transcendental version of critique practiced in the three Critiques, and critique as Enlightenment, the attitude characterized by the will not to be poorly or excessively governed. Finally, Foucault's analysis of modernity is presented as a model of practicing the self, a “limit attitude” emblematic of the exercise of freedom. (shrink)

Foucault’s main thesis in his Introduction to Kant’s Anthropology is that the meaning of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View can only be entirely grasped in the light of certain notes concerning the human being, assembled in the Opus Postumum. He asserts that the discourses held on human beings in the Anthropology and the introduction to the Logic are temporary – though necessary – moments in the transition from the critical to the transcendental philosophy: the latter is (...) the accomplishment of Kantian philosophy, to which the former was only a Propädeutik. In this paper I call this a ‘teleological reading’ of the Anthropology, one which certainly has the merit of integrating this book in the evolution of Kant’s thought, but which can also be misleading, since it rarely considers the book Anthropology in itself. Hence, Foucault carries out what is more of a study of ‘Kant’s philosophy from an anthropological point of view’ rather than a study of the Anthropology. In the end, I also indicate the way in which this method enables us to distinguish his philosophical position both from Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant and from Sartre’s humanism. (shrink)

Nosso fito no presente trabalho é comparar duas concepções de _a priori_, uma de vertente kantiana, como consta na primeira parte da _Crítica da razão pura_, mais exatamente na Introdução desta mesma obra; a outra, tal qual elaborada por Foucault no livro _As palavras e as coisas_, sob o nome de _a priori histórico_ e articular isto com a questão da genealogia, tal como aparecerá nos trabalhos de maturidade de Foucault, isto é, em seus trabalhos das décadas de (...) setenta e oitenta. Para tanto, lançaremos mão de obras dos dois autores e de alguns comentadores que abordam o tema, sem pretender, no entanto, esgotar o assunto, ou seja, lançando uma pista de pesquisa. (shrink)

Lecture de la thèse complémentaire de Foucault : " Introduction à l'anthropologie de Kant ". L'anthropologie philosophique des deux philosophes| le rapport à la métaphysique| le rapport de Foucault à la généalogie de Nietzsche, à sa théorie de l'interprétation, ainsi qu'à Marx et à Freud.

Este artigo propõe relacionar as filosofias da história de Kant e de Hegel às bases do pensamento de Foucault, em História da loucura na idade clássica. Buscamos reconhecer, não indícios de uma história cosmopolita ou universal, mas em que medida o pensamento crítico e a filosofia como ciência das essências puras comparecem na inteligibilidade histórica de Foucault. A reunião de uma diversidade de experiências sob o conceito de desatino , fio condutor da obra, sugere uma proximidade com (...) a tradição. Por outro lado, a falta de um critério intrínseco, o qual justifique a referência de tal multiplicidade à alcunha da loucura, faz com que o fio condutor se restrinja a um aspecto negativo e que, positivamente, Foucault estabeleça para seu trabalho um primado empírico, na forma de uma constelação de imagens. O procedimento de História da loucura, que, junto ao interesse pela desrazão, inaugura o privilégio dado pelo filósofo francês à análise das descontinuidades nos leva a reconhecer a razão com base nos casos que solapam aos seus limites, às essências por ela própria discernidas, e com base nas práticas por ela promovidas e justificadas. This article proposes to relate Kant's and Hegel's philosophy of history to the basis of Foucault's History of Madness in the Classical Age. We are not attempting to recognize the presence of a cosmopolitan or universal history, but trying to understand how critical thinking and philosophy as the science of pure essences appear in Foucault's historical intelligibility. The challenge of bringing together a diversity of experiences under the concept of unreason , which is the common thread of the book, suggests an attachment to tradition. However, the absence of an intrinsic criterion justifying the reference of that multiplicity to madness motivates a negative aspect to that concept and, positively, makes Foucault establish for his work an empirical primacy, in the form of a constellation of images. The procedure of the History of Madness that, with its interest in unreason, inaugurates the privilege given by the French philosopher to the analysis of discontinuities, leads us to recognize reason based on cases that escape its limits and the essences discerned by itself. (shrink)

This study presents the theoretical apparatus of Foucault's early historical analyses as a version of Kantian criticism. In an initial textual exposition, the author attempts to distill a unified discursive practice from Kant's theoretical writings, arguing for Foucault's proximity to Kant on the basis of this reconstruction, by showing that his studies are modeled on this way of thinking. By recasting it in this framework, an unorthodox version of Foucault's work is generated, one that is (...) at odds with the tendency to emphasize a certain skepticism about the possibility of universal and necessary knowledge in his writings, and to mistake it for irrationalism and a hostility to the practice of theory. By drawing attention to the structural parallel between Foucault's practice and Kantian criticism, this study belies this picture. (shrink)

O que se buscará com o seguinte artigo é recriar, e analisar, o trajeto filosófico que tem sua origem no conceito kantiano de Aufklärung, e cuja evolução nos levará até o conceito foucaultiano de “ontologia crítica”. Em 1784, Kant diria num artigo do jornal alemão Berlinische Monatsschrift que a Aufklärung seria uma saída da minoridade do homem, e por minoridade podemos entender o fato do homem não ser capaz de fazer uso do seu próprio entendimento, ficando assim dependente da (...) razão de tutores. A partir disto, Foucault, em 1984, diria que a originalidade desta resposta de Kant está exatamente em não propor um método ou uma doutrina, mas antes, em incitar uma ação: propriamente a ação de saída [Ausgang]. Assim, Foucault nos apresentaria sua “ontologia crítica”; que diferentemente da ontologia tradicional que busca capturar os acontecimentos numa doutrina, o papel da ontologia foucaultiana seria exatamente o de tornar o sujeito incapturável por qualquer doutrina que apreende os acontecimentos num SER exclusivo. O que Foucault faria, desta forma, seria levar o conceito de Kant mais além, propondo mesmo um trabalho infinito, não apenas mais para sair, mas para igualmente permanecer fora do estado de minoridade. (shrink)

S’il est une chose qu’ont en partage les diverses tendances de la philosophie européenne après Kant, c’est bien l’idée de la philosophie comme critique : tout à la fois comme critique de la raison, critique de la modernité et critique de la philosophie. L’histoire de la philosophie européenne post-kantienne ou, pour utiliser le terme devenu usuel, de la philosophie continentale, peut être comprise d’abord et avant tout comme l’histoire des différentes tentatives de mettre en œuvre cette idée. Malheureusement, cette (...) conception de la philosophie a abouti à une impasse, à une crise qui est imputable à la tendance répandue à interpréter son sens de manière très étroite et, somme toute, autodestructrice. L’article représente une réponse à cette crise. (shrink)

la82 12.00 Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Este ensaio tem por tema a perspectiva de uma ética relacionada à concepçáo de modernidade em Michel Foucault. Ele trata da leitura que Foucault faz do texto de Kant sobre o Aufklärung. Investiga o âmbito específico das condições de uma ontologia do indivíduo na qual busca mostrar a articulaçáo entre o diagnóstico do presente e a reconstruçáo da tradiçáo crítica em torno da idéia de autonomia. (...) Procura demonstrar na concepçáo da “atitude de modernidade” a força histórica da herança do Aufklärung encontrada na perspectiva crítica de uma problematizaçáo ética da atualidade, a partir de uma concepçáo de autonomia, estabelecida na proposta de uma “estética da existência”. (shrink)

Recently criticism and theory have maintained that Kant's aesthetic theory is central to modernism, and have used Foucault's archaeology to interrogate that modernism. This paper suggests that archaeology ultimately cannot escape Kant's hold because it depends on Kantian theses. The first section will consider how a recent exponent of an 'archaeological' viewpoint characterizes Kant's theory and will set out the critical role Kant ascribes to art. The second section compares Kant and Foucault to (...) argue that despite appearances their projects turn out to be substantially coterminal. My interest in comparing these critics is not only to be provocative but also to show that post-modernist thinking, at least in the guise of Foucault, needs and uses standards that Kant proposes. (shrink)

In this article we address Foucault’s interpretation of Kant’s anthropology as a whole, i.e. beyond Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View . I expose Foucault’s three most important thesis, which concern firstly the faithfulness of this book to the critical work that preceded it; secondly, the need of reading the Introduction to the Logic and the Opus postumum in order to draw crucial aspects of Kant’s anthropology; and thirdly, the importance of reviving a critical gesture (...) , so as to demystify the pretensions of the post-kantian anthropological discourse. This way the difference between Foucault and Heidegger on the one side, and Foucault and Sartre on the other side, becomes clear: against the latter he adopts an anti-humanist perspective, and unlike the former he uses the Opus postumum to distinguish false anthropology from Kant’s anthropology.Neste texto analisamos a leitura que Foucault fez da antropologia kantiana no seu conjunto, isto é, para além da Antropologia de um ponto de vista pragmático . As três teses foucaultianas mais importantes são, primeiro, a da fidelidade deste livro à obra crítica que o precedeu; segundo, a da necessidade de ler a Introdução da Lógica e o Opus postumum para penetrar aspetos essenciais da antropologia de Kant; terceiro, a da importância de retomar um certo gesto crítico , para desmistificar as pretensões do discurso antropológico pós-kantiano. Neste percurso, torna-se nítido o modo como Foucault se distingue tanto de Heidegger quanto de Sartre: se se opõe a este por via do anti-humanismo teórico, também se diferencia de Heidegger pela forma como se serve do Opus postumum, que Heidegger praticamente ignorou. (shrink)

This essay examines Foucault's stance towards the Enlightenment as formulated in three works he published in the last decade of his life. These works represent a partial modification of Foucault's attitude to the Enlightenment, rather than the dramatic shift claimed by some commentators. In order to substantiate this claim, the essay provides a reconstruction and critical assessment of three articles Foucault devoted to Kant and the Enlightenment, namely, ‘Qu'est-ce que la critique?’ , ‘Kant on Enlightenment (...) and Revolution’ , and ‘What is Enlightenment?’ . It argues that Foucault's reformulation of Enlightenment ideals in terms of an ethos of transgression and an aesthetic of self-fashioning is much closer to Nietzsche's vision of a transvaluation of values than to Kant's notion of maturity and responsibility. (shrink)

It is acceptable to state that Foucault has always held a strong stand and a radical distance in front of Kant’s thoughts. Similarly, it is possible thinking that through the changes of Foucault’s thoughts, the sceptical outlook suffered changes in relation with Kantian philosophical critique. Consequently, as said by Jon Simmons in his Foucault and the Political “it is ironic that a writer with a reputation for anarchist, nihilistic, even apocalyptic opposition to rationality, humanism and the (...) Enlightment turned to Kant as a model for critique”. Despite the fact of trying to find a labelling reference for Foucault’s thought, that’s to say, where to put it?: modernity, post-modernity, anarchism, radical sceptical; the labelling duty would be very problematic; although the philosopher himself states that “if there is a need to label Foucault within the philosophical tradition, it is in Kant’s critical philosophical tradition and his stake (Foucault’s) would be named “a critique history of Western thought”. In fact, Foucault himself also writes that, “Every contemporary thought is, in certain way, neo-Kantian. In the same way, inquiries himself, “wasn’t Kant the one who said: one doesn’t learn philosophy, one learns how to philosophize?”. (shrink)

Interkultureller Austausch geht von der Gleichwertigkeit der Kulturen aus und ist vom Gedanken des produktiven Dialogs, der gegenseitigen Anregung und der Korrektur bestimmt. Ein solcher Dialog mit Immanuel Kant und Michel Foucault bietet eine anregende Perspektive auf die afrikanische Philosophie. Marita Rainsborough untersucht vor diesem Hintergrund die Auseinandersetzung afrikanischer Philosophen wie Anthony Appiah und Achille Mbembe mit philosophischen Grundfragen. Ihre Visionen einer afrikanischen Zukunft machen deutlich, dass sich akute Probleme wie Machtmissbrauch und Menschenrechtsverletzungen - unter Berücksichtigung der lokalen (...) Besonderheiten - nur im globalen Kontext lösen lassen. (shrink)

Beatrice Han argues that the theories of subjection (determinism: structure) and subjectivation (freedom: agency) are the “the blind spot of Foucault's work:” to the very end of his life, in being transcendental and historical theories, respectively, they were in irresolvable conflict. In part I, I have argued that Foucault encourages us to situate the theories of the subject in an un-thematized reach for a metaphysics of realism which, in effect, was to ground his uncertain complementary reach for a (...) naturalist conduct of research. In part II I also argue that it is this fundamental feature of Foucault's Foucault that drives his returns to Kant, the purpose of which is to resolve the conflicting theories of the subject, and thus to solve his Giddensian problem of structure and creativity. Locating the returns and their purpose in my context of Science for Humanism and the recovery of human agency, I ultimately argue that Foucault's two special returns to Kant in order to solve his structure/agency problem led to two unfortunate solutions. The resort to Baudelair's aesthetic subject is a failed solution in so far as it regresses to being a pre-noumenal conception of the subject. The subsequent mere reinstatement of Kant's subject as causally empowered, minus the noumenalism, is nothing more than a reclamation of Kant's conception. Only the reconstruction of Foucault's realism permits us to assert that he could have moved beyond the reclamation of human agency to its recovery. (shrink)

O artigo busca evidenciar os pontos de contato entre as análises de Foucault e Kant sobre o Iluminismo. Ademais, cumpre explicitar a relação ambivalente da filosofia contemporânea com a razão esclarecida, ora considerada responsável por práticas de dominação, ora como condição de possibilidade para a autonomia e liberdade. Partindo da declaração de Foucault sobre seu trabalho situar-se na tradição crítica kantiana, trata-se de compreender como os dois filósofos problematizaram o processo de saída do homem de sua menoridade.

In the unpublished manuscript of a lecture course probably given by Foucault at the École normale supérieure of Paris in 1954–5 (‘On Anthropology’; the dating is still uncertain), Foucault undertakes an erudite and detailed reconstruction of the history of anthropological knowledge, from modernity (Descartes and Malebranche) to 20th-century Nietzschean commentaries (Jaspers and Heidegger), including analyses by Kant, Feuerbach, and Dilthey, among others. My article explores this lecture course to emphasize the importance of anthropological criticism for the young (...) Foucault, addressing in particular the anti-anthropological significance of the encounter with Nietzsche’s philosophy, which becomes an output power ( puissance de sortie) both of the figure of man and the notion of truth in which he was involved. These unpublished manuscripts will therefore allow me to find a common thread in Foucault’s work in the 1950s and 1960s (and even beyond): the exploration of new potentialities for thought opened by ‘the death of man’. (shrink)