Foucault as a reader of Descartes and Derrida's critique
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61378/enun.v8i1.161Keywords:
Foucault; History; Psychiatry; Madness; Science; Technology; SocietyAbstract
This article deals with the debate between Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida about madness in René Descartes' philosophy, as it appears in the History of Madness in the Classical Age of 1961. From Foucault's interpretation of the exclusion of madness from the field of thought in modernity, Derrida's criticism is rescued as a way to problematize the arguments sustained in the History of Madness. With an emphasis on the divergences between Foucault and Derrida about the place of madness, dream, and error in Cartesian Cogito, the authors are analyzed in their different arguments. Finally, the article rescues Foucault's later answers to Derrida, demonstrating his argumentative defenses and clarifying the effects and intentions of his interpretation of René Descartes' philosophy for the project of writing a history of madness in the Modern Age.
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