Foucault (book)

Foucault

Cover of the first edition
Author José Guilherme Merquior
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Fontana Modern Masters
Subject Michel Foucault
Published 1985 (Fontana Press)
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 188 (1991 edition)
ISBN 978-0006862260

Foucault (1985; second edition 1991) is a book about French intellectual Michel Foucault by Brazilian critic and sociologist José Guilherme Merquior, in which Merquior provides a critical evaluation of Foucault, including works such as Madness and Civilization (1961) and The History of Sexuality (1976). Foucault received praise from several scholars, but has also been criticized. The book is part of the Fontana Modern Masters series.

Summary

Merquior provides a largely negative evaluation of Foucault's work. He argues that Foucault's works were often riddled with major errors of fact and reasoning, seriously (sometimes fatally) weakening Foucault's arguments. Merquior notes that in his first major book, Madness and Civilization (1961), Foucault argues that in Europe before the Enlightenment madness was relegated to the fringes of society but nonetheless seen as a type of divine wisdom engaged in dialogue with, and pointing out the foibles of, society. However, Merquior suggests that the historical record contradicts Foucault by showing that the insane were often imprisoned and treated cruelly long before the Enlightenment, that English philanthropist William Tuke and French physician Philippe Pinel did not "‘invent’ mental illness" but rather built on the work of predecessors, and furthermore the motives for creating insane asylums across Europe was nowhere near as uniform as Foucault implies. Merquior writes that, "Foucault’s epochal monoliths crumble before the contradictory wealth of the historical evidence." Merquior compares Madness and Civilization to Norman O. Brown's Life Against Death (1959), describing them as similar calls "for the liberation of the Dionysian id." Discussing The History of Sexuality (1976), Merquior writes that Foucault's views about sexual repression are preferable to those of Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, and their followers, in that they have "the advantage of descriptive, if not explanatory, realism", and that Foucault is supported by "the latest historiographic research on bourgeois sex". Merquior considers the book's second two volumes to be of higher scholarly quality than the first, and finds Foucault to be "original and insightful" in his discussion of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and other Stoics in The Care of the Self. However, he notes that the details of Foucault's views are open to question, and suggests that Foucault's discussion of Greek pederasty is less illuminating than that of Kenneth Dover, despite Foucault's references to Dover's Greek Homosexuality (1978). In conclusion, Merquior suggests that Foucault's widespread influence in the academic humanities is attributable less to the quality of Foucault's work and more to his fashionable quasi-Marxist habit of "bourgeoisie-bashing".[1]

Merquior does offer scattered praise for Foucault's work, describing his early efforts at literary criticism as "brilliant" and "insightful", and applauding his use of obscure historical sources and documents to shed new light on neglected areas of inquiry.[2]

Scholarly reception

Merquior's work was praised by critic Roger Kimball[3] and humanities professor Camille Paglia, who both suggest that it shows that Foucault made elementary errors in every area he wrote about; Paglia calls Merquior's exposé hilarious. Though supportive of Foucault in general, Paglia criticizes Merquior for failing to discuss what she sees as Foucault's enormous debts to French sociologist Émile Durkheim.[4] Literature professor John M. Ellis calls Foucault the best general account of Foucault's oeuvre,[5] while Gregory R. Johnson calls it one of Merquior's "minor classics."[6] Conversely, English professor Paul Bové dismisses Merquior's criticisms of Foucault as arrogant and stupid.[7]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Merquior 1991. pp. 29, 33, 121-2, 132, 135-6, 159.
  2. ↑ Merquior 1991. pp. 86, 164.
  3. ↑ Kimball 1993.
  4. ↑ Paglia 1993. p. 224.
  5. ↑ Ellis 1997. pp. 246-247.
  6. ↑ Johnson 1992. p. 154.
  7. ↑ Bové 1990. pp. viii, xxxvi.

Bibliography

Books
  • Bove, Paul; Deleuze, Gilles (1990). Foucault. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1675-2. 
  • Ellis, John M. (1997). Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities. New York: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-06920-0. 
  • Merquior, J. G. (1991). Foucault. London: Fontana Press. ISBN 0-00-686226-8. 
  • Paglia, Camille (1993). Sex, Art, and American Culture. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-017209-2. 
Online articles
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