Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954-1984 (v. 1) Paperback – March 30, 2000

This Volume of 3 is fantastic reading!

It's a bit odd that they made Ethics 'Volume I,' but in any case this collection of essays, lectures and interviews give a great overview of Foucault's later thought. The material includes both theoretical discussions as well as 'practical' interactions with the public, including several statements of Foucault's position on homosexuality. There are a few minimal footnotes at the end of each translation. The introduction is great!

I enjoyed the essays and interviews. This collection helps to contextualize a great mind and philosopher. I have excerpted parts of this book for the class on ethics I teach at the graduate level.

Foucault is one of the greatest writers of his time. No matter what book I have read of his, I have always been enlightened.

book is in great condition. thanks

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, and social theorist and activist; he wrote many books, such as  Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason , The Birth of the Clinic , Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison , The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction , The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure , The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self , etc. Openly gay [see the James Miller biography,  The Passion of Michel Foucault ], he died of AIDS---the first “public figure” in France to die of the virus.The “Series Preface” explains, “Though he intended his books to be the core of his intellectual production, he is also well known for having made strategic use of a number of genres---the book and the article to be sure, but also the lecture and the interview… In this light, our aim in this series is to assemble a compelling and representative collection of Foucault’s written and spoken words outside those included in his books.”The Introduction states, “He refused to join in this vogue of condemning ‘intellectuals,’ which was sweeping Paris as a part of rejection of the media and its supposed destructive influence on French political and intellectual culture: ‘I’ve never met any intellectuals. I have met people who write novels, and others who treat the sick; people who work in economics and others who compose electronic music. I’ve met people who teach, people who paint and people of whom I have never really understood what they do. But intellectuals? Never.” (Pg. xx)He said of penal institutions, “The working hypothesis is this: power relations… do not simply play a facilitating or obstructing role with respect to knowledge; they do not merely encourage or stimulate it, distort or restrict it; power and knowledge are not bound to each other solely through the action of interests and ideologies; so the problem is not just to determine how power subordinates knowledge and makes it serve its ends or how it superimposes itself on it, imposing ideological contents and limitations. No knowledge is formed without a system of communication, registration, accumulation, and displacement that is in itself a form of power, linked in its existence and its functioning to other forms of power. No power, on the other hand, is exercised without the extraction, appropriation, distribution, or restraint of a knowledge. At this level there is not knowledge on one side and society on the other, or science and the state, but the basic forms of ‘power-knowledge.’’” (Pg. 17)He observes, “One sees how far one is from a history of sexuality organized around the good old repressive hypothesis and its customary questions (how and why is desire repressed?). It is a matter of acts and pleasures, not of desire. It is a matter of the formation of the self through techniques of living, not of repression through prohibition and law. We shall try to show not only how sex was kept in check but how that long history began which, in our societies, binds together sex and the subject.” (Pg. 89)He says in an interview, “I like discussions, and when I am asked questions, I try to answer them. It’s true that I don’t like to get involved in polemics. If I open a book and see that the author is accusing an adversary of ‘infantile leftism,’ I shut it again right away. That’s not my way of doing things; I don’t belong to the world of people who do things that way. I insist on this difference as something essential: a whole morality is at stake, the morality that concerns the search for the truth and the relation to the other.” (Pg. 111)In another interview, he says, “We have to reverse things a bit. Rather than saying what we said at one time, ‘Let’s try to re-introduce homosexuality into the general norm of social relations,’ let’s say the reverse---‘No! Let’s escape as much as possible from the type of relations that society proposes for us and try to create in the empty space where we are new relational possibilities.’ By proposing a new relational RIGHT, we will see that nonhomosexual people can enrich their lives by changing their own schema of relations.” (Pg. 160)He notes, “There are several reasons why ‘Know yourself’ has obscured ‘Take care of yourself.’ First, there has been a profound transformation in the moral principles of Western society. We find it difficult to base rigorous morality and austere principles on the precept that we should give more care to ourselves than to anything else in the world. We are more inclined to see taking care of ourselves as an immorality, as a means of escape from all possible rules. We inherit the tradition of Christian morality which makes self-renunciation the condition for salvation. To know oneself was, paradoxically, a means of self-renunciation.” (Pg. 228) A 1983 interview states, “Q: ‘The first volume of “The History of Sexuality” was published in 1976, and none has appeared since. So you still think that understanding sexuality is central for understanding who we are?’ M.F.: I must confess that I am much more interested in problems about techniques of the self and things like that than sex… sex is boring.” (Pg. 253)He says about HOS and his other books, “Three domains of genealogy are possible. First, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge; second, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to a field of power through which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others; third, a historical ontology in relation to ethics through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents. So, three axes are possible for genealogy. All three were present, albeit in a somewhat confused fashion, in ‘Madness in Civilization.’ The truth axis was studied in ‘The Birth of the Clinic’ and ‘The Order of Things.’ The power axis was studied in ‘Discipline and Punish,’ and the ethical axis in ‘’The History of Sexuality.’” (Pg. 262-263)This volume collects writings and interviews, and will be “must reading” for anyone studying Foucault’s thought and its development.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, and social theorist and activist; he wrote many books, such as  Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason , The Birth of the Clinic , Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison , The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction , The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure , The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self , etc. Openly gay [see the James Miller biography,  The Passion of Michel Foucault ], he died of AIDS---the first “public figure” in France to die of the virus.[NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 334-page hardcover edition.]The “Series Preface” explains, “Though he intended his books to be the core of his intellectual production, he is also well known for having made strategic use of a number of genres---the book and the article to be sure, but also the lecture and the interview… In this light, our aim in this series is to assemble a compelling and representative collection of Foucault’s written and spoken words outside those included in his books.”The Introduction states, “He refused to join in this vogue of condemning ‘intellectuals,’ which was sweeping Paris as a part of rejection of the media and its supposed destructive influence on French political and intellectual culture: ‘I’ve never met any intellectuals. I have met people who write novels, and others who treat the sick; people who work in economics and others who compose electronic music. I’ve met people who teach, people who paint and people of whom I have never really understood what they do. But intellectuals? Never.” (Pg. xx)He said of penal institutions, “The working hypothesis is this: power relations… do not simply play a facilitating or obstructing role with respect to knowledge; they do not merely encourage or stimulate it, distort or restrict it; power and knowledge are not bound to each other solely through the action of interests and ideologies; so the problem is not just to determine how power subordinates knowledge and makes it serve its ends or how it superimposes itself on it, imposing ideological contents and limitations. No knowledge is formed without a system of communication, registration, accumulation, and displacement that is in itself a form of power, linked in its existence and its functioning to other forms of power. No power, on the other hand, is exercised without the extraction, appropriation, distribution, or restraint of a knowledge. At this level there is not knowledge on one side and society on the other, or science and the state, but the basic forms of ‘power-knowledge.’’” (Pg. 17)He observes, “One sees how far one is from a history of sexuality organized around the good old repressive hypothesis and its customary questions (how and why is desire repressed?). It is a matter of acts and pleasures, not of desire. It is a matter of the formation of the self through techniques of living, not of repression through prohibition and law. We shall try to show not only how sex was kept in check but how that long history began which, in our societies, binds together sex and the subject.” (Pg. 89)He says in an interview, “I like discussions, and when I am asked questions, I try to answer them. It’s true that I don’t like to get involved in polemics. If I open a book and see that the author is accusing an adversary of ‘infantile leftism,’ I shut it again right away. That’s not my way of doing things; I don’t belong to the world of people who do things that way. I insist on this difference as something essential: a whole morality is at stake, the morality that concerns the search for the truth and the relation to the other.” (Pg. 111)In another interview, he says, “We have to reverse things a bit. Rather than saying what we said at one time, ‘Let’s try to re-introduce homosexuality into the general norm of social relations,’ let’s say the reverse---‘No! Let’s escape as much as possible from the type of relations that society proposes for us and try to create in the empty space where we are new relational possibilities.’ By proposing a new relational RIGHT, we will see that nonhomosexual people can enrich their lives by changing their own schema of relations.” (Pg. 160)He notes, “There are several reasons why ‘Know yourself’ has obscured ‘Take care of yourself.’ First, there has been a profound transformation in the moral principles of Western society. We find it difficult to base rigorous morality and austere principles on the precept that we should give more care to ourselves than to anything else in the world. We are more inclined to see taking care of ourselves as an immorality, as a means of escape from all possible rules. We inherit the tradition of Christian morality which makes self-renunciation the condition for salvation. To know oneself was, paradoxically, a means of self-renunciation.” (Pg. 228) A 1983 interview states, “Q: ‘The first volume of “The History of Sexuality” was published in 1976, and none has appeared since. So you still think that understanding sexuality is central for understanding who we are?’ M.F.: I must confess that I am much more interested in problems about techniques of the self and things like that than sex… sex is boring.” (Pg. 253)He says about HOS and his other books, “Three domains of genealogy are possible. First, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge; second, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to a field of power through which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others; third, a historical ontology in relation to ethics through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents. So, three axes are possible for genealogy. All three were present, albeit in a somewhat confused fashion, in ‘Madness in Civilization.’ The truth axis was studied in ‘The Birth of the Clinic’ and ‘The Order of Things.’ The power axis was studied in ‘Discipline and Punish,’ and the ethical axis in ‘’The History of Sexuality.’” (Pg. 262-263)This volume collects writings and interviews, and will be “must reading” for anyone studying Foucault’s thought and its development.

good

This is one of a set of books worth buying if you like Foucault. Not for beginners but absorbing and good coverage of his work

Somewhere, and I may have overlooked this prior to buying this work, there may have been a line stating this was published posthumously in the Amazon blurb. But as the vultures of capitalist professionalism testify, a man's testament is not as valuable as his existing works. And so, much like Kafka, Foucault must look on with a blithe spirit. All we have in this first volume is a collection of lecuture notes, interviews and preliminary sketches or outlines for his greater works, and this poorly collected work was enough to deter me from buying the further volumes. It is indeed a mess of irrelevance which will do nothing to further the understanding of one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century.Shame on those responsible!

It is in a BAD condition. So bad, I should have a refund.