Foucault and Derrida: The Other Side of ReasonPsychology Press, 1990 - 179 pages The writings of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida pose a serious challenge to the old established, but now seriously compromised forms of thought. In this compelling book, Roy Boyne explains the very significant advances for which they have been responsible, their general importance for the human sciences, and the forms of hope that they offer for an age often characterized by scepticism, cynicism and reaction. The focus of the book is the dispute between Foucault and Derrida on the nature of reason, madness and 'otherness'. The range of issues covered includes the birth of the prison, problems of textual interpretation, the nature of the self and contemporary movements such as socialism, feminism and anti-racialism. Roy Boyne argues that whilst the two thinkers chose very different paths, they were in fact rather surprisingly to converge upon the common ground of power and ethics. Despite the evident honesty, importance and adventurousness of the work of Foucault and Derrida, many also find it difficult and opaque. Roy Boyne has performed a major service for students of their writings in this compelling and accessible book. |
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affirmation Anti-Oedipus apartheid archaeology argues argument Bosch Cartesian century concept concerned condition confinement context critical culture deconstruction Derrida's critique Descartes desire dialectic difference Discipline and Punish discourse discussion doubt dream economic emerge essay essential ethics exclusion existence feminism feminist folie force form of reason Foucault and Derrida Foucault writes function Goya Greek hierarchy Hieronymus Bosch human Husserl idea insane judgement language lazar houses logic Marxism meaning Meditation metaphysics metaphysics of presence Michel Foucault moral Nambikwara nature notion opposition origin Panopticon perhaps Peter Brueghel phallogocentric philosophical Plato political position possibility practice precisely present principle prison produce question radical rational reality realm relation repression Rousseau seen self-mastery sense sexuality signified silence social social interiority society Socrates speak strategy structure suggests things thought transgression truth understanding unreason Western reason words