The last lesson of Michel Foucault: a vitalism for a future philosophy
Abstract
We propose a vitalist reading of Michel Foucault’s work going beyond the mainstream interpretation that divides his proposals into three dimensions: knowledge, power and subjectivation. We will start our interpretation with her last text: “Life: Experience and Science”. This text contains three important elements. First, it offers a deep reflection about the meaning of ‘life’ in the work of one of Foucault’s Masters, Georges Canguilhem. Second, it pays tribute to the value of his work in the transformation of philosophy. Finally, it offers reinterpretation of Foucault’s own work. We will sustain that the last lesson of Foucault is to propose vitalism as the key way of thinking for a future philosophy. To put this forward, we should first direct our attention to the work of Canguilhem, and then we will explain how the dynamics of knowledge, power and subjectification can be read from a vitalist approach.Keywords
Foucault, Vitalism, Life, CanguilhemReferences
Agamben, Giorgio (1995/1998). Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agamben, Giorgio (1999). Potentialities. Collected Essays in Philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Barad, Karen (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham/London: Duke University Press.
Barad, Karen (2008). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. In Stacy Alaimo & Susan Hekman (Eds.), Material Feminisms (pp. 120-154). Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Barrett, Estelle & Bolt, Barbara (2012). Carnal Knowledge: Towards a 'New Materialism' Through the Arts. London: Tauris & Co Ltd.
Blanchot, Maurice (1992). Infinite Conversation. Minneapolis: University of Minesota Press.
Braidotti, Rosi (2006). Transpositions: On Nomadic Ethics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Braidotti, Rosi (2014). Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Canguilhem, Georges (1966/1991). The Normal and the Pathological. New York: Zone Books.
Canguilhem, Georges (2002/2012). Writings on Medicine. Fordham: Fordham University Press.
Caygill, Howard (2007). Life and Energy. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(6), 19-27.
Cecchetto, David (2013). Humanesis: sound and technological posthumanism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Coole, Diana & Frost, Samantha (Eds.) (2010). New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham/London: Duke University Press.
Crockett, Clayton & Robbins, Jeffrey (2012). Religion, Politics, and the Earth: The New Materialism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Deleuze Gilles (1986/1988) Foucault. Minnepolis: University of Minneapolis Press.
Deleuze, Gilles (2005). Pure Immanence. Essays on a Life. New York: Zone Books.
Deleuze, Gilles (2013). El saber: Curso sobre Foucault. Tomo I. Buenos Aires: Editorial Cactus.
Deleuze, Gilles (2014). El poder: Curso sobre Foucault. Tomo II. Buenos Aires: Editorial Cactus.
Deleuze, Gilles (2015). La subjetividad. Curso sobre Foucault. Tomo III. Buenos Aires: Editorial Cactus.
Dobson, Andrew; Barker, Kezia & Taylor, Sarah (Eds.) (2013). Biosecurity. London: Routledge.
Dreyfus, Hubert & Rabinow, Paul (1982) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Esposito, Roberto (2004/2008) Bios. Biopolitics and Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Foucault, Michel (1963/1994). The Birth of the Clinic. An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel (1964/1988). Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel (1966/1994). The Order of Things. An Archaeology of Human Sciencies. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel (1975/1995). Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel (1976/1988). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel (1978/2010). The Birth of Biopolitics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Foucault, Michel (1981/2005). The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France 1981—1982: New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Foucault Michel (1984/1990a). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel (1984/1990b). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel (1985/2003). Life: experience and science. In James Faubion (Ed.), Aesthetics method, and epistemology. Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984. Volume Two (pp. 465-478). New York: The New Press.
Foucault, Michel (1994/1999). Entre filosofía y literatura. Obras esenciales, Volumen I. Barcelona: Paidós.
Fraser, Miriam; Kember, Sarah & Lury, Celia (Eds.) (2006). Inventive Life: Approaches to the New Vitalism. London: SAGE.
Gray, Chris (2001). Cyborg citizen: politics in the posthuman age. New York: Routledge.
Haney, William (2006). Cyberculture, cyborgs and science fiction: consciousness and the posthuman. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Hardt, Michael & Negri, Antonio (2000/2002) Imperio. Barcelona: Editorial Piadós.
Hayles, Katherine (1999). How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Heidegger, Martin (1954/2013). The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. London: Harper Collins.
Lacroix, Jean (1968). La signification de la folie selon Michel Foucault. Panorama de la phiposophie française contemporaine. Paris: PUF.
Lazzarato. Maurizio (2014/2015). Governing by debt. London: Semitotext(e).
Le Blanc, Guillaume (2004). Canguilhem y las normas. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Nueva Visión.
Lecourt, Dominique (1971). La historia epistemológica de Georges Canguilhem. In G Georges Canguilhem (Ed.), Lo normal y lo patológico (pp. XII-XXX). Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores.
Lemke, Thomas (2014). New Materialisms: Foucault and the ‘Government of Things’. Theory, Culture & Society, 32(4), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276413519340
Macherey, Pierre (2011). De Canguilhem a Foucault: la fuerza de las normas. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu Editores.
Maturana, Humberto & Varela, Francisco (1985/1994). The Tree of Knowledge. The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston: Shambalah Publications.
Mullarkey, John (2007). Life, Movement and the Fabulation of the Event. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(6), 53-70. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407078712
Olma, Sebastian & Koukouzelis, Kostas (2007). Life's (Re-)Emergences. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(6), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407078709
Parisi, Luciana (2007). Biotech: Life by Contagion. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(6), 29-52. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407078711
Pfeifer, Geoff (2015). The New Materialism: Althusser, Badiou, and Žižek. New York: Routledge.
Rose, Nikolas (2007). The politics of life itself. Biomedicine, Power and Subjectivity in the Twenty-first Century. Princenton: Princeton University Press.
Sauquillo, Julián (1989). Michel Foucault: una filosofía de la acción. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales.
Sloterdijk, Peter (2009/2014). You must change your life: Cambridge: Polity Press.
Varela, Francisco (2000). El fenómeno de la vida. Santiago de Chile: Dolmen Ediciones.
Veyne, Paul (2008/2010). Foucault: His Thought, His Character. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Wahler, Ayo & Rose, Nikolas (2015). The Governmentalization of Living: Calculating Global Health. Economy and Society, 44(1), 60-90. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2014.983830
Published
How to Cite
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2019 Marco Maureira Velásquez, Francisco Tirado Serrano
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
