Poslední úprava: Mgr. Martina Skovajsová (05.06.2014)
This course treats and investigates the origins and reach of some of Foucault’s main concepts; it does so in light of
the philosophical and/or scientific traditions and thought in (often contentious) relation to which these concepts
were devised. We will see how Foucault’s highly singular method takes shape across his oeuvre: from his
readings of Canguilhem and interpretation of Cuvier, we see the questions of normalization, biopower and biology
emerge; in the development of the archaeology of knowledge(s), the Collège de France lecture courses, The Order
of Things, the History of Madness and of sexuality, we study his thought at the intersection of the life sciences and
the social sciences. We will not neglect comparison to its historical precedents, that is, to the Kantian philosophy to
which Foucault claimed allegiance, as well as to phenomenology, which he specifically and radically rejected for
its concepts of history and world. After these explorations, the diverse, transdisciplinary and controversial legacy of
Foucault’s thought will be philosophically situated against the broader horizon of contemporary biopolitics. We will
do so in order to show how this legacy is taken up, but also displaced, in contemporary thought, for instance, by R.
Esposito, and how it is criticized—although on the basis of concepts that Foucault himself exposed—by such
authors as Derrida or Agamben.
Poslední úprava: Mgr. Martina Skovajsová (05.06.2014)
This course treats and investigates the origins and reach of some of Foucault’s main concepts; it does so in light of
the philosophical and/or scientific traditions and thought in (often contentious) relation to which these concepts
were devised. We will see how Foucault’s highly singular method takes shape across his oeuvre: from his
readings of Canguilhem and interpretation of Cuvier, we see the questions of normalization, biopower and biology
emerge; in the development of the archaeology of knowledge(s), the Collège de France lecture courses, The Order
of Things, the History of Madness and of sexuality, we study his thought at the intersection of the life sciences and
the social sciences. We will not neglect comparison to its historical precedents, that is, to the Kantian philosophy to
which Foucault claimed allegiance, as well as to phenomenology, which he specifically and radically rejected for
its concepts of history and world. After these explorations, the diverse, transdisciplinary and controversial legacy of
Foucault’s thought will be philosophically situated against the broader horizon of contemporary biopolitics. We will
do so in order to show how this legacy is taken up, but also displaced, in contemporary thought, for instance, by R.
Esposito, and how it is criticized—although on the basis of concepts that Foucault himself exposed—by such
authors as Derrida or Agamben.
Poslední úprava: Mgr. Martina Skovajsová (05.06.2014)
Ce cours se propose de reprendre et de questionner la genèse et la portée des principaux concepts foucaldiens,
en regard d’abord des traditions et pensées philosophiques et/ou scientifiques au contact desquelles – contact
souvent conflictuel – ils se sont formés. De la lecture de Canguilhem à l’interprétation de Cuvier, où se dessinent
les questionnements de la normalisation, du biopouvoir, et de la biologie, jusqu’à l’élaboration de l’archéologie
des savoirs, des cours au Collège de France, des Mots et les choses jusqu’à L’histoire de la folie et celle de la
sexualité, au carrefour donc des sciences de la vie et des sciences sociales, nous verrons se dessiner la méthode
si singulière qui est celle de Foucault. Cela, en ne manquant pas non plus de la confronter, en aval, à cette pensée
kantienne dont il s’est réclamé, et à la phénoménologie qu’il a particulièrement, et radicalement quant aux
concepts d’histoire et de monde, refusé. Depuis ces confrontations, c’est l’héritage, multiple, transdisciplinaire, et
controversé, de la pensée de Foucault, qu’il s’agira ainsi de mettre en perspective, dans l’horizon large de la
biopolitique, et en voyant de quelle manière il est par exemple repris, mais aussi déplacé, dans la pensée
contemporaine, par R. Esposito, ou critiqué, mais depuis une conceptualité qu’il a lui-même révélée, par des
auteurs comme Derrida ou Agamben.
