That was the beginning of the
discussion
and the ef- forts of a whole group of people: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, who came to Marxism by way of Phenomenology, and also Dominique Desanti.
Foucault-Live
In the second place, some French "Marxists" maintain that power for me is "en- dogenous," and that I would like to construct a real and true ontological circle, deducing power from power.
This is a stu- pid and ridiculous affirmation, since I have always tried to do just the opposite.
Let's take, for example.
Madness and Civili- zation, my very first book, in which I tried somewhat to deal with this problem.
I was then involved with some psychiatric institutions, where the power of the adininistration, of the di-
rector, of the doctors, of the family, etc. , functioned abso- lutely, with reference to the mentally ill. If I had wanted to
? ? 186 The Question of Power
? make, as they say, an ontology of Power with a capital P, I would have tried to establish the origin of these great institu- tions of power; I would have placed my analysis exclusively on the level of the institution and of the law, and on the power relationship, more or less regulated, with which the violence against madness or madmen would have been exercised.
Instead, I tried to show how these decoupages, these relationships of force, these institutions and this entire network of power were able to establish themselves at a given moment. And beginning from what? Beginning from those economic and demographic processes which appear clearly at the end of the 16th century, when the problem of the poor, of the home- less, of fluctuating populations, is posed as an economic and political problem; and an attempt is made to resolve it with an entire arsenal of implements and arms (the laws concerning the poor, the more-or-less forced isolation and, finally, impris- onment of these people--in particular, what took place in France and in Paris in 1660-1661).
? I tried to see, then, how this set of power relation- ships which encircled madness and defined it as a mental ill- ness was something completely different from a pure and simple power relationship, from a pure and simple tautological affirmation of the following type: I, reason, exercise power over you, madness. Just as, in the opposite sense, a power relationship was bom from within a very different transforma- tion, which was at the same time the condition allowing for the regulation and control of these relationships and these eco- nomic processes, etc. It is precisely the heterogeneity of power which I wanted to demonstrate, how it is always bom of some- thing other than itself
? ? The same can be said, for example, of the prison. To make an analysis of power in terms of an ontological affirma- tion would have meant to question oneself as to what penal law is and to deduce the prison from the essence itself of the
? The Question of Power 187
? law which condemns the crime. Instead, I was attempting to reinsert the prison within a technology which is the technology of power, but which has its birth in the 17th and 18 th centu- ries, that is, when an entire series of economic and demo- graphic problems poses once again the problem of what I have called the economy of power relationships.
? Could the feudal type systems or the systems of the great administrative monarchies still be considered valid when it is a question of irrigating the power relationships in a social body whose demographic dimensions, whose population shifts, whose economic processes are those which they have become? All of this is bom from out of something else; and there is no Power, but power relationships which are being bom incessantly, as both effect and condition of other proc- esses.
? But this is only one aspect of the problem which I wanted to confront; the other is the one of resistance. If mine were an ontological conception of power, there would be, on one side. Power with a capital P, a kind of lunar occurrence, extra-terrestrial; and on the other side, the resistance of the unhappy ones who are obligated to bow before power. I be- lieve an analysis of this kind to be completely false, because power is bom out of a plurality of relationships which are grafted onto something else, bom from something else, and permit the development of something else.
Hence the fact that these power relationships, on one hand, enter into the heart of struggles which are, for example, economic or religious--and so it is not against power that struggles are fundamentally bom.
? On the other hand, power relationships open up a space in the middle of which the straggles develop. For ex- ample, in reference to criminality, to the penal system, and to the judicial bureaucracy, there was in the 18 th century an en- tire series of interesting straggles: the straggles of the people
? 188 The Question of Power
? against the upper echelons, struggles of the intellectuals against the old bureaucracies, struggles of the judiciary bu- reaucracy against the new political and technocratic classes which exerted power, at least in some states, and which sought to sweep away the old structures.
If there are class struggles, and certainly there have been, these struggles cover this field, they divide it, plough it, organize it. But we must reposition the power relationships within the struggles and not suppose that power might exist on one side, and that on the other side lies that upon which power would exert itself; nor can we suppose that the struggle devel- ops between power and non-power.
? Instead of this ontological opposition between power and resistance, I would say that power is nothing other than a certain modification, or the form, differing from time to time, of a series of clashes which constitute the social body, clashes of the political, economic type, etc. Power, then, is something like the stratification, the institutionalization, the definition of tactics, of implements and arms which are useful in all these clashes. It is this which can be considered in a given moment as a certain power relationship, a certain exercising of power. As long as it is clear that this exercising (to the degree to which it is, in the end, nothing other than the instant photo- graph of multiple struggles continuously in transformation)-- this power, transforms itself without ceasing. We need not confuse a power situation, a certain distribution or economy of power in a given moment, with the simple power institutions, such as the army, the police, the government, etc.
Finally, there is another thing for which I am criti- cized. By freeing myself of the old concept of ideology, which permitted playing reality against false interpretations of real- ity, which permitted functioning on the basis of the device of demystification--things are not as they are presented, but exist in a different way they say I would perform a mise a plat of
? ? The Question of Power 189
? the discussions concerning reality, reducing my analyses to a simple reproduction of reality, in such a way that my discus- sion would be nothing more than a kind of reactionary echo which would do nothing but confirm things as they are.
Here once again we must understand what they are doing when they say something like this. Because, we have to ask what it means when they say: you do nothing but repeat reahty. Above all, it can mean; you do nothing but repeat what has been said. I would answer: show me that it has been said. Did you say it? If they say to me: you do nothing but repeat reality--^in the sense that what I say is true, then I agree with them and thank them for this recognition. It is true, I decided to say exactly what has happened. But I would only thank them half-way, because after all, that is not exactly what I decided to do.
? This is what others would say of the analyses I per- form and of that opinion which claims that these analyses simply reproduce reality: this is not at all true; it is all pure and simple imagination. The French psychiatrists, of more or less Marxist inspiration, tried to say this about Madness and Civili- zation, with dubious success, however. They tried to say that it was a fable.
? In reality, what I want to do, and here is the difficulty of trying to do it, is to solve this problem: to work out an interpretation, a reading of a certain reality, which might be such that, on one hand, this interpretation could produce some of the effects of truth; and on the other hand, these effects of truth could become implements within possible struggles. Telling the truth so that it might be acceptable. Deciphering a layer of reality in such a way that the hnes of force and the hnes of fragility come forth; the points of resistance and the possible points of attack; the paths marked out and the short- cuts. It is the reality of possible struggles that I wish to bring to hght.
? 190 The Question of Power
? This is what I wanted to do in Madness and Civiliza- tion. It is, however, rather curious that all the psychiatrists have read this as a book of anti-psychiatry--a book which says explicitly: I shall speak of what has happened with regard to madness and mental illness between the middle of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, roughly speaking--and I have not gone beyond Pinel. As if the book were speaking about the mental situation!
? Those psychiatrists were right and wrong at the same time. Wrong because it simply was not true; I was not speak- ing about the mental situation. Nonetheless, there was some- thing of the truth in this superficial and angry reaction of theirs since, in reality, reading history in that way meant, in essence, tracing within contemporary reality some possible paths which later became, with the indispensable transformations, paths ac- tually followed.
? This polemics of reality is the effect of truth which I want to produce. The same holds true for the prison, for the problem of criminality. This too is a book which deals with seventy years of the history of penal institutions: 1760-1830/ 40. In nearly all the reviews it was said that this book speaks about the current situation, but that it does not speak suffi- ciently about it because things have changed since then. But I am not speaking about the current situation. I am making an interpretation of history, and the problem is that of knowing-- but I don't resolve the problem--^how these analyses can pos- sibly be utilized in the current situation.
At this point I think we need to bring into the discus- sion the problem of the function of the intellectual. It is abso- lutely true that when I write a book I refuse to take a prophetic stance, that is, the one of saying to people: here is what you must do--and also: this is good and this is not. I say to them: roughly speaking, it seems to me that things have gone this way; but I describe those things in such a way that the possible
? ? The Question of Power 191
? paths of attack are delineated. Yet even with this approach I do not force or compel anyone to attack. So then, it becomes a completely personal question when I choose, if I want, to take certain courses of action with reference to prisons, psychiatric asylums, this or that issue. But I say that pohtical action be- longs to a category of participation completely different from these written or bookish acts of participation. It is a problem of groups, of personal and physical commitment. One is not radical because one pronounces a few words; no, the essence of being radical is physical; the essence of being radical is the radicalness of existence itself.
? Now then, returning to the Communists, I would say that this radicalness is what they don't have. They don't have it because for them the problem of the intellectual is not one of telling the truth, because the intellectuals of the PC were never asked to tell the truth. They were asked to take a prophetic stance, to say: this is what must be done--^which implies sim- ply that what must be done must adhere to the PC, must do as the PC does, must be with the PC or vote for the PC. In other words, what the PC demands is that the intellectual be the intermediary that transmits the intellectual, moral and pohtical imperatives of which the party can make direct use.
? But it is a different story for the intellectual who takes a completely opposite position, which consists of saying to the people: I would like to produce some effects of truth which might be used for a possible battle, to be waged by those who wish to wage it, in forms yet to be found and in organizations yet to be defined. The people of the PC clearly do not talk about this freedom which I leave here at the end of my discussion for anyone who wants or does not want to get something done.
? This is exactly the opposite of what they would have me do; because for the PC the real intellechial is the one who calms down reality, explaining how it ought to be and saying
? 192 The Question of Power
? immediately how it will have to be on that day when everyone will do as the Communist party does. A position exactly con- trary to my own; and it is in this sense that they do not pardon me.
They really do understand what I am doing, but they don't understand what I am saying. Or, at least, they take the risk--and this, once again, is truly surprising--of letting eve- ryone see that they don't understand what I am saying. But this does not worry them, because their problem is one of covering up what I do, of condemning it and thereby prevent- ing the people from doing or accepting what I do; theirs is the task of making what I do unacceptable. And in the moment when they cannot say; what he is doing is unacceptable, they say: what he is saying is false. But in order to say this they are obligated to he and to make me say what I am not saying.
? For this reason, I don't think there's much to discuss concerning these words poured on top of my own. Rather, what we need to do is to grasp clearly the reason for this attack of theirs. And if they do understand what I am doing, then I would like to make clear what they are doing when they tell these lies. A
? Translated by James Cascaito Note
1 The "New Philosphers" were the first French intellectuals to openly link Marxism as a philosophy to totalitarian poUtics. Its main proponents were Bemard-Henri Le? vy and Andre? Glucksman. Gilles Deleuze, a long-time Mend and ally of Foucault, came out strongly against the simphfications of the "New Philosophers. "
? 16
? The Masked Philosopher
? Q: Allow me first to ask why you have chosen to remain anonymous? '
? MF: You know the story of the psychologist who went to a little village in the depths of Afiica to show a film to its inhabitants. He then asked them to recount the story exactly as they had understood it. Well, in this anecdote with three characters they had only been interested in one thing: the pas- sage of light and shadows through the trees. For us, the charac- ters establish the laws of perception. Our eyes naturally focus on the figures who come and go, arise and disappear.
? Why have I suggested that I remain anonymous? Out of nostalgia for the time when, being completely unknown, what I said had some chance of being heard. The surface con- tact with some possible reader was without a wrinkle. The effects of the book rebounded in unforeseen places and out- lined forms I hadn't thought about. The name is a facility.
I will propose a game: the year without names. For one year books will be published without the author's name. The critics will have to manage with an entirely anonymous production. But I suspect that perhaps they will have nothing
? ir
19
? ? How Much Does It Cost For Reason To Tell The Truth
? Q; What is the origin of what we loosely call Post- Structuralism?
? MF: Indeed, why not this term? In regard to Structu- ralism, neither the exponents of this movement nor those who were designated "Structuralists" knew what it was about. Those who used the structural method in very limited areas like Hnguistics or comparative mythology knew that it was structuralism. But as soon as one went beyond these very lim- ited areas, nobody knew what that was. I am not certain it
jKQuId-be very interesting to attempt to redefine what was called Structuralism then. Instead it seems interesting to me to study Formal Thinking, the different types of Formalism, which have traversed Western culture during all the 20th
ntury.
? ce
? 234 How Much Does It Cost. .
? I'm thinking of the unusual skill of Formalism in
painting, the formal research in music, the significance of For- malism in the analysis of folklore, the sagas, architecture, the application of some of its forms to theoretical thinking. For- malism was probably in general one of the most powerful and complex forces in 20th century Europe. Moreover, Formalism was associated very often with conditions and even political movements, which were certainly equally stimulating each time. The relationship between Russian Formalism and the Russian Revolution should definitely be investigated precisely anew. The role of formal thinking and formal art at the begin- ning of the 20th century, its ideological value, its ties to vari- ous political movements should be analyzed. What strikes me about the so-called structuralist movement in France and in Western Europe during the 1960s: it was really like an echo of the efforts of certain countries in the East and particularly Czechoslovakia to free themselves from dogmatic Marxism. While in a country like Czechoslovakia, the old tradition of pre-war European Formalism was revived--around 1955 or in the 1960s--so-called Structuralism arose at about the same time in Western Europe--that is, I believe, a new form, a new modality of this thinking, of this formalistic investigation. That's the way I would classify this structural phenomenon -- through its revitalization in the great stream of formal thought.
? Q: There is no longer a direct connection between Critical Theory and the student movement in the Federal Re- public of Germany. Perhaps the student movement rather made instrumental use of Critical Theory. It sought refuge there. In the same way, perhaps there is no direct causality anymore between Structuralism and '68.
MF: That's right.
4
? ? ? . . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 235
? Q: But would you say that Structuralism was like a necessary forerunner?
MF: No, nothing is necessary in this order of ideas. But one could say very roughly that formalistic culture, thought, and art in the first third of the 20th century were generally associated with critical pohtical movements of the Left--and even with revolutionary movements--and Marxism obscured all that. Marxism devoted itself to an angry criticism of Formahsm in art and in theory which has become manifest since 1930. Thirty years later you can see in a few Eastern countries and in France, how people have attacked dogmatic Marxism, in that they use forms and types of analysis which are obviously inspired by Formalism. The events in France and other countries in 1968 are to the same degree as highly exciting as they are ambiguous; and ambiguous because they are exciting. It's a matter of movements, which often clearly showed a definite respect toward Marxism while at the same time strongly criticizing the dogmatic Marxism of parties and institutions. And the play between a certain pro-Marxist form of thought and Marxist references created room in which the student movements developed. Eventually they brought the revolutioi^y^arxist discourse to the height of exaggeration. At the same time they were possessed by an antidogmatic impetuosity which prohibits any type of discourse.
Q: In Freud's camp or in Structuralism's camp.
? MF: That's right. I would like to retum to the history of Formalism and the small Structuralist episode in France, which was relatively, with widely dispersed forms, embedded in the heart of Formalism in the 20th century which is in my opinion as significant as Romanticism or Positivism in the 19th century. Marxism constituted in France a kind of horizon.
? 236 How Much Does It Cost.
? which Jean-Paul Sartre once considered impassable. At that time Marxism was in fact a rather closed and in any case a controlling mental horizon. From 1945 to 1955 the entire French university life--^the group university life in order to differentiate it from the university tradition--^was busy with or even fully engrossed in achieving something; not Freud/Marx, rather Husserl/Marx, the relationship to Phenomenological Marxism.
That was the beginning of the discussion and the ef- forts of a whole group of people: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, who came to Marxism by way of Phenomenology, and also Dominique Desanti. '
Q: Mikel Dufresne, even Jean-Franc? ois Lyotard. ^
MF: Paul Ricoeur, who is certainly no Marxist, but who was a phenomenologist and not inchned to ignore Marx- ism. 3 Then one attempted to combine Marxism with Phenome- nology and, as a certain form of structural thought and struc- tural method began to develop. Structuralism took the place of Phenomenology, in order to couple itself with Marxism. The transition from Phenomenology to Structuralism occurred and focused basically on the problem of language. It was a signifi- cant moment, as Merleau-Ponty discovered the problem of language. You know that Merleau-Ponty's last efforts were directed to this end: I remember exactly a lecture in which he began to speak about Saussure, who even though he had been dead for only about 50 years, had been completely ignored by the cultivated public--^not to mention the French philologists and linguists. The problem of language arose and it became obvious that phenomenology could not do it as m much justice as the structural analysis of signification which could be pro- duced by a structure of a linguistic nature, a structure in which the subject in the phenomenological sense could not be en- gaged as a creator of meaning and naturally, since the phe-
? . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 237
? nomenological bride did not understand how to speak about language, she was let go. Structuralism became the new bride. That's the way it happened. Psychoanalysis also brought-- mostly due to the influence of Jacques Lacan--a problem to the fore, which was indeed very different, but not without analogy to the above. The problem was the unconscious, which cannot fit into an analysis of a phenomenological na- ture. The best proof, that it could not be included in phenome- nology, not at least into the one constructed by the French, is the following. Sartre or Merleau-Ponty--I don't want to speak about others--have so^jgHfindefatigably to dethrone what they called "Positivism. " And when the question of language arose, Lacan said: Your efforts are in vain, the activity of the uncon- scious cannot be reduced to the effects of giving meaning, for which phenomenology is suited. Then Lacan formulated an absolutely symmetrical problem for the hnguists. The phe- nomenological subject was disqualified a second time by psy- choanalysis, as it had already been disqualified by linguistic theory. One understands why Lacan could say at this moment that the unconscious was structural like a language. It's the same type of problem. So one had a structural Freudo-Marx- ism. While phenomenology is excluded on the basis of the above reasons, there are now many more suitors who give Marx their hands and that's a merry group. What I described here was done and embraced by a certain number of people, but there was a whole group of individuals who did not follow this movement. I'm thinking of those who participated in the history of science, those who showed by aligning themselves with Comte a noteworthy tradition, particularly those around Canguilhem, who had a decidedly influential effect on the young French university life. Many of his students were nei- ther Marxist nor Freudians or Structuralists. If you wish. I'm speaking about myself here. At that time I was a Freudian. I was never a Marxist and never a Structuralist.
? . ForReason to Tell the Truth? 239
? earlier ones. In France the relationship to Nietzsche--even the relationship of all 20th century thought--^was difficult, for un- derstandable reasons. But I keep talking about myself. One must also speak about Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze wrote his book on Nietzsche around 1960. It was published in 1965. " I am quite certain that he is in debt to Hume since he is interested in empiricism and also in the same question: is the theory of the subject presented by phenomenology satisfying? He escapes this question through Hume's subterfoge of empuicism. I am convinced that he met Nietzsche under the same conditions. Everything which happened in the 1960s came from this dis- satisfaction with phenomenology's theory of the subject with various digressions, escapes and breakthroughs, according to whether one understood an expression to be positive or nega- tive--to hnguistics, to psychology, to Nietzsche.
? Q: In any case, Nietzsche represented a certain expe- rience in order to offer the founding act of a subject a check.
MF: Exactly. And here French authors like Maurice Blanchot and Georges Bataille are very important for us. As I just said, I asked myself why I read Nietzsche. I do know why I read Nietzsche. I read Nietzsche because of Bataille and I read Bataille because of Blanchot. It's not true at all that Nietzsche first appeared in French philosophy in the 1970s. At first his influence appeared in the discourse of people who were Marxists in the 1960s and left Marxism as a result of Nietzsche. But those who first reached back to Nietzsche didn't want to leave Marxism. They were not Marxists. They wanted to leave phenomenology.
Q: They spoke one after the other of historians of science and then about writing a history of knowledge, a his- tory of rationality, a history of reason. Before we return to
? 240 How Much Does It Cost. .
? Nietzsche one can certainly summarize these four terms: one can assume that is a matter of quasi-synonyms.
MF: No, not at all. I have described a movement which encompassed many parts and many different problems. I didn't identify the problems. I'm speaking about relation- ships of research and the proximity of the people who practice them.
Q: Can one attempt to ascertain their relationships?
? MF: That's not easy to do in an interview. The his- tory of science played a significant role in the philosophy of France. If modem philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries derives primarily from the Kantian question, namely "What is Enlightenment? " and if one admits that modem philosophy took up the test of every historical moment, since reason in the form of "maturity" and "without guardian" could appear, un- der its principle functions, so the function of philosophy of the 19th century consists of the question after the moment in which reason finds access to autonomy, what history means to reason and which value the sway of reason in the modem worid straight through the three great forms of objective thought, of technical apparatus and political organization, must be accorded. That was a great task for philosophy since the test of these three domains signifies a reckoning or intro- ducing an unsetding question into the realm of reason. It meant, continuing the Kantian question of "What is Enlighten- ment? " This taking up against this reiteration of Kant's ques- tion in France has found a certain and by the way inadequate form: "What is the history of science? What has happened since Greek mathematics to modem physics, since this uni- verse of science has been erected? " From Auguste Comte until the 1960s it was the philosophical task of history of science to
? . . . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 241
? take up this question again. In Germany the question of the history of reason or the history of forms of rationality in Eu- rope manifested itself not so much in the history of science as much more in that stream of thought, which, talking in gener- alities, stretches from Max Weber to Critical Theory.
Q; Yes, reflection on norms and values.
? MF: From Max Weber to Habermas. It seems to me that there the same questions arise about the history of reason, about the various forms of exercising this sway of reason. Surprisingly, France knew little, indirectly or not at all the stream of Weber's thought. Critical Theory or the Frankfurt School. By the way, that presents a small historical problem, which vexes me and I cannot escape from it. It's known that many representatives of the Frankfurt School came to Paris in 1935 to find refuge. But they left again fairy rapidly, most likely repelled--some have said this--^in any case sad and dis- enheartened that they had not found acclaim again. The 1940s came, but they had already left for England or North America, where they were really received much better. A small agree- ment was struck between the Frankfiirt School and a French philosophical thought, which would have been able to come to an understanding over the history of science, as well as the question of the history of rationality. I can assure you, that during my student days none of my professors mentioned the Frankfurt School.
? Q: That's amazing.
? MF: If I had known the Frankfurt School at the right time, I would have been spared a lot of work. Some nonsense, I wouldn't have expressed and taken many detours as I sought
? 242 How Much Does It Cost. .
? not to let myself be led astray when the Frankfurt School had already opened the ways. There is a remarkable problem of non-penetration of two forms of thought, which are akin to each other. Perhaps h is this proximity which explains the non-penetration. Nothing obscures a common problem more than two related ways of approaching it.
? Q: It is interesting that you say you would have avoided certain things if you had been familiar with the Frank- furt School and Critical Theory, especially since Habermas and Negt have applauded your efforts. In a conversation with Habermas, hepraised to me your idea of la bifurcation de la raison--that in every moment reason is supposed to be di- vided in two. Despite that I asked myself if you would agree with the bifurcation of reason as Critical Theory conceives of it. That is, with the dialectic of reason according to which reason is perverted by the effect of its own power, is trans- formed and reduced to a type of thought which is technical thought. The ruhng thought in Critical Theory is that of a dialectical continuity of reason, with a perversion, which changes it completely suddenly and which serves to correct it, which should be the beginning of the battle for emancipation. The will to knowledge has made in its own way a lot of trust in history ambiguous (bifurquer). The word bifurquer is per- haps not the right word. Reason has divided knowledge many times.
? MF: Yes, one has often tried to blackmail all criti- cism of reason and every critical test of the history of rational- ity so that one either recognizes reason or casts it into irration- alism--as if it were not possible to write a rational criticism of rationahty, a rational history of all ambiguity and biftircations, a contingent history of rationality. Since Max Weber in the Frankfurt School and in every case with many historians of
? . . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 243
? science like Canguilhem it was a matter of determining the form of rationalism, which is presented as the ruling one and to which one gives the status of reason, in order to let it appear as one of the possible forms of rational work. In this history of French science, which is considerably significant, Gaston Bachelard also plays a central role.
? Q: Despite that the hymns of praise are a bit poi- soned. According to Habermas you described the moment of the bifurcation of reason splendidly. This bifurcation is sup- posed to be a one-time occurrence, you had determined, as reason took a turn, which led to technical rationalism, to a self-diminution, to a self-limiting. If this bifurcation is also a split, then it could only have happened a single time in history, in order to divide two realms as one has called them since Kant. This analysis of bifurcation is Kantian. There is knowl- edge of understanding, the knowledge of reason, technical rea- son and moral reason. In order to judge this bifiircation one accepts the position of moral-practical reason. Therefore, a one-time bifurcation, a division between technical and practi- cal which governs all of the history of thought in Germany. You just said that this tradition stems from the question "What is Enlightenment? " This praise seems to diminish your assess- ment of the history of ideas.
? MF: In fact, I do not speak of a bifurcation of reason. Rather I speak of multiple bifurcations. I speak of an endless prohfic division. I am not speaking of the moment when rea- son became technical. At the present, in order to give an ex- ample I am researching the problem of technology of self in Greco-Roman antiquity. How men, life, self were objects of a certain number of technai, which can be compared completely in thek compelling rationality of a production technology.
? 244 How Much Does It Cost. .
? Q: But without including the entire society.
MF: Without including the entire society. What a technai or technology of self brings to development is a his- torical phenomenon, which is completely analyzable and de- terminable and is not the bifurcation of reason. In the prolific division, breaks, caesuras, this was an occurrence, a signifi- cant epoch, which had noteworthy consequences, but is not a one-time phenomenon.
Q: If one then assumes that the phenomenon of the self-perversion of reason is not a one-time occurrence, didn't occur just once in history where reason lost something essen- tial, something substantial--as Weber would say--does your work aim to rehabihtate fruitful reason? Is there another kind of conception of reason in your work, another concept of ra- tionality as that which is accepted by us today.
? MF: Yes. But here I would like to free myself from phenomenology which was my starting point. I don't believe that there is here a kind of founding act through which reason in its essence discovers or would be engaged and afterwards could be broken off from any occurrence. I believe that there is a self-creation of reason and therefore I am trying to analyze the forms of rationality: various proofs, various formulations, various modifications by which rationalities educe each other, contradict one another, chase each other away, without one therefore being able to designate a moment in which reason vypuld have lost its basic design or changed from rationalism to irrationahsm. Very schematically, I wanted in the 1960s to give up the phenomenological thesis as well as the Marxist thesis (Luka? cs). There was a rationality which was the exem- plary form of reason itself which had been led into a crisis by a number of social necessities (capitahsm or even more the
? . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 245
? transition of one form of capitalism to another). That is, into a forgetting of reason and a descent into irrationalism. That is the second great model, schematically correct and unjust, from which I tried to free myself.
? Q: According to this model there was a one-time bi- furcation, be it after a forgetting, be it after an expropriation by a class. Therefore the emancipation movement in history did not just consist of a retaking of what had been expropri- ated in order to re-expropriate it, but rather on the contrary in that reason was given back its entire truth, given back its status of absolute universal science. It is clear that you have no proposal of a new science or an expanded science.
? MF; Absolutely not.
Q; But you show that every time a form of rational- ity asserts itself, it occurs through division, that is, through closure or alienation, through the demarcation of a boundary between itself and another. Does your proposal include a wish to rehabilitate this other one? For example, when you embrace the silence of a madman, do you consider it a language which expresses itself comprehensively on the necessities of the creation of works?
? MF; Yes. What interested me in this general frame- work were the forms of rationality, which the human subject applied to himself. While the historian of science in France busied himself primarily with the problem of the constitution of scientific objects, I asked myself another question. How does it happen that the human subject makes himself into an object of possible knowledge, through which forms of ration- ality, through which historical necessities, and at what price? My question is this; How much does it cost the subject to be
? ? 246 How Much Does It Cost.
? able to tell the truth about itself? How much does it cost the subject as madman to be able to tell the truth about itself? About the cost of constituting the madman as the absolute other and in that it not only pays this theoretical price, but also an institutional and even economic price as the organization of psychiatry allows it to be determined. A complex and multi- layered totality with an institutionalized game, class relation- ships, class conflicts, modalities of knowledge and finally a whole history, subjects and reason are involved in it. That is what I tried to reconstitute. That is perhaps a completely crazy, very complex project, of which I could only observe a few moments, a few special points, hke the problem of the insane subject. How can one tell the truth about an insane subject? Those were my first two books. The Order of Things asked, what is the cost of problematizing and analyzing the speaking, working, living subject. That's why I transferred the same kinds of questions to criminals and penal institutions. How can one tell the truth about oneself as a criminal.
rector, of the doctors, of the family, etc. , functioned abso- lutely, with reference to the mentally ill. If I had wanted to
? ? 186 The Question of Power
? make, as they say, an ontology of Power with a capital P, I would have tried to establish the origin of these great institu- tions of power; I would have placed my analysis exclusively on the level of the institution and of the law, and on the power relationship, more or less regulated, with which the violence against madness or madmen would have been exercised.
Instead, I tried to show how these decoupages, these relationships of force, these institutions and this entire network of power were able to establish themselves at a given moment. And beginning from what? Beginning from those economic and demographic processes which appear clearly at the end of the 16th century, when the problem of the poor, of the home- less, of fluctuating populations, is posed as an economic and political problem; and an attempt is made to resolve it with an entire arsenal of implements and arms (the laws concerning the poor, the more-or-less forced isolation and, finally, impris- onment of these people--in particular, what took place in France and in Paris in 1660-1661).
? I tried to see, then, how this set of power relation- ships which encircled madness and defined it as a mental ill- ness was something completely different from a pure and simple power relationship, from a pure and simple tautological affirmation of the following type: I, reason, exercise power over you, madness. Just as, in the opposite sense, a power relationship was bom from within a very different transforma- tion, which was at the same time the condition allowing for the regulation and control of these relationships and these eco- nomic processes, etc. It is precisely the heterogeneity of power which I wanted to demonstrate, how it is always bom of some- thing other than itself
? ? The same can be said, for example, of the prison. To make an analysis of power in terms of an ontological affirma- tion would have meant to question oneself as to what penal law is and to deduce the prison from the essence itself of the
? The Question of Power 187
? law which condemns the crime. Instead, I was attempting to reinsert the prison within a technology which is the technology of power, but which has its birth in the 17th and 18 th centu- ries, that is, when an entire series of economic and demo- graphic problems poses once again the problem of what I have called the economy of power relationships.
? Could the feudal type systems or the systems of the great administrative monarchies still be considered valid when it is a question of irrigating the power relationships in a social body whose demographic dimensions, whose population shifts, whose economic processes are those which they have become? All of this is bom from out of something else; and there is no Power, but power relationships which are being bom incessantly, as both effect and condition of other proc- esses.
? But this is only one aspect of the problem which I wanted to confront; the other is the one of resistance. If mine were an ontological conception of power, there would be, on one side. Power with a capital P, a kind of lunar occurrence, extra-terrestrial; and on the other side, the resistance of the unhappy ones who are obligated to bow before power. I be- lieve an analysis of this kind to be completely false, because power is bom out of a plurality of relationships which are grafted onto something else, bom from something else, and permit the development of something else.
Hence the fact that these power relationships, on one hand, enter into the heart of struggles which are, for example, economic or religious--and so it is not against power that struggles are fundamentally bom.
? On the other hand, power relationships open up a space in the middle of which the straggles develop. For ex- ample, in reference to criminality, to the penal system, and to the judicial bureaucracy, there was in the 18 th century an en- tire series of interesting straggles: the straggles of the people
? 188 The Question of Power
? against the upper echelons, struggles of the intellectuals against the old bureaucracies, struggles of the judiciary bu- reaucracy against the new political and technocratic classes which exerted power, at least in some states, and which sought to sweep away the old structures.
If there are class struggles, and certainly there have been, these struggles cover this field, they divide it, plough it, organize it. But we must reposition the power relationships within the struggles and not suppose that power might exist on one side, and that on the other side lies that upon which power would exert itself; nor can we suppose that the struggle devel- ops between power and non-power.
? Instead of this ontological opposition between power and resistance, I would say that power is nothing other than a certain modification, or the form, differing from time to time, of a series of clashes which constitute the social body, clashes of the political, economic type, etc. Power, then, is something like the stratification, the institutionalization, the definition of tactics, of implements and arms which are useful in all these clashes. It is this which can be considered in a given moment as a certain power relationship, a certain exercising of power. As long as it is clear that this exercising (to the degree to which it is, in the end, nothing other than the instant photo- graph of multiple struggles continuously in transformation)-- this power, transforms itself without ceasing. We need not confuse a power situation, a certain distribution or economy of power in a given moment, with the simple power institutions, such as the army, the police, the government, etc.
Finally, there is another thing for which I am criti- cized. By freeing myself of the old concept of ideology, which permitted playing reality against false interpretations of real- ity, which permitted functioning on the basis of the device of demystification--things are not as they are presented, but exist in a different way they say I would perform a mise a plat of
? ? The Question of Power 189
? the discussions concerning reality, reducing my analyses to a simple reproduction of reality, in such a way that my discus- sion would be nothing more than a kind of reactionary echo which would do nothing but confirm things as they are.
Here once again we must understand what they are doing when they say something like this. Because, we have to ask what it means when they say: you do nothing but repeat reahty. Above all, it can mean; you do nothing but repeat what has been said. I would answer: show me that it has been said. Did you say it? If they say to me: you do nothing but repeat reality--^in the sense that what I say is true, then I agree with them and thank them for this recognition. It is true, I decided to say exactly what has happened. But I would only thank them half-way, because after all, that is not exactly what I decided to do.
? This is what others would say of the analyses I per- form and of that opinion which claims that these analyses simply reproduce reality: this is not at all true; it is all pure and simple imagination. The French psychiatrists, of more or less Marxist inspiration, tried to say this about Madness and Civili- zation, with dubious success, however. They tried to say that it was a fable.
? In reality, what I want to do, and here is the difficulty of trying to do it, is to solve this problem: to work out an interpretation, a reading of a certain reality, which might be such that, on one hand, this interpretation could produce some of the effects of truth; and on the other hand, these effects of truth could become implements within possible struggles. Telling the truth so that it might be acceptable. Deciphering a layer of reality in such a way that the hnes of force and the hnes of fragility come forth; the points of resistance and the possible points of attack; the paths marked out and the short- cuts. It is the reality of possible struggles that I wish to bring to hght.
? 190 The Question of Power
? This is what I wanted to do in Madness and Civiliza- tion. It is, however, rather curious that all the psychiatrists have read this as a book of anti-psychiatry--a book which says explicitly: I shall speak of what has happened with regard to madness and mental illness between the middle of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, roughly speaking--and I have not gone beyond Pinel. As if the book were speaking about the mental situation!
? Those psychiatrists were right and wrong at the same time. Wrong because it simply was not true; I was not speak- ing about the mental situation. Nonetheless, there was some- thing of the truth in this superficial and angry reaction of theirs since, in reality, reading history in that way meant, in essence, tracing within contemporary reality some possible paths which later became, with the indispensable transformations, paths ac- tually followed.
? This polemics of reality is the effect of truth which I want to produce. The same holds true for the prison, for the problem of criminality. This too is a book which deals with seventy years of the history of penal institutions: 1760-1830/ 40. In nearly all the reviews it was said that this book speaks about the current situation, but that it does not speak suffi- ciently about it because things have changed since then. But I am not speaking about the current situation. I am making an interpretation of history, and the problem is that of knowing-- but I don't resolve the problem--^how these analyses can pos- sibly be utilized in the current situation.
At this point I think we need to bring into the discus- sion the problem of the function of the intellectual. It is abso- lutely true that when I write a book I refuse to take a prophetic stance, that is, the one of saying to people: here is what you must do--and also: this is good and this is not. I say to them: roughly speaking, it seems to me that things have gone this way; but I describe those things in such a way that the possible
? ? The Question of Power 191
? paths of attack are delineated. Yet even with this approach I do not force or compel anyone to attack. So then, it becomes a completely personal question when I choose, if I want, to take certain courses of action with reference to prisons, psychiatric asylums, this or that issue. But I say that pohtical action be- longs to a category of participation completely different from these written or bookish acts of participation. It is a problem of groups, of personal and physical commitment. One is not radical because one pronounces a few words; no, the essence of being radical is physical; the essence of being radical is the radicalness of existence itself.
? Now then, returning to the Communists, I would say that this radicalness is what they don't have. They don't have it because for them the problem of the intellectual is not one of telling the truth, because the intellectuals of the PC were never asked to tell the truth. They were asked to take a prophetic stance, to say: this is what must be done--^which implies sim- ply that what must be done must adhere to the PC, must do as the PC does, must be with the PC or vote for the PC. In other words, what the PC demands is that the intellectual be the intermediary that transmits the intellectual, moral and pohtical imperatives of which the party can make direct use.
? But it is a different story for the intellectual who takes a completely opposite position, which consists of saying to the people: I would like to produce some effects of truth which might be used for a possible battle, to be waged by those who wish to wage it, in forms yet to be found and in organizations yet to be defined. The people of the PC clearly do not talk about this freedom which I leave here at the end of my discussion for anyone who wants or does not want to get something done.
? This is exactly the opposite of what they would have me do; because for the PC the real intellechial is the one who calms down reality, explaining how it ought to be and saying
? 192 The Question of Power
? immediately how it will have to be on that day when everyone will do as the Communist party does. A position exactly con- trary to my own; and it is in this sense that they do not pardon me.
They really do understand what I am doing, but they don't understand what I am saying. Or, at least, they take the risk--and this, once again, is truly surprising--of letting eve- ryone see that they don't understand what I am saying. But this does not worry them, because their problem is one of covering up what I do, of condemning it and thereby prevent- ing the people from doing or accepting what I do; theirs is the task of making what I do unacceptable. And in the moment when they cannot say; what he is doing is unacceptable, they say: what he is saying is false. But in order to say this they are obligated to he and to make me say what I am not saying.
? For this reason, I don't think there's much to discuss concerning these words poured on top of my own. Rather, what we need to do is to grasp clearly the reason for this attack of theirs. And if they do understand what I am doing, then I would like to make clear what they are doing when they tell these lies. A
? Translated by James Cascaito Note
1 The "New Philosphers" were the first French intellectuals to openly link Marxism as a philosophy to totalitarian poUtics. Its main proponents were Bemard-Henri Le? vy and Andre? Glucksman. Gilles Deleuze, a long-time Mend and ally of Foucault, came out strongly against the simphfications of the "New Philosophers. "
? 16
? The Masked Philosopher
? Q: Allow me first to ask why you have chosen to remain anonymous? '
? MF: You know the story of the psychologist who went to a little village in the depths of Afiica to show a film to its inhabitants. He then asked them to recount the story exactly as they had understood it. Well, in this anecdote with three characters they had only been interested in one thing: the pas- sage of light and shadows through the trees. For us, the charac- ters establish the laws of perception. Our eyes naturally focus on the figures who come and go, arise and disappear.
? Why have I suggested that I remain anonymous? Out of nostalgia for the time when, being completely unknown, what I said had some chance of being heard. The surface con- tact with some possible reader was without a wrinkle. The effects of the book rebounded in unforeseen places and out- lined forms I hadn't thought about. The name is a facility.
I will propose a game: the year without names. For one year books will be published without the author's name. The critics will have to manage with an entirely anonymous production. But I suspect that perhaps they will have nothing
? ir
19
? ? How Much Does It Cost For Reason To Tell The Truth
? Q; What is the origin of what we loosely call Post- Structuralism?
? MF: Indeed, why not this term? In regard to Structu- ralism, neither the exponents of this movement nor those who were designated "Structuralists" knew what it was about. Those who used the structural method in very limited areas like Hnguistics or comparative mythology knew that it was structuralism. But as soon as one went beyond these very lim- ited areas, nobody knew what that was. I am not certain it
jKQuId-be very interesting to attempt to redefine what was called Structuralism then. Instead it seems interesting to me to study Formal Thinking, the different types of Formalism, which have traversed Western culture during all the 20th
ntury.
? ce
? 234 How Much Does It Cost. .
? I'm thinking of the unusual skill of Formalism in
painting, the formal research in music, the significance of For- malism in the analysis of folklore, the sagas, architecture, the application of some of its forms to theoretical thinking. For- malism was probably in general one of the most powerful and complex forces in 20th century Europe. Moreover, Formalism was associated very often with conditions and even political movements, which were certainly equally stimulating each time. The relationship between Russian Formalism and the Russian Revolution should definitely be investigated precisely anew. The role of formal thinking and formal art at the begin- ning of the 20th century, its ideological value, its ties to vari- ous political movements should be analyzed. What strikes me about the so-called structuralist movement in France and in Western Europe during the 1960s: it was really like an echo of the efforts of certain countries in the East and particularly Czechoslovakia to free themselves from dogmatic Marxism. While in a country like Czechoslovakia, the old tradition of pre-war European Formalism was revived--around 1955 or in the 1960s--so-called Structuralism arose at about the same time in Western Europe--that is, I believe, a new form, a new modality of this thinking, of this formalistic investigation. That's the way I would classify this structural phenomenon -- through its revitalization in the great stream of formal thought.
? Q: There is no longer a direct connection between Critical Theory and the student movement in the Federal Re- public of Germany. Perhaps the student movement rather made instrumental use of Critical Theory. It sought refuge there. In the same way, perhaps there is no direct causality anymore between Structuralism and '68.
MF: That's right.
4
? ? ? . . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 235
? Q: But would you say that Structuralism was like a necessary forerunner?
MF: No, nothing is necessary in this order of ideas. But one could say very roughly that formalistic culture, thought, and art in the first third of the 20th century were generally associated with critical pohtical movements of the Left--and even with revolutionary movements--and Marxism obscured all that. Marxism devoted itself to an angry criticism of Formahsm in art and in theory which has become manifest since 1930. Thirty years later you can see in a few Eastern countries and in France, how people have attacked dogmatic Marxism, in that they use forms and types of analysis which are obviously inspired by Formalism. The events in France and other countries in 1968 are to the same degree as highly exciting as they are ambiguous; and ambiguous because they are exciting. It's a matter of movements, which often clearly showed a definite respect toward Marxism while at the same time strongly criticizing the dogmatic Marxism of parties and institutions. And the play between a certain pro-Marxist form of thought and Marxist references created room in which the student movements developed. Eventually they brought the revolutioi^y^arxist discourse to the height of exaggeration. At the same time they were possessed by an antidogmatic impetuosity which prohibits any type of discourse.
Q: In Freud's camp or in Structuralism's camp.
? MF: That's right. I would like to retum to the history of Formalism and the small Structuralist episode in France, which was relatively, with widely dispersed forms, embedded in the heart of Formalism in the 20th century which is in my opinion as significant as Romanticism or Positivism in the 19th century. Marxism constituted in France a kind of horizon.
? 236 How Much Does It Cost.
? which Jean-Paul Sartre once considered impassable. At that time Marxism was in fact a rather closed and in any case a controlling mental horizon. From 1945 to 1955 the entire French university life--^the group university life in order to differentiate it from the university tradition--^was busy with or even fully engrossed in achieving something; not Freud/Marx, rather Husserl/Marx, the relationship to Phenomenological Marxism.
That was the beginning of the discussion and the ef- forts of a whole group of people: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, who came to Marxism by way of Phenomenology, and also Dominique Desanti. '
Q: Mikel Dufresne, even Jean-Franc? ois Lyotard. ^
MF: Paul Ricoeur, who is certainly no Marxist, but who was a phenomenologist and not inchned to ignore Marx- ism. 3 Then one attempted to combine Marxism with Phenome- nology and, as a certain form of structural thought and struc- tural method began to develop. Structuralism took the place of Phenomenology, in order to couple itself with Marxism. The transition from Phenomenology to Structuralism occurred and focused basically on the problem of language. It was a signifi- cant moment, as Merleau-Ponty discovered the problem of language. You know that Merleau-Ponty's last efforts were directed to this end: I remember exactly a lecture in which he began to speak about Saussure, who even though he had been dead for only about 50 years, had been completely ignored by the cultivated public--^not to mention the French philologists and linguists. The problem of language arose and it became obvious that phenomenology could not do it as m much justice as the structural analysis of signification which could be pro- duced by a structure of a linguistic nature, a structure in which the subject in the phenomenological sense could not be en- gaged as a creator of meaning and naturally, since the phe-
? . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 237
? nomenological bride did not understand how to speak about language, she was let go. Structuralism became the new bride. That's the way it happened. Psychoanalysis also brought-- mostly due to the influence of Jacques Lacan--a problem to the fore, which was indeed very different, but not without analogy to the above. The problem was the unconscious, which cannot fit into an analysis of a phenomenological na- ture. The best proof, that it could not be included in phenome- nology, not at least into the one constructed by the French, is the following. Sartre or Merleau-Ponty--I don't want to speak about others--have so^jgHfindefatigably to dethrone what they called "Positivism. " And when the question of language arose, Lacan said: Your efforts are in vain, the activity of the uncon- scious cannot be reduced to the effects of giving meaning, for which phenomenology is suited. Then Lacan formulated an absolutely symmetrical problem for the hnguists. The phe- nomenological subject was disqualified a second time by psy- choanalysis, as it had already been disqualified by linguistic theory. One understands why Lacan could say at this moment that the unconscious was structural like a language. It's the same type of problem. So one had a structural Freudo-Marx- ism. While phenomenology is excluded on the basis of the above reasons, there are now many more suitors who give Marx their hands and that's a merry group. What I described here was done and embraced by a certain number of people, but there was a whole group of individuals who did not follow this movement. I'm thinking of those who participated in the history of science, those who showed by aligning themselves with Comte a noteworthy tradition, particularly those around Canguilhem, who had a decidedly influential effect on the young French university life. Many of his students were nei- ther Marxist nor Freudians or Structuralists. If you wish. I'm speaking about myself here. At that time I was a Freudian. I was never a Marxist and never a Structuralist.
? . ForReason to Tell the Truth? 239
? earlier ones. In France the relationship to Nietzsche--even the relationship of all 20th century thought--^was difficult, for un- derstandable reasons. But I keep talking about myself. One must also speak about Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze wrote his book on Nietzsche around 1960. It was published in 1965. " I am quite certain that he is in debt to Hume since he is interested in empiricism and also in the same question: is the theory of the subject presented by phenomenology satisfying? He escapes this question through Hume's subterfoge of empuicism. I am convinced that he met Nietzsche under the same conditions. Everything which happened in the 1960s came from this dis- satisfaction with phenomenology's theory of the subject with various digressions, escapes and breakthroughs, according to whether one understood an expression to be positive or nega- tive--to hnguistics, to psychology, to Nietzsche.
? Q: In any case, Nietzsche represented a certain expe- rience in order to offer the founding act of a subject a check.
MF: Exactly. And here French authors like Maurice Blanchot and Georges Bataille are very important for us. As I just said, I asked myself why I read Nietzsche. I do know why I read Nietzsche. I read Nietzsche because of Bataille and I read Bataille because of Blanchot. It's not true at all that Nietzsche first appeared in French philosophy in the 1970s. At first his influence appeared in the discourse of people who were Marxists in the 1960s and left Marxism as a result of Nietzsche. But those who first reached back to Nietzsche didn't want to leave Marxism. They were not Marxists. They wanted to leave phenomenology.
Q: They spoke one after the other of historians of science and then about writing a history of knowledge, a his- tory of rationality, a history of reason. Before we return to
? 240 How Much Does It Cost. .
? Nietzsche one can certainly summarize these four terms: one can assume that is a matter of quasi-synonyms.
MF: No, not at all. I have described a movement which encompassed many parts and many different problems. I didn't identify the problems. I'm speaking about relation- ships of research and the proximity of the people who practice them.
Q: Can one attempt to ascertain their relationships?
? MF: That's not easy to do in an interview. The his- tory of science played a significant role in the philosophy of France. If modem philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries derives primarily from the Kantian question, namely "What is Enlightenment? " and if one admits that modem philosophy took up the test of every historical moment, since reason in the form of "maturity" and "without guardian" could appear, un- der its principle functions, so the function of philosophy of the 19th century consists of the question after the moment in which reason finds access to autonomy, what history means to reason and which value the sway of reason in the modem worid straight through the three great forms of objective thought, of technical apparatus and political organization, must be accorded. That was a great task for philosophy since the test of these three domains signifies a reckoning or intro- ducing an unsetding question into the realm of reason. It meant, continuing the Kantian question of "What is Enlighten- ment? " This taking up against this reiteration of Kant's ques- tion in France has found a certain and by the way inadequate form: "What is the history of science? What has happened since Greek mathematics to modem physics, since this uni- verse of science has been erected? " From Auguste Comte until the 1960s it was the philosophical task of history of science to
? . . . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 241
? take up this question again. In Germany the question of the history of reason or the history of forms of rationality in Eu- rope manifested itself not so much in the history of science as much more in that stream of thought, which, talking in gener- alities, stretches from Max Weber to Critical Theory.
Q; Yes, reflection on norms and values.
? MF: From Max Weber to Habermas. It seems to me that there the same questions arise about the history of reason, about the various forms of exercising this sway of reason. Surprisingly, France knew little, indirectly or not at all the stream of Weber's thought. Critical Theory or the Frankfurt School. By the way, that presents a small historical problem, which vexes me and I cannot escape from it. It's known that many representatives of the Frankfurt School came to Paris in 1935 to find refuge. But they left again fairy rapidly, most likely repelled--some have said this--^in any case sad and dis- enheartened that they had not found acclaim again. The 1940s came, but they had already left for England or North America, where they were really received much better. A small agree- ment was struck between the Frankfiirt School and a French philosophical thought, which would have been able to come to an understanding over the history of science, as well as the question of the history of rationality. I can assure you, that during my student days none of my professors mentioned the Frankfurt School.
? Q: That's amazing.
? MF: If I had known the Frankfurt School at the right time, I would have been spared a lot of work. Some nonsense, I wouldn't have expressed and taken many detours as I sought
? 242 How Much Does It Cost. .
? not to let myself be led astray when the Frankfurt School had already opened the ways. There is a remarkable problem of non-penetration of two forms of thought, which are akin to each other. Perhaps h is this proximity which explains the non-penetration. Nothing obscures a common problem more than two related ways of approaching it.
? Q: It is interesting that you say you would have avoided certain things if you had been familiar with the Frank- furt School and Critical Theory, especially since Habermas and Negt have applauded your efforts. In a conversation with Habermas, hepraised to me your idea of la bifurcation de la raison--that in every moment reason is supposed to be di- vided in two. Despite that I asked myself if you would agree with the bifurcation of reason as Critical Theory conceives of it. That is, with the dialectic of reason according to which reason is perverted by the effect of its own power, is trans- formed and reduced to a type of thought which is technical thought. The ruhng thought in Critical Theory is that of a dialectical continuity of reason, with a perversion, which changes it completely suddenly and which serves to correct it, which should be the beginning of the battle for emancipation. The will to knowledge has made in its own way a lot of trust in history ambiguous (bifurquer). The word bifurquer is per- haps not the right word. Reason has divided knowledge many times.
? MF: Yes, one has often tried to blackmail all criti- cism of reason and every critical test of the history of rational- ity so that one either recognizes reason or casts it into irration- alism--as if it were not possible to write a rational criticism of rationahty, a rational history of all ambiguity and biftircations, a contingent history of rationality. Since Max Weber in the Frankfurt School and in every case with many historians of
? . . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 243
? science like Canguilhem it was a matter of determining the form of rationalism, which is presented as the ruling one and to which one gives the status of reason, in order to let it appear as one of the possible forms of rational work. In this history of French science, which is considerably significant, Gaston Bachelard also plays a central role.
? Q: Despite that the hymns of praise are a bit poi- soned. According to Habermas you described the moment of the bifurcation of reason splendidly. This bifurcation is sup- posed to be a one-time occurrence, you had determined, as reason took a turn, which led to technical rationalism, to a self-diminution, to a self-limiting. If this bifurcation is also a split, then it could only have happened a single time in history, in order to divide two realms as one has called them since Kant. This analysis of bifurcation is Kantian. There is knowl- edge of understanding, the knowledge of reason, technical rea- son and moral reason. In order to judge this bifiircation one accepts the position of moral-practical reason. Therefore, a one-time bifurcation, a division between technical and practi- cal which governs all of the history of thought in Germany. You just said that this tradition stems from the question "What is Enlightenment? " This praise seems to diminish your assess- ment of the history of ideas.
? MF: In fact, I do not speak of a bifurcation of reason. Rather I speak of multiple bifurcations. I speak of an endless prohfic division. I am not speaking of the moment when rea- son became technical. At the present, in order to give an ex- ample I am researching the problem of technology of self in Greco-Roman antiquity. How men, life, self were objects of a certain number of technai, which can be compared completely in thek compelling rationality of a production technology.
? 244 How Much Does It Cost. .
? Q: But without including the entire society.
MF: Without including the entire society. What a technai or technology of self brings to development is a his- torical phenomenon, which is completely analyzable and de- terminable and is not the bifurcation of reason. In the prolific division, breaks, caesuras, this was an occurrence, a signifi- cant epoch, which had noteworthy consequences, but is not a one-time phenomenon.
Q: If one then assumes that the phenomenon of the self-perversion of reason is not a one-time occurrence, didn't occur just once in history where reason lost something essen- tial, something substantial--as Weber would say--does your work aim to rehabihtate fruitful reason? Is there another kind of conception of reason in your work, another concept of ra- tionality as that which is accepted by us today.
? MF: Yes. But here I would like to free myself from phenomenology which was my starting point. I don't believe that there is here a kind of founding act through which reason in its essence discovers or would be engaged and afterwards could be broken off from any occurrence. I believe that there is a self-creation of reason and therefore I am trying to analyze the forms of rationality: various proofs, various formulations, various modifications by which rationalities educe each other, contradict one another, chase each other away, without one therefore being able to designate a moment in which reason vypuld have lost its basic design or changed from rationalism to irrationahsm. Very schematically, I wanted in the 1960s to give up the phenomenological thesis as well as the Marxist thesis (Luka? cs). There was a rationality which was the exem- plary form of reason itself which had been led into a crisis by a number of social necessities (capitahsm or even more the
? . For Reason to Tell the Truth? 245
? transition of one form of capitalism to another). That is, into a forgetting of reason and a descent into irrationalism. That is the second great model, schematically correct and unjust, from which I tried to free myself.
? Q: According to this model there was a one-time bi- furcation, be it after a forgetting, be it after an expropriation by a class. Therefore the emancipation movement in history did not just consist of a retaking of what had been expropri- ated in order to re-expropriate it, but rather on the contrary in that reason was given back its entire truth, given back its status of absolute universal science. It is clear that you have no proposal of a new science or an expanded science.
? MF; Absolutely not.
Q; But you show that every time a form of rational- ity asserts itself, it occurs through division, that is, through closure or alienation, through the demarcation of a boundary between itself and another. Does your proposal include a wish to rehabilitate this other one? For example, when you embrace the silence of a madman, do you consider it a language which expresses itself comprehensively on the necessities of the creation of works?
? MF; Yes. What interested me in this general frame- work were the forms of rationality, which the human subject applied to himself. While the historian of science in France busied himself primarily with the problem of the constitution of scientific objects, I asked myself another question. How does it happen that the human subject makes himself into an object of possible knowledge, through which forms of ration- ality, through which historical necessities, and at what price? My question is this; How much does it cost the subject to be
? ? 246 How Much Does It Cost.
? able to tell the truth about itself? How much does it cost the subject as madman to be able to tell the truth about itself? About the cost of constituting the madman as the absolute other and in that it not only pays this theoretical price, but also an institutional and even economic price as the organization of psychiatry allows it to be determined. A complex and multi- layered totality with an institutionalized game, class relation- ships, class conflicts, modalities of knowledge and finally a whole history, subjects and reason are involved in it. That is what I tried to reconstitute. That is perhaps a completely crazy, very complex project, of which I could only observe a few moments, a few special points, hke the problem of the insane subject. How can one tell the truth about an insane subject? Those were my first two books. The Order of Things asked, what is the cost of problematizing and analyzing the speaking, working, living subject. That's why I transferred the same kinds of questions to criminals and penal institutions. How can one tell the truth about oneself as a criminal.
