The anti-psychiatry movement of the 20th century has notably denounced the role of values and social norms in the shaping of psychiatric categories. Recent activist movements also recognize that psychiatry is value-laden, however, they do not fight for a value-free psychiatry. On the contrary, some activist movements of the 21st century advocate for self-advocacy in sciences of mental health in order to reach a more accurate understanding of psychiatric categories/mental distress. By aiming at such epistemic gain, they depart from the (...) anti-psychiatry movement. Through the analysis of the epistemic and political influence of two of these movements – Neurodiversity and the Mad Studies, we show how this new activism has taken a scientific turn compatible with current philosophical scientific frameworks, while still developing a critical approach on psychiatry. (shrink)

This article argues that late Heidegger’s analyses of the Fourfold can be used as a methodological starting point for discourse analyses. It argues that the Fourfold points out elements or foundations of discursive structures that orient us to differing, and to some extent opposing, directions that are at the same time mutually interdependent. A discursive analysis of how the Fourfold is at play in prevailing discursive exchanges and structures will thus be a matter of situating ourselves in a conceptual space (...) beyond existing practices and structures, from which we get a picture of their inadequacies. As such, the article contributes to a critical understanding of discourse analysis. It will be argued that through understanding the Fourfold, we can better understand the problems with various aspects of ‘measuring’, which are founded upon the (concealed) instability of elements of the Fourfold – which shapes practical discursive engagements. By foregrounding this structural instability we can approach it critically. I demonstrate how this approach might be used in an analysis of a debate between Greta Thunberg and Bjørn Lomborg. (shrink)

En el presente artículo realizamos un análisis del estatus ontológico de la noción de psicopatología que se deriva de cuatro aproximaciones metodológicas a su estudio, a saber: aproximación psiquiátrica, fenomenológico-existencial, constructivista-histórica y antipsiquiátrica. Por medio de una metodología de revisión bibliográfica sistematizada y siguiendo el marco de trabajo metaframework ReSiste-CHS (Revisiones Sistematizadas en Ciencias Humanas y Sociales), sostendremos que dicha noción presenta divergencias en al menos tres puntos: (i) la relevancia de la sintomatología como característica, (ii) la existencia o inexistencia (...) del sufrimiento psíquico y (iii) la relevancia de los factores sociales en su configuración. En el apartado introductorio abordaremos las consideraciones históricas generales relacionadas con el estudio de los trastornos mentales. En el segundo apartado nos referiremos a la metodología empleada para la realización del artículo. En el tercer apartado expondremos los rasgos fundamentales de las cuatro metodologías de estudio mencionadas anteriormente, dividiendo la descripción en los siguientes puntos: orientación, etiología, clasificación, diagnóstico y tratamiento. En el cuarto apartado contrastaremos los conceptos de psicopatología que pueden ser extraídos de ellas. A modo de conclusión, propondremos una sistematización de las condiciones mínimas que debe cumplir una noción de psicopatología que sea fructífera desde un punto de vista teórico y práctico. Estas condiciones incluyen un posicionamiento crítico ante los extremos reduccionista y relativista, la consideración del sufrimiento psíquico como rasgo constitutivo y núcleo fundamental de este género de experiencia, así como una dimensión ética relacionada con su abordaje. Por último, mostraremos algunas limitaciones y futuras directrices que se derivan del trabajo realizado. (shrink)

Beyond the eras a dialogue seems to have been established between Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569) and Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). The poet’s wonder at the « painting of the North », both realistic and emblematic, reveals his deepest ideal as an artist : painting, a « magical » operation, deploys a power of expression based on signs and no longer on words, which the theatre is also called upon to seize. The juxtaposition of Bruegel’s Triumph of Death and a famous drawing (...) by Artaud, Le Théâtre de la cruauté [The Theatre of Cruelty], highlights the striking convergences between the two artists. Through their pictorial works, both of them renew over the centuries the funerary and mythical symbolism of death, inherited from the macabre scenes of medieval paintings, but also from ancient times. Studying the references to theatrical iconography in Bruegel’s painting, where carnival and crudity of death reinforce each other, allows us to deepen the meaning of these resonances. For the two artists, form and poetic momentum meet so that representation, as a structure common to painting and theatre, fixes a moment of the world, while animating that moment to infinity, thanks to signs conceived as « true hieroglyphs » (Artaud), a problem that Michel Foucault associated with the strongest truth that the experience of madness carries. (shrink)

Conservation biology is a branch of ecology devoted to conserving biodiversity. Because this discipline is based on the assumption that knowledge should guide actions, it endows experts with a power that should be questioned. The work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault can be seen as a relevant conceptual resource to think these aspects of conservation biology through. I critically analyse the relevance of the Foucauldian approach to conservation. I argue that Foucauldian arguments are deeply ambiguous, and therefore useless for (...) conservation purposes, unless they are supplemented with unsaid assumptions that are, depending on the case at hand, untenable, or at least at odds with basic assumptions underlying conservation biology. In any case, the prospects of using the Foucauldian approach for conservation purposes are deeply undermined. However, the Foucauldian reasoning contains some ideas that can be important and useful for conservation purposes, if they are duly clarified. (shrink)

La première préface à l’Histoire de la folie est un texte riche qui propose une conception originale de la culture : celle-ci se définirait non par ce qu’elle affirme, mais par ce qu’elle rejette. Or, s’il existe une littérature secondaire qui en fait mention, la préface n’est presque jamais traitée pour elle-même. Nous pensons pourtant qu’en plus d’offrir une conception de la culture, elle permet de penser l’œuvre et la folie à travers une certaine confrontation, à savoir celle entre la (...) dialectique et le tragique. C’est en suivant cette confrontation, voulue par Foucault, que nous dégagerons les points forts de la préface. On se demandera, enfin, si Foucault, dans ce texte, dispose des moyens pour mener la véritable confrontation des « dialectiques de l’histoire » ou si, comme le pensait Derrida, il ne s’agit que d’une contestation de l’ordre rationnel. (shrink)

This contribution tentatively outlines the presumed conceptual duality between the issues of _incompleteness_ and _incomprehensibility_—The first being more formal in nature and able to be declined in various ways until specified in the literature as _theoretical incompleteness_. This is _theoretical_ and not temporary, which is admissible and the completion prosecutable. As considered in the literature, theoretical incompleteness refers to _uncertainty principles_ in physics, incompleteness in mathematics, oracles for the Turing Machine, _logical openness_ as the multiplicity of models focusing on coherence (...) more than the optimum selections, _fuzziness_, _quasiness_, e.g., quasi-crystals, quasi-systems, and quasi-periodicity, which are intended as the space of equivalences that allow for coherent processes of emergence. The issue of incomprehensibility cannot be considered without reference to an agent endowed with cognitive abilities. In this article, we consider incomprehensibility as understood here as not generally scientifically explicable, i.e., with the available knowledge, as such incomprehensibility may be temporary, pending theoretical and technological advances, or deemed to be absolute as coincident with eventual _definitive_, theoretical non-explicability, and incomprehensibility. We considered the _theoretically incomprehensibility_ mostly in three main ways: as the inexhaustibility of the multiplicity of constructivist reality as given by the theoretically incomprehensible endless loop of incomprehensible−comprehensible, and by existential questions. Moreover, _theoretical incomprehensibility is intended as evidence of the logical openness of both the world and of understanding itself._ The role of theoretical incomprehensibility is intended as a source of theoretical research issues such as paradoxes and paradigm shifts, where it is a matter of having cognitive strategies and approaches to look for, cohabit, combine, and use comprehensibility and (theoretical) incomprehensibility. The usefulness of imaginary numbers comes to mind. Can we support such research for local, temporary, and theoretical incomprehensibility with suitable approaches such as software tools, for instance, that simulate the logical frameworks of incomprehensibility? Is this a step toward a kind of _artificial creativity leading to paradigm shifts_? The most significant novelty of the article lies in the focus on the concept of theoretical incomprehensibility and distinguishing it from incomprehensibility and considering different forms of understanding. It is a matter of identifying strategies to _act_ and _coexist_ with the theoretically incomprehensible, to _represent_ and _use_ it, for example when dealing with imaginary numbers and quantum contexts where classical comprehensibility is theoretically impossible. Can we think of forms of non-classical understanding? In this article, these topics are developed in conceptual and philosophical ways. (shrink)

Madness can be understood as something sealed off from the intelligible human world, a way of being that has been detached and isolated from the essential elements of normative society. It can represent all that is contrary to what is rational, what is normal and even, what is human. By following this line of thinking, madness cannot be penetrated by the outside nor does it have an established internal structure, and yet it can be used to construct and form its (...) opposite—the rational, normal human. Human rationality then becomes something that can be fully deduced, explained, and understood, and anything that contains mystery or ambiguity can be relegated to the realm of madness.These are the common definitions of... (shrink)

Some skeptics question the very possibility of moral bioenhancement by arguing that if we lack a widely acceptable notion of morality, we will not be able to accept the use of a biotechnological technique as a tool for moral bioenhancement. I will examine this skepticism and argue that the assessment of moral bioenhancement does not require such a notion of morality. In particular, I will demonstrate that this skepticism can be neutralized in the case of recent neurofeedback techniques. This goal (...) will be accomplished in four steps. First, I will draw an outline of the skepticism against the possibility of moral bioenhancement and point out that a long-lasting dispute among moral philosophers nourishes this skepticism. Second, I will survey recent neurofeedback techniques and outline their three features: the variety of the target human faculties, such as emotion, cognition, and behavior; the flexibility or personalizability of the target brain state; and the nonclinical application of neurofeedback techniques. Third, I will argue that, by virtue of these three unique features, neurofeedback techniques can be a tool for moral bioenhancement without adopting any specific notion of morality. Fourth, I will examine the advantages and threats that neurofeedback-based moral enhancement may have. Finally, I will conclude that neurofeedback-based moral enhancement can become a new and promising tool for moral bioenhancement and requires further ethical investigations on its unique features. (shrink)

Recent neuroscience studies have reported that neurofeedback training with the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging enables the regulation of an individual’s cognitive, emotion-related, and behavioral states through a real-time representation of her brain activities. Since this technique has been applied not only to clinical research to, for example, mitigate mental or psychiatric symptoms but also to non-clinical research to, for example, change the cognition or preferences of a so-called healthy participant, neurofeedback-based cognitive and/or moral enhancements may be realized in (...) the future. However, neurofeedback-based human enhancement is not the only issue that requires neuroethical consideration. I examine why and to what extent the dual application of neurofeedback technique will blur the lines between the mental, the social, and the moral, threatening some social norms, such as individual freedom and diversity. First, I consider the link between the mental and the social in psychiatry. Examining the definition of “mental disorder” provided by the American Psychiatric Association, I show that the mental is partly defined through social performance. Second, I make explicit the link between the social and the moral and argue that moral evaluation of an activity is gently but positively correlated with its social evaluation. Third, I demonstrate the links between the mental, the social, and the moral. In spite of a great deal of effort to distinguish these notions, the possibility of the dual application of this technique blurs the lines between them. Fourth, I examine whether such blurred lines signal sociocultural evolution or dystopia and argue that it can be understood as a beginning of the second advent of ethical virtue. I conclude that further cautious consideration of neuroethics is required because the establishment of this technique may have unique influences on our society. (shrink)

As reflexões deste artigo têm como objetivo principal mostrar que, à diferença do que se pensa habitualmente, o período do Renascimento foi marcado por uma atmosfera de magia, de superstição, de medo e angústia em face do destino e da morte. Trata-se, pois, de um período em que floresceram, ou refloresceram, as letras e as artes, mas não propriamente a ciência e a filosofia. Na verdade, a própria ciência e o que se poderia denominar filosofia — representada principalmente por duas (...) correntes: a platônica, da Escola de Florença, e a aristotélica, da Universidade de Pádua — eram envolvidas por uma atmosfera de saber hermético e, consequentemente, eram lidas e estudadas a partir dessa perspectiva. Note-se ademais que, já na primeira metade do século XX, começaram a desenvolver-se novos estudos que vieram fazer ressaltar essa faceta pouco conhecida, ou negligenciada, do período renascentista. (shrink)

In recent decades, the focus in autism research progressively expanded. It presently offers extensive material on sensorimotor disturbances as well as on perceptive-cognitive preferences of people with autism. The present article proposes not only a critical interpretation of the common theoretical framework in autism research but also focuses on certain experiences common to some people with autism and which can be appropriately understood by phenomenology. What I will call “hypnotic experiences” in autism are moments in which some individuals withdraw into (...) intense sensorial and perceptive experiences. Following their examples, I use the term “hypnosis” primarily to describe a trance state in which the individuals become highly alert to and awake for an experience of a totally new kind. Through a close analysis of autobiographical writings from people with autism I defend the idea that the particularity of hypnotic experiences in autism consists in a certain qualitative shift within experience itself: what changes, in the hypnotic moments, is the way a person with autism relates to his/her own bodily experiences. If this qualitative shift is indeed difficult to account for within a reifying and intellectualist research perspective, phenomenology offers a large conceptual framework for understanding it. Phenomenology, and precisely, phenomenological psychopathology, will thus emerge as a major device in accounting for such “hypnotic experiences”. The argument mainly draws on the twofold structure of experience which is traditionally used in phenomenological research: it claims that in hypnotic experience people with autism are inclined to focus on non-reified “sensings”, “perceivings” and “movings”, and thus leave aside the object itself and any intentional reification of it. Finally, I will claim that this restriction to mere non-reified sensings might lead to a completely new conception of self and world. In the hypnotic experiences of autism, neither the subject nor the object come to a full-blown and independent existence. A thorough phenomenological analysis of hypnotic experience in autism therefore also has to face the question of a corresponding ontology of these experiences. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to advance the idea according to which the Cartesian Cogito, the ground of modern philosophy and the source of the notion of thinking subject, is tributary of a certain method whose legitimation is grounded in western history. According to this hypothesis, there is a certain tool that plays a fundamental role in the production of this new philosophical notion: the dream. The argument will be developed in four parts. We will first proceed to (i) (...) an analysis of the role of the hypothesis of the dream in the formulation of the notion of res cogitans, what will bring us to (ii) an exploration of the conception of private world supposed by such a hypothesis so as to (iii) clarify the specificity of the Cartesian notion of knowledge, a knowledge that must be acquirable in a dream; in conclusion (iv) we will indicate in a schematic way the historic-cultural anchor of the Cartesian dream where the subject is originated. (shrink)

Mourning is predominantly understood as an emotional process caused by the loss of a beloved other. This is challenged in this article on Hervé Guibert's 1990 La Pudeur ou l'impudeur, a documentary in which the author and photographer represents his physical and emotional suffering through the last stages of HIV-AIDS. The article explores this suffering via the idea of ‘self-mourning’, which denotes Guibert's reflection on his own mortality in the light of terminal illness. In particular, the article focuses on what (...) happens to the notion of time in mourning against the backdrop of Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy. (shrink)

Essa dissertação é resultado de um projeto maior, intitulado “Sobre a Morte do Homem e a Psicologia, em Michel Foucault”. Esse projeto busca analisar as diversas nuances argumentativas empregadas por Foucault nas críticas às “antropologias”, figuradas em seus livros ditos “arqueológicos”. Para isso, parte-se de uma dupla problematização: a autocrítica feita pelo próprio Foucault a seus escritos dos anos 50, tributários de querelas epistemológicas e de fundação da psicologia e das ciências humanas; e a descrição mesma dessas querelas, tomando como (...) base problemas históricos e epistemológicos da fundação da psicologia (no caso, questões relativas à sua unidade, especificidade e objetividade). Evidenciando a “mudança de nível” ocorrida nas pesquisas foucaultianas entre seus escritos dos anos 50 e 60 (de uma postura contestatória de certas correntes da psicologia e sugestão de alternativas fundacionistas, à denúncia das ciências humanas pelo seu modo de constituição histórica), o presente trabalho busca descrever como um todo a argumentação da primeira arqueologia foucaultiana, priorizando a descrição dos diversos níveis da crítica que História da Loucura empreende ao que se chama nesse livro de “círculo antropológico”. Dois são os enfoques principais da análise do livro: a questão do “sono psicológico”, enunciada por Foucault de passagem, mas que diz respeito ao mesmo tempo à constituição dos conhecimentos modernos e suas relações com outras formas históricas; e a questão da alteridade, realçada pelo próprio Foucault em trabalhos posteriores, cuja radicalização diz respeito não mais a uma crítica à racionalidade moderna, mas a toda racionalidade. (shrink)

Is the boundary between the normal and the pathological real or fiction? Are health and disease just a matter of fact or are they value-laden? Here we present some examples of how alleged diseases can be invented and propagated by the industry (disease mongering) or by the methodology of medical science itself. We show that the boundary between health and disease is blurred and depends on individual and social representations, culture relative ways of categorising things and people, and by the (...) society’s degree of medicalisation. However, we do not mean that it is not real, rather that it is more complex than expected, as the subjectivity of social constructions and individual experiences makes them no less real. Finally, we conclude that health and disease belong to both objective and subjective kinds of reality, so the fictional can be real. (shrink)

Tussen zijn veertigste en zijn zestigste levensjaar was Jan Hendrik van den Berg (1914) een uitermate succesvol en populair auteur. Boeken van zijn hand, zoals Metabletica (1956) en Medische macht en medische ethiek (1969), waren ongekende bestsellers. Hij was de Nederlandse vertegenwoordiger van een belangrijke Europese stroming in de filosofie: de historische fenomenologie. In de jaren zeventig raakte hij echter in conflict met zijn tijd. Terwijl de Nederlandse publieke opinie een wending naar links doormaakte, bond Van den Berg de strijd (...) aan tegen verloedering, hooliganisme en anarchisme. Dit ging ten koste van zijn populariteit, maar niet van zijn productiviteit, noch van zijn innovativiteit. Tot op de dag van vandaag werkt hij aan een indrukwekkend , panoramisch oeuvre. Hij is de belangrijkste Nederlandse filosoof sinds Bolland. -/- Deze studie wil het werk van Van den Berg reconstrueren, situeren en beoordelen. Reconstrueren door de methodische en thematische coherentie ervan zichtbaar te maken. Situeren door het te confronteren met dat van andere, verwante auteurs zoals Husserl, Freud, Bachelard en Foucault. Beoordelen door na te gaan in hoeverre Van den Berg de inzet van zijn project, zowel inhoudelijk als methodologisch, waarmaakte. -/- Het werk van Van den Berg is geen curiosum, maar opvallend actueel. Hij onderzoekt het begin, de aanvang van wetenschappelijke en maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen waarvan het belang in de huidige situatie met nadruk zichtbaar wordt. Zijn beeldende stijl wekt de geschiedenis van de wetenschap tot leven, maar werd vaak als ‘anekdotisch’ afgedaan; zijn talent voor polemiek lokte soms felle reacties uit en zijn methodologische flexibiliteit maakte hem een gemakkelijk doelwit van academische kritiek. Aan de positieve kant van de balans staan echter zijn intellectuele enthousiasme en zijn internationale faam. Zijn werk verdient een rehabilitatie. (shrink)

Resumen: Los trabajos abordan, desde diferentes perspectivas a la categoría de sujeto como una categoría crucial del pensamiento contemporáneo. El ámbito de preocupaciones es amplio: la perspectiva del filósofo norteamericano S Cavell quien hace una originalísima recepción de la herencia de Austin y Wittgenstein; la perspectiva fenomenológica de Sartre en diálogo y conflicto con la del psicoanálisis lacaniano y las reconceptualizaciones de la ideología realizadas por Louis Althusser; la constitución del sujeto en tensión entre la sujeción al poder y las (...) posibilidadesde resistencia según la perspectiva de Judith Butler; una relectura de la implicación de estructura y sujeto en la perspectiva estructural abierta por Saussure y continuada por Lévi-Strauss, Benveniste y Lacan, tema que recibe un tratamiento circunscripto al pensamiento del argentino Ernesto Laclau, en el que se distinguen distintas etapas; las implicaciones que los eventos fundamentales de la historia del siglo XX acarrean para una conceptualización de la subjetividad en la perspectiva de Theodor Adorno y las limitaciones que la conceptualización de la obra de arte como juego en la obra de Gadamer impone a la concepción moderna de la subjetividad. -/- Índice: Presentación del compilador La crítica de Heidegger a la noción de sujeto: un análisis a partir de la incidencia de su reflexión sobre la técnica y el lenguaje, Luciana Carrera Aizpitarte El juego como auto-representación y modo de ser de la obra de arte en la estética hermenéutica de Gadamer, Paola Belén El yo sobre la línea de ficción: análisis de las concepciones de Sartre y Lacan, Luisina Bolla El poder y el sujeto. Sujeción, norma y resistencia en Judith Butler, Matías Abeijón Theodor W. Adorno: la crítica al sujeto después de Auschwitz, Gustavo Robles Estructura, discurso y subjetividad, Pedro Karczmarczyk Transformaciones, rupturas y continuidades entre la perspectiva de Ernesto Laclau y la tradición (post)estructuralista, Hernán Fair La recuperación del sujeto: escepticismo, autoconocimiento y escritura en S. Cavell, Guadalupe Reinoso . (shrink)

This paper builds a three-part argument in favour of a more transcendentally focused form of ‘postphenomenology’ than is currently practised in philosophy of technology. It does so by problematising two key terms, ‘constitution’ and ‘postphenomenology’, then by arguing in favour of a ‘transcendental empiricist’ approach that draws on the work of Foucault, Derrida, and, in particular, Deleuze. Part one examines ‘constitution’, as it moves from the context of Husserl’s phenomenology to Ihde and Verbeek’s ‘postphenomenology’. I argue that the term tends (...) towards different senses in these contexts, and that this renders its sense more problematic than the work of Ihde and Verbeek makes it appear. Part two examines ‘postphenomenology’. I argue that putatively ‘poststructuralist’ thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze may be better characterised as ‘postphenomenologists’, and that approaching them in this way may allow better access to their work from a philosophy of technology perspective. Part three argues for a ‘transcendental empiricist’ approach to philosophy of technology. In doing so, it argues for a rewriting of contemporary philosophy of technology’s political constitution: since an ‘empirical turn’ in the 1990s, I argue, philosophy of technology has been too narrowly focused on ‘empirical’ issues of fact, and not focused enough on ‘transcendental’ issues concerning conditions for these facts. (shrink)

In this paper Foucault’s thought on monstrosity is explored. Monsters appear whenever and wherever knowledge/power assemblages emerge. That which eludes the latter, and which threatens to subvert them, is the monstrous. Foucault distinguished the production, throughout history, of juridical-natural monsters, moral monsters, and political monsters. In this paper it is argued that Foucault must have sensed that monstrosity eludes all notions of identity and difference, and therefore also the notion that places it ‘outside’. It is the space of emergence itself, (...) i.e. the location where sheer potentiality becomes the possible of and in the event. All monstrosity is therefore deeply, and inevitably, political. It is the promise of unsettling subversion. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion of the scientia sexualis/ars erotica distinction, which Foucault first advances in History of Sexuality Vol. 1, and which has been employed by many scholars to do a variety of analytical work. Though Foucault has expressed his doubts regarding his conceptualization of the differences between Western and Eastern discourses of desire, he never entirely disowns the distinction. In fact, Foucault remains convinced that China must have an ars erotica. I will explore Foucault’s sources of authority. (...) To this end, I introduce the work of famous Dutch sinologist Robert Hans van Gulik, who published the tremendously influential Sexual Life in Ancient China in 1961, and also explore Joseph Needham’s view on Chinese sex. I argue that, Foucault, in his fierce polemic against the “Repressive Hypothesis”, himself imagined a utopian Other where pleasure and desire were organised differently. I end on a discuss on Orientalism and the project of “Sinography” of comparative literature scholars Haun Saussy, Eric Hayot and others. (shrink)

Dans l’histoire de la philosophie, Descartes est considéré comme un intellectualiste, c’est-à-dire comme un théoricien qui considère que la raison est souveraine dans l’action. Il soutient donc qu’il suffit de bien juger pour bien faire, et il reprend à son compte la thèse socratique selon laquelle nul ne commet le mal volontairement.

The article aims to base the presence of a reconceptualization of the political in Michel Foucault's thought, taking as the reading key ethhopolitics as a conceptual proposal. There, we can find a concept completely opposed to the way in which both modern governmentality and the tradition of political thought have understood the meaning of politics in the West. Following this purpose, the hypothesis is proposed and developed, according to which the analytical gesture that persists in Michel Foucault's thought is a (...) concept of the political that affirms life in its radical exuberance and unfoundedness. In this statement, we recognize the signatures of a triangular conceptual structure made up of the fold between life, ethics and power. After exposing the problem and clearing some methodological difficulties for its approach, we examine in detail the investigations that comprise the archeology of ethical life in the French philosopher. It is argued that the very textuality of ethhopolitics is formulated as politicity rather than as a specific policy, that is, it is presented as a politics of life, since it is implied as a singular modulation of existence. The article concludes with a scriptural threshold composed of five theses that attempt to expand and project the philosophical-political returns of the analysis developed towards a research program. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the meaning that the term “experimental” acquires within spiritualism during the second half of the nineteenth century. It builds upon Paul Janet’s notions of “experience” and “experimentation” in psychology, by stressing the role of physiology and pathology in his reflection. Regardless of the role the concept of “experimentalism” took on in Victor Cousin’s psychology, which arguably indicated more an “internal affection” than actual experimentation, in Janet’s spiritualism the term regains its original meaning of empirical verification. Janet (...) highlights the importance of madness to the development of a new psychological paradigm that could reconcile philosophy and medicine, reason and experience, by taking up pathology as a form of natural and indirect experimentation. (shrink)

This paper examines the notion of the biopolitical body from the standpoint of Foucault’s logic of the security mechanism and the history he tells of vaccine technology. It then investigates how the increasing importance of the genetic code for determining the meaning and limits of the human in the field of 20th century cell biology has been a cause for ongoing transformation in the practices that currently extend vaccine research and development. I argue that these transformations mark the emergence of (...) a new kind of medical subject – the stabilized and infinitely reproducible human cell line – and that the practices and markets exploiting this new form of organism have had a destabilizing effect on the very biopolitical structures that engendered them and, in fact, mark a new way of conceiving the possibilities of cellular life. I call these new ways of organizing power that intervene in the logic of the security measure by mediating the relationship between populations and persons the microbiopolitical. (shrink)

This article argues that the life-works of Norbert Elias and Franz Borkenau can best be understood together, as they were developed in close interaction during the 1930s. Deriving inspiration from Freud, they took up the project formulated by Weber at the end of his `Anticritical Last Word'. However, in two significant respects they went beyond the Weberian problematics. First, overcoming the centrality attributed to economic concerns, they rooted the Western civilizing process in the long-term attempt to harness the violence that (...) was escalated by the emergence and then collapse of the Roman Empire. Second, they emphasized the crucial importance of periods of transition that follow an overall dissolution of order and mark the possible future course of events. (shrink)

The theory of dynamical systems allows one to describe the change in a system' 's macroscopic behavior as a bifurcation in the underlying dynamics. We show here, from the example of depressive syndrome, the existence of a correspondence between clinical and electro-physiological dimensions and the association between clinical remission and brain dynamics reorganization. On the basis of this experimental study, we discuss the interest of such results concerning the question of normality versus pathology in psychiatry and the relationship between mind (...) and brain. (shrink)

The Value of the Emotional Knowledge Emotional knowledge is a form of self-knowledge which holds great interest for ordinary individuals. It is not obtained by any obligation but rather because we think it is crucial to obtain. In this article it is a matter of demonstrating that emotional knowledge holds an instrumental and a prudential value. By arguing that it can allow a control over our emotions, I shall maintain that emotional knowledge affects individual marginalization or acceptance in society. In (...) addition, this type of knowledge is revealing of our personality by allowing us to identify our affective identities. Finally, I shall defend the idea that emotional knowledge contributes to the conduct of a good life. As such, my hypothesis could be viewed as incompatible with widespread ideas, according to which the knowledge of our own emotions can trigger negative emotional states, e.g. mental rumination, anxiety, that do not contribute to our well-being. (shrink)

In this study I compare the work of two scholars who are important for contemporary research into the history of semiotics. The main goal of the study is to describe specific rhetorical/figurative forms and structures of persuasion between two epistemological positions that determine various possibilities in the historiography of semiotics. The main question is this: how do we understand two important metatheoretical forms of descriptions in the historiography of semiotics or the history of sign relations? The first perspective is semiology (...) and its corollary, “structuralism,” as presented in Michel Foucault’sThe Order of Things. This perspective prefers to consider history as a set of ruptures (i). The second position explores the possibility of the historical development of semiotic consciousness as presented in the works of John N. Deely (ii). The main aim of this study lies in the exploration of these two different epistemological bases – divergent bases for developing specific understandings of interconnections that hold between between semiotics, semiosis and historical processes. A goal of this paper is to demonstrate the limits and advantages of these two paradigmatic positions. The positions in question are “meta-theoretical” in the following senses such that: (i) the historical episteme is taken to be ana priorideterminant of all sign-operations in a given era and is also the semiologic grid through which Foucault approaches every mode of scientific knowledge (from “science” to “economy” and beyond); (ii) the quasi-Hegelian development of semiotic consciousness based on a conception of the sign considered as a triadic ontological relation. The latter is Deely’s guiding meta-principle, through which the history of semiotics can be articulated, examined and evaluated. (shrink)

Natural language plays a fundamental role in cognition and communication, but in the modern information society, language is increasingly used as a data transmission technology. The study of the problem of language power over thinking is a significant contribution to understanding the nature of language and its relationship with thinking. This article presents an analysis of the peculiarities of M. Foucault’s views on the problem of relationship between language and thinking. The author applies the elements of Foucault’s archaeological approach and (...) studies his concepts in connection with the ideas of other French thinkers. During the analysis, the author formulates her vision of the concepts of power and discourse. The first part of the article considers the understanding of natural language as a complex open sign system that interacts with the outside world and constantly accumulates elements of culture and creativity, from the point of view of philosophy and structural linguistics. The understanding of the division of language into separate discourses is explained. The presentation of the original methodology of Foucault’s language research explains what makes it possible to reveal the peculiarities of the historical development of discourse in the social aspect. Further, Foucault’s views on the role of language in obtaining knowledge and the formation of thinking are reflected, as well as an understanding of the relations of power that the philosopher notices in mental and speech activity of individuals. There follows J. Baudrillard’s criticism of Foucouldian concept of power and the process of language development in society. In conclusion, the author summarizes the analyzed views on power, development of language and thinking as well as Foucault’s understanding of language. (shrink)

After highlighting Foucault’s ambivalent position with regards to psychoanalysis, this paper first shows that Foucault’s critical thought, insofar as it finds its condition of possibility in modern philosophy understood as a theoretical discourse on human finitude, must imperatively be complemented in the vicinity of psychoanalytical praxis-discourse: the ethical and political issue of the finished and desiring subjectivity can thus be examined anew. On the basis of the historicization of the Lacanian Law undertaken in La volonté de savoir, the paper therefore (...) concludes that a philosophical anthropology which is able to heave up to today’s decisive issues for the social critique and the politics of emancipation should build upon the Foucaldo-Lacanian critique of “modern” philosophical anthropology, but should not fear to confront it with radical criticism in return. (shrink)

A collective volume in memoriam Mihail Radu Solcan.

The psychopathological analysis of hysteria is a victim of narrow conceptualizations. Among these is the inscription of hysteria in the feminine sphere, about body and sexuality, which incentivized conceptual reductionism. Hysteria has been mainly considered a gendered pathology, almost exclusively female, and it has been associated with cultural and/or religious features over time rather than treated as a psychopathological world. Further, hysteria has been dominated by conceptual inaccuracies and indecision, not only in terms of clinical features but also in terms (...) of its definition. For this reason, it seems necessary to “undress” hysteria from this feminization, sexualization, and corporealization with which it has been abundantly clothed over the years. “Undressing” hysteria will make possible a reconfiguring and deconstructing of the explanatory-causal model of Charcot and Freud. However, if we take out this cultural heritage, the stigma accompanying this diagnosis, and the weight of the enormous historical tradition that hysteria carries, the world of hysteria continues to constitute a domain full of complexity and nosographic challenges. Hysteria has been considered a sum of psychological behaviors and states illustrated by drama, mystery, or falsity. The difficulty in understanding the multiple somatic manifestations which characterize this clinical condition created several controversies and much confusion. In the current nosography, the personological component of hysteria has been separated from its symptomatic manifestation, in the Histrionic Personality Disorder and Conversion Disorder categories, respectively. This segmentation by descriptive nosography does contribute to a unitary understanding of the phenomenon and, consequently, of daily clinical practice. Clinical complexity can be grasped and deciphered only if the symptom is inscribed in the patient’s lifeworld and his/her subjective life history. Clinical practice is thus thought of in terms of a structural aggregation of a homogeneous set of phenomena, together constituting a specific way of being in the world. The starting point of this article is the evident modalities characterizing this life-world, taking care not to confuse the point of origin with the point of expression. (shrink)

Si la notion de handicap ne cesse de progresser sur les plans tant déontologique que descriptif, l’évolution des mentalités, elle, reste en retard. La réalité du handicap génère toujours peurs et représentations contradictoires au sein de notre société. Le regard porté sur cette différence stigmatise et plonge les sujets dans des modalités relationnelles complexes. Être parent d’un enfant en situation de handicap, c’est porter une part de son stigmate. L’interaction entre le social et le familial produit des tensions qui deviennent (...) de véritables conflits psychiques au sein du groupe familial. L’article explore les mécanismes sociopsychologiques en œuvre. Il semble que certains parents vont progressivement, sous l’effet conjoint de leur propre histoire infantile et des messages sociaux concernant le handicap, mettre en place des mécanismes défensifs principalement marqués par l’évitement du lien à l’autre. (shrink)

The present article represents an attempt to argue in the favor of the thesis that, in the First Meditation, in the fragment where the problem of madness is spoken of, Descartes’ view aims to exclude the possibility that the knowing subject, the Cogito, could be insane, and not only to avoid the problem of madness because of various reasons or to replace the madness-example with a dreaming-example. In other words, this research aims to expose and to argue for Michel Foucault’s (...) point of view regarding the Cartesian problem of madness, and also to argue against Jacques Derrida’s view on the same issue. More broadly speaking, beyond the highlight of a possible different approach to Descartes’ text or the analysis of the Derrida-Foucault controversy, the main aim of this article is to emphasize a problem maybe less discussed of the act of knowing: beyond the proper usage of a wrong method, the misusage of a correct method or the poor practice of some spiritual exercises, the errors in the act of knowledge could as well follow from a deficiency in the knowing subject itself. (shrink)

A presente pesquisa de doutorado resulta de um projeto maior, intitulado “Sobre a Morte do Homem e a Psicologia, em Michel Foucault”. Esse projeto busca analisar a formulação, as nuances e consequências das diversas argumentações empregadas por Foucault nas críticas às “antropologias”, figuradas na trajetória dos textos dos anos 50 e 60. O eixo é o problema “antropológico”: nos textos de 1954, Foucault empreendia um duplo projeto de contestação e fundação das ciências humanas, buscando corrigir perspectivas consideradas errôneas em prol (...) de uma antropologia isenta de prejuízos. Esses projetos de fundação rapidamente cedem lugar a suspeitas e à recolocação do problema antropológico: mais do que “solução”, a questão antropológica começa a se delinear como um núcleo de problemas. A postura de fundação e contestação cederá lugar a um conjunto de análises que denunciam as antropologias a partir de seus compromissos históricos. A presente pesquisa tenta analisar essa passagem da “solução” ao “problema”, tomando como base alguns materiais: os textos de Foucault contemporâneos e posteriores, os debates aos quais esses textos tentavam se inserir, e também algumas anotações de Jacques Lagrange aos cursos ministrados por Foucault na École Normale Supérieure entre 1953 e 1955. O entrecruzamento de referências serve para extrair os problemas que Foucault enxerga nos textos de 1954, buscando delinear de que modo esses problemas conduzem às interrogações dos textos de 1957 e à escrita, em Uppsala, da Tese Principal sobre a história da loucura. //////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Cette recherche de doctorat est le résultat d'un projet plus vaste intitulé «La Question de la Mort de l'Homme et de la Psychologie selon Michel Foucault». Ce projet a l'objetif d'examiner la formulation, les facteurs et les conséquences rapportés aux différentes démarches utilisées par Foucault dans ses critiques aux «anthropologies», figurées dans la trajectoire des textes publiés pendant les années 1950 et 1960. La question principale est le problème «anthropologique»: dans les textes parus en 1954, Foucault a entrepris un double projet de contestation et fondation des sciences humaines; le jeune philosophe essayait de corriger les perspectives considerées par lui comme des perspectives erronées, pour en établir une nouvelle anthropologie finalement rigoreuse. Par contre, d'une façon relativement vite les projets de fondation ont eté remplacés pour des suspicions et donc il y a eu un changement de la façon d'énoncer le problème anthropologique: au lieu d'être «solution», la question anthropologique commence à devenir un domaine plein de problèmes. L'essay de fonder donne place à un ensemble d'analyses qui dénoncent plusieurs engagements historiquements faits pour les connaissances anthropologiques. La recherche realisée essaye d'analyser ce passage de la «solution» au «problème», en croisant la lecture de certains matériaux: les textes publiés par Foucault pendant les années 50 (et quelques textes des annés 60), les débats contemporains et les discussions sur lesquelles ces textes ont essayé d'entrer, et aussi quelques notes écrites par Jacques Lagrange pendant les cours donnés par Foucault à l'Ecole Normale Supérieure depuis 1953 jusqu'à 1955. Le croisement de références a l'objetif de voir le contexte des problèmes probablement vus par Foucault dans les textes de 1954, et le chemin parcouru par lui, jusqu'àux questions enoncées dans les textes de 1957 et l'écriture à Uppsala de la thèse principale sur l'histoire de la folie. (shrink)

La concepción más común de lo utópico es la de aquella entidad social que, por su misma perfección, no puede darse en la realidad. Esa concepción, que se ha impuesto en el pensamiento moderno y contemporáneo, suele aplicarse, asimismo, a la obra de Tomás Moro, Utopia, en la que se suele ver un estado perfecto pero relegado a la geografía fantástica de lo que podría ser pero nunca será, razón por la cual el humanista ha situado su sociedad en una (...) isla imaginaria. Pero esta concepción olvida los elementos auto-irónicos de la obra de Moro que excluyen una lectura que se pudiera basar en la dicotomía perfección ideal/imperfección real. Ensayamos una lectura, por tanto, más “hermenéutica” de la obra del escritor inglés. (shrink)

Dans cet article l’auteur a souhaité étudier le travail de subjectivation des liens familiaux chez un auteur de violence sexuelle dans le cadre du dispositif pénal qu’est l’injonction de soins. À partir d’une recherche clinique menée sur un mode longitudinal, il propose de montrer comment le génogramme (en test, re-test) peut être un révélateur de la mise en œuvre du processus de subjectivation. Ce procédé permet de relever deux différences notables entre les deux génogrammes : dans le passage d’une place (...) fantasmatique dans les liens (celle d’un « enfant ») à celle d’une position instituée concomitante avec une affiliation intersubjective ; la présence ou l’absence de nom sur les icônes parentales. Des différences favorisées, selon nous, par le dispositif d’injonction de soins. (shrink)

Si la notion de handicap ne cesse de progresser sur les plans tant déontologique que descriptif, l’évolution des mentalités, elle, reste en retard. La réalité du handicap génère toujours peurs et représentations contradictoires au sein de notre société. Le regard porté sur cette différence stigmatise et plonge les sujets dans des modalités relationnelles complexes. Être parent d’un enfant en situation de handicap, c’est porter une part de son stigmate. L’interaction entre le social et le familial produit des tensions qui deviennent (...) de véritables conflits psychiques au sein du groupe familial. L’article explore les mécanismes sociopsychologiques en œuvre. Il semble que certains parents vont progressivement, sous l’effet conjoint de leur propre histoire infantile et des messages sociaux concernant le handicap, mettre en place des mécanismes défensifs principalement marqués par l’évitement du lien à l’autre. (shrink)