Where do I start with this French fuck? I'm already loosely familiar (the Panopticon, specifically, which I know is from "Discipline and Punish) but he's ludicrously hard to understand and he's got a lot bigger of a body of work than I anticipated.
Where on the sides of this deep end is there a diving board? "The Order of Things"?
order of things and archaelogy of knowledge are considering minor although he does lay out the whole power/knowledge shit in those, but i recommend history of sexuality volume one that's where he blows everything u thought u know about fags, religion and science the fuck out, and also explains u the power/knowledge too
Always read Foucault chronologically
inb4 shitposting
also noooooooo not order of things. honestly I'd recommend some secondary literature, maybe the Foucault reader. personally I'd say he's one thinker where the dense af prose is unwarranted and you can definitely wet your feet in clearer presentations of his ideas.
>>7834570
>Foucault reader
I have this, and it can still be a struggle.
>>7834323
Don't waste your time with Fucko
>>7834323
he invented the SJW by using the genealogical method to show how oppression and power is embedded in everything.
DO NOT READ HIM.
read Julius Evola instead and Schopenhauer's "On Women"
>>7834323
Probably best to start with his genealogical period: Discipline and Punish, then History of Sexuality.
>>7834323
Also, avoid Order of Things for now.
Order of Things felt feckin' incomprehensible to me without pretty good background knowledge of early modern French intellectual history. Foucault just kept dropping names and ideas without explanation until I just gave up.
I'd say Archaeology for early Foucault, and History of Sexuality for later. Or maybe start with Dreyfus and Rabinow's book.
>>7834323
Try the college de France lecture series, read them chronologically. The earlier stuff is getting translated to English at a rate of knots so it should be easy to get.
to be honest with you I jumped into discipline and punish without any ideas what it was about or who Foucault was and it was understandable.
I don't know about translations though, maybe they complexify him.
>>7835060
use stanford encyclopedia and look up his influences and inspirations, including structuralism
that other guy is 100% correct, foucault's prose is needlessly obtuse
>>7835469
Avoid Archaeology, OP.
We need some more flowcharts for philosophers.
>>7834335
>history of sexuality volume one
This is the book I'd recommend as well.
It's about 200 pages long and can be read in about 2 days. Don't look up every single detail. If you understand about 50% you're good.
Not sure I'd agree though with the commentary about "blowing shit up and fags".
There's surprisingly little about homosexuals actually, just a few mentions (to my disappointment).
It's a scholarly discussion, in exquisite prose, of how confession practices emerged in the early middle ages (afair) and mutatis mutandis gave the frame for 19th c. psychoanalysis standards (anamnesis) - among other things.
It's an history of concepts in other words and a really potent one at that. It is because it examines social pretenses and epistemology.
And in that sense "power" is a central theme in this book and in the author's larger body of work, because it's about the power held by science and those systems of knowledge who claim that status.
And that power, which is exorbitant ("stone of madness" in the middle ages as depicted in Bruegel's or Bosch's work, lobotomy, malaria therapy, electroshock therapy that made it so that Hemmingway was so cured he had blew his brains out), is put in contrast with frail, questionable foundations. Though don't expect a moral lesson. I feel it's left open as to what this means and at the time was a prompt for investigation by the established disciplines.
This is where the famous sentence owed to him comes in play "a reason madder than madness" or "madness of another turn."
It's a history of the people. But especially of those who are on the fringes. It looks at them and looks at the people who look at them with the ambitions of scientific rationalization (hence I'm guessing the discussion of the Velasquez painting) or pure spectacle (you could pay to see the insane like zoo animal not so long ago) and with the certainty of being on the good side of reason, sanity.
And no... he's not a hack. The man had clinical experience (both as a patient and on "the other side" as an observant in training), received a complete classical education and a the type of universal knowledge that only few men achieve once every century that stretched over history of science, history of art, history of literature.
It's hard to read him and not think immediately of Panofsky whose errors even were great (false reading of the Arnolfini portrait).
>talk to a girl who lists Foucault as one of few authors she likes
>she's an academic
>try to initiate a meaningful conversation about said author yadayda
Conversation didn't go very far because she had only read excerpts. Fuck, if it's your job, at least read the goddam books.
>>7834323
If you liked Panopticon, Discipline and Punishment would be a good start, as the Panopticon is the apex of that book. Understanding the background of which he came to that modern conclusion can help in understanding it. History of Sexuality should be your next (or first) stop.
>>7836160
>Don't look up every single detail. If you understand about 50% you're good.
Do not do this. If you do, you are wasting your time. Philosophy is not a dick measuring contest, especially not when it comes to trying to understand the text.
In general, this poster >>7836160 wasted their time in 'reading' Foucault, they are spouting nonsense.
"Conversation didn't go very far because she had only read excerpts." Do yourself a favor and actually 'read' the texts yourself. It may seems somewhat counter-intuitive, but Hegel can help you in this regard, specifically Phenomenology's preface.
>>7834323
Hermeneutics of the Subject.
>>7836160
Most people in academia who claim theory is a major part of their work have only read excerpts or had formalised aspects of ideas filter down to them.
Funnily enough that's actually an aspect of the ossification/routinisation/etc. of the sciences that Foucault talks about lol
>>7834323
i don't get most of the comments about avoiding order of things. I read it three times and comprehend the most of it. It's not even that long
>>7836199
>dropping names : check
>no discussion of content : check
>playing philosophers and talking from high up the mountain like Hegel : check
>alluding to books and their contents without any further explanation, implied knowledge
I get it.
the "may seems" especially, in a paper tissue message of about 7 sentences, was a nice touch.
You're implying Foucault wrote philosophy or otherwise wrote FOR philosophers and even more erroneous wrote AS philosopher.
He himself explicitly rejected the labels and he did so why? Because he aimed at writing a history - that would be something else than strictly history or even philosophy (those 2 disciplines had both had their take on reason and yet had failed to produce anything that would be of any potency when it came to the critic of psychiatry hence also Foucault's reading of Descartes, not Hegel) - of those various same disciplines.
In fact he was so far from philosophy - the kind that Hegel wrote - that at the end of his life he spoke of becoming a journalist.
His life or the reasons he turned to the epistemology of the (so-called) sciences of the mind themselves had very little to do with philosophy and there was nothing grand about them :
multiple breakdowns during his studies (he read his roommates private letters and attempted suicide), he was a fag in the 40s, I'm assuming the kind that likes to take it up the ass (he enjoyed being told what to do while on all 4s, this we know from another biography), his father was a doctor.
I'll modify my recommendation in light of the idiocy I've just read and recommend to anyone who's serious about reading Foucault, to start with a biography (you can pick the standard one by Eribon or the one that goes into all sorts of details about his life in America especially, don't remember the author).
THEN move on to Vol. 1 of History of Sexuality followed by his "phd thesis" (Madness and Insanity), continue chronologically.
As for Hegel, I'm pretty sure Hegel will not help me because Hegel has nothing to do with anything, because the topic is Foucault and where to start ; of which you've read so little beyond the titles you feel the need to invoke other authors whose preface you may or may not have read (you provide nothing that would allow any kind of discussion), but whose Phenomenology you have not read, because truth is no one has read Phenomenology (a door blocker of 1000 pages) unless that was their dissertation work and because Hegel is as useful in 2016 as he was in the 19th century when young Marx buried him.
start by voting sanders like the degen you are
>>7835119
this. I can't believe how many people here buy into voodoo french potion sellers.
>>7835627
Why? IIRC it's a relatively easy-to-read summary of what he was doing in his pre-genealogy books. Although I suppose when I read it I was specifically looking for a theory/method for the history of ideas, so it fit the bill nicely.
>>7836403
>You're implying Foucault wrote philosophy or otherwise wrote FOR philosophers and even more erroneous wrote AS philosopher.
To a degree, more-so implying that you need to think philosophically/critically/thoroughly as you read. I disregarded your post as nonsense because it was. Your definition of Foucault's definition of power is silly, and saying you can read Foucault in two days is humorous, not worthy of a quality critique.
"In fact he was so far from philosophy - the kind that Hegel wrote - that at the end of his life he spoke of becoming a journalist."
He wanted so bad to go beyond Hegel, or go without him. But there is only so far you can go before you return to Hegel.
"to start with a biography"
If you know so much about Foucault, you would object to this very statement; the whole Death of the Author, no?
>Hegel will not help me because Hegel has nothing to do with anything, because the topic is Foucault
To understand post-modernism, especially French post-modernism, (yes yes I know Foucault's stance on the whole term), you have to understand their perspective, or grievances with Hegel/modernism.
>Phenomenology you have not read, because truth is no one has read Phenomenology
I have. And you should to.
>>7836403
Marx buried Hegel, no need to read Hegel.
Zizek buried Foucault, no need to read Foucault.
Check and mate, Frenchy.
>>7836621
Zizek buried exactly no one.
He's fighting ghosts
>>7835689
>>>/mu/
>>7836621
>thinks zizek on foucault is comparable to marx on hegel
>>7836160
>There's surprisingly little about homosexuals actually, just a few mentions (to my disappointment).
That's one of the points.
>can be read in about 2 days
No wonder why it went over your head.
