Comments on intransigent vicissitudes: Foucault-Derrida on Madness

Thanks for the insightful comment. Derrida of cour...

2009-05-22T13:23:19.330-05:00

Thanks for the insightful comment. Derrida of course reduces everything to language pretty much (I don't mean that dismissively, his works are brilliant), but I think it's more a conflict here between method. Since Foucault derives madness from reason, not language per se. So it's not that he poses that it is not really the opposite, but that the distinction lies on a different register altogether.

Consider Derrida's method of critiquing Foucault, ...

2009-05-22T12:36:30.771-05:00

Consider Derrida's method of critiquing Foucault, which is that Foucault cannot portray madness with language because language presupposes reason, and reason is the opposite of madness. And because of this reason cannot portray madness, so Foucault failed to do what he said he did.

This of course rests on the assumption that reason is the opposite of madness, and Derrida has a special critique of opposites. He says it is false to privilege one binary opposite over the other - black/white, inside/outside, etc. Instead, we have "play" of privilege between the opposites.

So why in this case does he privilege madness over reason, if only to attack Foucault?

I haven't read the debate you are reporting on, so...

2009-02-26T07:36:00.000-06:00

I haven't read the debate you are reporting on, so I can't comment on accuracy. But I will say that your last sentence is quite lovely.