Xiaojiang
Michel foucault (1926 10) was born in poitiers, the capital of Viana province, France, which is a quiet town in southwest France. His father is a respected surgeon in this city, and his mother is also a surgeon's daughter. Foucault completed his primary and secondary education in poitiers. 1945, he left his hometown and went to Paris to take the entrance examination for French higher normal schools. 1946 successfully entered normal university to study philosophy. 195 1 After passing the qualification examinations for teachers in universities and middle schools, he did research work in 1 with the support of the thiers Foundation, and 1952 was hired as a teaching assistant by Lille University.
As early as normal university, Foucault showed great interest in psychology and psychiatry. It happened that his parents' family friend Jacqueline Verdot was a psychologist, and Jacqueline's husband George Verdot was a student of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Therefore, under the influence of the Wildows, Foucault made a systematic and in-depth study of psychology and psychoanalysis, and together with Jacqueline, he translated the book Dream and Existence by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Van Geer. After this book was written, Foucault prefaced the French text at Jacqueline's request, and drafted a preface that was longer than the main text before 1953 Easter. In this long article, his dazzling writing style in the future has begun to appear. 1954, this rare translation with a longer preface than the main text was published by Decrais de Bruvo Press and included in the series of Anthropological Works and Research. In the same year, Foucault published his first monograph, Psychosis and Personality, which was included in the series of Introduction to Philosophy and published by French University Press. Foucault later denied that the book was immature, so 1962 was almost unrecognizable when it was reprinted.
1In August, 955, under the strong recommendation of the famous mythologist George Dumezel, Foucault was hired as a French teacher by Uppsala University in Sweden. During his stay in Sweden, Foucault also served as the curator of the "French Pavilion" established by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Therefore, he spent a lot of time organizing various cultural exchange activities outside of teaching. During his three years in Sweden, Foucault began to write his doctoral thesis. Thanks to the library of Uppsala University, which has collected a large number of medical history files, letters and various rare books since16th century, and also thanks to Dumizel's constant urging and help, when Foucault left Sweden, the book "Crazy and Irrational-Crazy History in Classical Times" was basically completed.
1958, Foucault resigned voluntarily because of the heavy burden of teaching and work, and returned to Paris in June. Two months later, with the help of Dumize and because of Foucault's excellent organizational ability during his stay in Sweden, he was appointed as the director of the French Cultural Center of Warsaw University by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Foucault arrived in Poland in June, 5438+this year 10, but he didn't stay there for long. The reason was dramatic: he was recorded as a beautiful man by Polish intelligence agencies. Foucault was gay when he was very young, and he made no secret of it. As far as personal life is concerned, this man obviously deserves the reputation of "romance". However, in the 1950s, when the Cold War was in full swing, both sides were trying to spy on each other. On 1959, the Cultural Counselor of the French Embassy in Poland asked for leave, and the ambassador had intended to promote Foucault, so he was appointed as the Counsellor and submitted a letter of formal appointment. As a result, Polish intelligence agencies took advantage of the situation and romantic young philosophers fell into the trap.
After leaving Poland, Foucault continued his overseas trip, this time to Hamburg, and remained the director of the French Cultural Center. 1960 February, Foucault finally completed his doctoral thesis in Germany. This is a great book that is equally shocking in thickness and depth: this book includes appendices and bibliography, which is 943 pages long. This paper investigates the evolution of the concepts of madness and mental illness since17th century, and combs in detail the formation and transformation of the image of madness in plastic arts, literature and philosophy and its significance to modern people. Traditionally, applicants for national doctoral degrees should submit a main thesis and a sub-thesis, so Foucault decided to translate Kant's Practical Anthropology with the introduction as the sub-thesis. Although this introduction has never been published, Foucault researchers found that some important concepts and ideas that he later matured and embodied in Words and Things and Archaeology of Knowledge have actually been formed in this paper.
At Foucault's request, Jean Shiplett, his former philosophy teacher at Henry IV Middle School and then president of Paris Normal University, readily agreed to be the "research tutor" of this sub-thesis, and recommended Georges Conguilhem, a famous historian of science and then head of the philosophy department of Paris University, as his main thesis tutor. The latter praised the history of madness and wrote the following comments for him: "People will see the value of this research, because Mr. Foucault has been paying attention to the various uses of mental illness reflected in plastic arts, literature and philosophy for modern people since the Renaissance; Since he sometimes straightened out and sometimes messed up the intricate thread of Ariadne, his thesis was a furnace of analysis and synthesis. Although it is not so easy to read, it is a wise work ... Therefore, I firmly believe that the importance of Mr. Foucault's research is beyond doubt. " [1]1961On May 20th, Foucault successfully passed the defense and obtained the Doctor of Literature degree. This paper was also rated as the best philosophical paper of the year, and a bronze award was awarded to the author.
Words and things, books and shadows
Foucault portrait
Before Foucault defended his doctoral thesis, Wei Ye Man, the new head of the Department of Philosophy of clermont-ferrand University, wrote to the author who was still in Hamburg at that time after reading the manuscript of Crazy History, hoping to hire him as a professor. Foucault accepted it gladly and became an acting professor in June of 1960+00. On May 1962, clermont-ferrand University officially promoted Foucault as a full professor in the Department of Philosophy. Throughout the 1960s, Foucault's popularity rose sharply with the publication of his works and critical articles: 1963 Raymond Russell and the Birth of Clinical Medicine, 1964 Nietzsche, Freud and Marx, 1966 Words and Things.
This book attempts to construct a kind of "humanistic archaeology", "aiming at determining when human exploration begins and when people appear in western culture as knowledge objects." [1] Foucault used the new term "knowledge" to refer to the deep framework of knowledge generation, movement and expression in a specific period. Foucault pointed out that there was a deep fracture between the knowledge bases in different periods through the investigation of the change flow of the knowledge base since the Renaissance. In addition, because linguistics has the special function of deconstructing the flowing language in all humanities, linguistics is in a very special position in the study of humanities: through the study of language, knowledge emerges from the depths. This book is "witty, profound and full of wisdom" [1]. However, it is such a complete academic treatise that once published, it became a bestseller in short supply: the first edition was published by the most famous French Guellema Publishing House in 1966, with 3500 copies printed and sold out by the end of the year. 1March 967: 4,000,165438+1October: 5,000 ... It is said that by the 1980s, in France alone, Words and Things had printed 654.38+million copies. The evaluation of this book is equally dramatic, and the comments are almost completely divided, either praising or angrily condemning. The leaders of the two countries are also excellent: Sartre, a great philosopher known as the "intellectual conscience", claimed that this book "should establish a new ideology, that is, the last dam that the bourgeoisie can build to resist Marxism", and the organs and magazines of the French * * * production party also published refuting articles in succession; More interestingly, however, this time, the intellectuals of Catholic sects and the seemingly damned producers stood on the same front: although the attack methods were different, both factions resolutely opposed this. However, Foucault's lineup is not inferior: Gonquillam is angry. 1967 published a long article denouncing the criticism of Ci and Wu by Sartre, pointing out that the focus of the debate is not ideology, but Foucault has created a brand-new ideological pedigree, which is precisely the "humanitarianism" or "humanitarianism" adhered to by Sartre and others.
In any case, words and things have brought great prestige to Foucault. Soon, Foucault left France again and went to Tunis University as a professor of philosophy. Foucault spent the/kloc-0 May Movement in Tunisia. This is a period when the slogan and action of "revolution" spread all over Europe and even the world. A series of student movements broke out in Tunisia, in which Foucault participated and exerted considerable influence. Since then, his figure and name have appeared in demonstrations, protests and petitions in France many times.
1The incident of May 1968 prompted the French education administration to reflect on the defects of the old university system and began to plan the reform law. As an experiment, during the period from 1968 to 10, edgar faure, the new minister of education, decided to establish a new university in Wanshen, a suburb of Paris, which will have full freedom to experiment with various new ideas about the reform of university education system. Foucault was appointed as the head of the philosophy department of the new school. However, Wan Sen soon fell into endless student strikes, street confrontation with the police and even hot conflicts, and Foucault's philosophy department also became the source of unrest in the extreme left noise. The two years in Wansen are two years that make Foucault feel tired.
1972 65438+February 2nd, which is a memorable day for Foucault. On this day, he stepped onto the high podium of the French Academy and officially became a professor of the history of ideological system of the French Academy. Entering the French Academy means reaching the pinnacle of academic status: this is the "temple in the temple" of French university institutions.
Foucault took an active part in various social movements in the 1970s. He used his reputation to support the movement aimed at improving prisoners' human rights, and personally launched the "prison intelligence group" to collect and sort out the detailed process of the daily operation of the prison system. He signed a petition to safeguard the rights and interests of immigrants and refugees; Participate in the protest March in support of prison rioters with Sartre; Risking to Spain to protest dictator Franco's death sentence for political prisoners. All these prompted him to think deeply about the deep structure of power and the operation of imprisonment and punishment. These thoughts constitute the whole theme of his most important book "Discipline and Punishment" in 1970s.
Foucault's last book, The History of Sex, Volume I, The Will to Know, was published in February 1976. The purpose of this work is to explore the changes and development of exploratory ideas in history. Foucault placed high hopes on this history of sexual concepts and carved it with a perfect attitude. The outline and draft were changed again and again, so that the final text was quite different from the original plan. This is another masterpiece. According to Foucault's final arrangement, the book is divided into four volumes, namely, Heritage of Knowledge, Enjoyment of Pleasure, Self-Care and Confession of Carnal Desire. Unfortunately, the author will never see all this. 1On June 25th, 984, Foucault died of AIDS in Paris-Sallebert Tyre Hospital at the age of 58.
Foucault's death shocked France. Premier People's Republic of China (PRC) and Minister of Education said, "Foucault's death robbed the greatest philosopher of our time ... anyone who wants to understand the modernity in the late 20th century should consider Foucault." Newspapers such as Le Monde, Liberation, Morning Post and New Observer have successively published a large number of commemorative articles. Important figures in the ideological circle have also issued commemorative speeches: Fernand Braudel, the master of yearbook school, said that "France has lost one of the most dazzling thinkers and the most generous intellectuals in the contemporary era"; George Dumize's commemorative article was touching, and the old man said with tears that he often said, "Michelle will write me an obituary after I die." However, the fact is ruthless, and the reversed prediction makes people even more sad: "michel foucault left me, which made me feel that I lost a lot, not only the color of life, but also the content of life."
Michel foucault (1926- 1984)
On the morning of June 29th, Foucault's teachers and relatives and friends held a farewell ceremony in the hospital. At the ceremony, Foucault's student and philosopher Gilles Deleuze read the eulogy. This passage is selected from Foucault's last book "Enjoy Happiness", which is just enough to sum up Foucault's lifelong pursuit and struggle. I will use this passage to end this essay commemorating the 8 th anniversary of Foucault's death/KLOC-0.
"As for what inspired me, this question is very simple. I hope this simple answer is enough for some people. The answer is curiosity, which means that in any case, we should have a little curiosity driven by it stubbornly: not the kind of curiosity that tries to absorb what people know, but the kind of curiosity that allows us to surpass ourselves. To put it bluntly, what is the value of enthusiasm for knowledge if it only leads to a certain degree of knowledge growth, rather than letting learners deviate from themselves as much as possible in one way or another? In life: If people further observe and think, it is absolutely necessary to ask such a question: Can people think in a way different from the original way of thinking and perceive in a way different from the original way of observation? ..... Today's philosophy-I mean philosophical activities-if it is not the criticism of thought on itself, what is it? What's the point if it doesn't try to know how and how much it can think in different ways, but proves what it already knows? "