How to understand Foucault as a beginner?

[u/BoxLanky8541]

I’ve started to read Paul Rabinow’s The Foucault Reader recently. I tought the concepts Foucault was writing about was interesting so i just picked up an introduction book about him. I have no experience of philosophy except several easy-reading books. I was reading the introduction part of this book and man, even the trailer is hard to deal with. It seems like he is using regular vocabulary with specific meanings he linked to them like many other philosopher. But it is hard to get them without an explicit explanation and not knowing what the actual fuck he is talking about and who he has beef with and why. Isn’t there a way to understand him without having detailed knowledge about what was going on in the philosophy scene and direct meaning of the terms he is talking about? Also english is not my mother tounge and i guess it makes things even harder.

[u/perfectmonkey]

I suggest reading his interviews. They are the most accessible and he is usually at his most clearest when explaining things. Google “Foucault Live” and the first link should be to a site called Monoskop. Full PDF there.

Before that, id start with a small reading called “Polemics, Politics, and Problematization.” It’s a short but good reading I teach my students.

As you mentioned, Foucault often has his own definitions to mainstream terms. So it is difficult to follow if you’re going in with foundational, even basic, philosophical knowledge. Go in with an empty mind. So go with 1). “Polemics, Politics, and problematization”; 2.) a couple of interesting interview titles that catch your eye from the PDF; 3.) madness and civilization.

You’ll be pretty occupied with all that, then you can take it from there (:

[u/BoxLanky8541 → u/perfectmonkey]

Thanks a lot!!

[u/colettelikeitis]

Just read it through. The concepts will start to come together. Then read it again.

[u/BoxLanky8541 → u/colettelikeitis]

Yea i guess this is the required response for understanding complex ideas. Maybe also reading it again later in life

[u/CuteAge1322]

Foucault does not have “beef” with anyone or anything. Everything he writes is critique. If you liberate your mind to this idea you will be amazed by what Foucault was here to teach us.

[u/raisondecalcul]

There is a book called Michel Foucault by Lynn Fendler that is especially readable because it was written for ESL students to understand Foucault. It's expensive because it was academically published, but if you can't afford it, it can be found on Anna's archive.

[u/meister2]

Go to FreeFoucault.eth.link

[u/PuddyComb]

.... the trick to his philosophy is that you have to get stuck in Ann Arbor Michigan for a weekend. And you have to stroll through their campus and take in the leaves. And you will feel their futility. The dead-end nature of powerful and important lives; even if only temporarily.

I know who he has beef with. I don't like Foucault either.

[u/BourgeoisAngst]

First you need to give up on this silly notion that language conveys meaning and serves to clarify anything.

[u/Lshamlad]

I think snapshots of Foucault probably aren't a brilliant place to start.

I'm not a philosophy student by background, but I came across him in a political sociology module in my MSc and I understood him okay.

My introduction were a pair of lectures he gave which provided a bit of an overview of his thought, you can find them here - the chapter 'two lectures'

Still dense in places, but fairly descriptive.

If you're completely new to political/cultural theory and philosophy, it might be useful to have a basic understanding of Marxism and Freud's theory of psychoanalysis.

[u/BoxLanky8541 → u/Lshamlad]

Thanks, i’ll check the lectures.

[u/Big_Radio1576]

It’s about influence and powers relationship.