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Foucault and Postmodern Conceptions of Reason

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Laurence Barry

    1. Petah Tikva, Israel

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  • Centered on Foucault and rationality, with a focus on the lectures at the Collège de France
  • Offers an original interpretation of Foucault’s work, in light of the lectures
  • Argues that Foucault's reappraisal of modernity occurs with the 1978 and 1979 lectures, in which he sketches modern power as governmentality and neoliberalism

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 1-19

  3. Early Critiques of Modernity: The Human Sciences Between Knowledge and Discipline

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 21-49

  4. Governmentality as a Turning Point

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 51-71

  5. From Government to Subjectivity

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 73-93

  6. Forms of Subjectivity: Subjection/Subjectivation?

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 95-118

  7. The Genealogy of the Modern Subject

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 119-144

  8. The “Return to Kant” and Autonomy

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 145-174

  9. Foucault, Kant, and Critique

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 175-203

  10. Concluding Remarks: Foucault and Contemporary Social Criticism

    • Laurence Barry
    Pages 205-228

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 229-234
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Keywords

About this book

​For decades Foucault was mostly known for his diagnosis of modernity as a form of entrapment, both in our modes of thought and our behaviors. This book argues that Foucault's reappraisal of modernity occurs with the 1978 and 1979 lectures, in which he sketches modern power as governmentality and neoliberalism. From this perspective, Foucault’s once surprising studies on the Greeks' constitution of the ‘self’ can be seen as a continuation of his diagnosis of late modernity, and as an attempt to retrieve a form of autonomy for our modern selves. One finds in the late Foucault a postmodern conception of reason and not a destruction of reason; but this is possible only if postmodernity is seen as a critical exercise of reason in the analysis of norms. 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Petah Tikva, Israel

    Laurence Barry

About the author

Laurence Barry is an associate lecturer at the Hebrew University and a trained actuary. She currently researches the implications of big data for insurance as a practice of neoliberal governmentality at Chaire PARI (ENSAE/Sciences Po), France.


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Foucault and Postmodern Conceptions of Reason

  • Authors: Laurence Barry

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48943-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-48942-7Published: 15 July 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-48945-8Published: 15 July 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-48943-4Published: 14 July 2020

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 234

  • Topics: Critical Theory, French, Comparative Politics

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