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    Ana Chavez
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    Derrida - Cogito and the History of Madness

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    828 views18 pages

    Derrida - Cogito and The History of Madness

    Uploaded by

    Ana Chavez

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 18
    Le eas oue wie Bag Te aera ane of tact : See taue eee Seeley cl onlay ee es of Ve / vot depth as decay, hse) a iisty” iaving formerly had the good fortune to study under Michel Foucault, I retain the con sciousness of an admiring and grateful disciple. Now, the disciple's consciousness, when he starts, I would not say to dispute, but to engage i th the ‘master or, better, to articulate the mterminable and dialogue which made him into a disciple—this disciple’s consciousness is an unhappy conscious- to enter into dialogue in the world, that sting to answer back, he always feels fant” who, by defini ialogue is in danger of being taken—incorre i alone: finds already challenged by the master's voice precedes his own. He feels himself lenged, or rejected or accused; as a he is challenged by the master who speaks hhim and before him, to reproach him for mak- allenge and to reject it in advance, having, elaborated it before him; and having interiorized the se To aster, he is also challenged by the disciple that he himself is. This interminable ‘unhappiness of the disciple pethaps stems from the fact that he does not yet know—or is still concealing from humself—that the master, like real ay ‘always be absent, The disciple must break the glass, or better the mirror, the ‘many of which, most, will remain open. My point of departure might appear slight and sttificial. In this 673-page book, Michel Foucault devotes three pages—and, moreover, in a kind of prologue 10 his second chapter—to a cert the first of Descartes’s Medi- in this passago madness, insanity seem, T emphasize ‘seem, dismissed, excluded, and ostracized from the eircle of philosophical dig- rity, denied entry t0 the philosopher's eity, demied tne right to philosophical consideration, ordered away from the bench as soon as summoned to it by Deseartes—this last tribunal of a Cogito that, by its essence, could nor possibly be mad, Tn alleging—correctly or incorrectly, as will be determined—that the sense of Foucault's entire project can be pinpointed in these few allusive and somewhat ‘enigmatic pages, and that the reading of Descartes and the Cartesian Cogito ts problematic the totality of this History of Madness all therefore be asking myself, 1m (wa series of questions, the 1. First, and in some ways this is a prejudicial question: isthe interpreta Descartes's intention that 1s proposed to us justifiable? What I here eal interpre tation is a certain passage, @ certain semantic relationship proposed by Foucault between, on the one hard, what Descartes said—or what he 1s believed to have with intentional vagueness for led, a certain meaningful f. pretation 1s justifiable, 1 ain therefore asking nary questions into one: (a) Have we fully ‘meant been clearly perceived? This comprehension of the sign in and of itself, in y as a sign, if may so calli, 1s only the first moment but ‘condition of all hermeneutics and of any claim to transition ‘When one attempts, n a general way, to pass from an obvious to a latent language, one must first be rigorously sure of the obvious, ‘meaning.? The analyst, for example, must first speak the same language as the 2 Cogito and the istory of Madness patient, (b) Second implication of the first question: once understood as a sigh, ‘Thats, gam, two questions in one: Does it have the historical meaning assigned to 1? does i nave this meaning, «giver meaning Foucault assign to 1? Or, Jetond, does it have the historical meaning assigned to x? Is this meaning Exhausted by ts histoncity? In other words, 1 it fully, m each and every one of ‘aspects, histoneal im the classical sense ofthe word? 2. Second series of questions (and here we sll go somewat beyond the case of Descartes, beyond the ease of the Cartesian no fonger in ‘nd of itself but asthe index of a more general problematic): it ofthe rereading ofthe Cartesian Cogito that we shall be led to propose (or rater to recall, fr, ltt be sald tthe outset, his wil in some ways be the most classical, banal reading, even if not the easiest one), will i aot be possible to and methodological presuppositions of this his- for Foucaut’s enterprise is too nich, be preceded by a method or even hy ss true, a5 Foucault rections sense of i, except in elation to reason," it wll perhaps be possible not to add anything whatsoever (0 wat Foor but pethaps only Io repeat ce mre Of the tof is dvson betven enon and madness of which Pouca speks 0 wel, the meaning, & meaning ofthe Cogito or (paral) Cogito (forthe Cogto of the either he fst nor tela for of Cog) and eso fo ‘termine that wha stn question hee 5 an experience which, ot futest teaches is potaps no lest adventurous, octal, and patel tan Iheexpenence of madness, neds belove, much less adverse to and selstory of madness thas, accuative and objeetijing of, than Fouenl seems 10 think Asa frst stage, we will tempt a commentary, and will accompany or allow as fahfuly ae possible Foucaul's mentions in eioeribing an inerpretation of the Cartesian Cogt within he otal framework of the History of Madnes, What Should then become apparent inthe cours of ths Brat stage he meaning of he Caresian Copuo as feed by Foucault. To this end, i i necessary (0 recall he general plan ofthe book and fo open several marginal question, destined 19 fein open tnd marginal wring a history of madness, Foven Bests mer, but also the very nfeasi fo wee a history of AC Hanes ef self OF rane sell. Tht i, byleing madness speak for If Foucault wanted madness to be the suect of his book in every sense of thas atlempted—and this 1s the “ Two the word: its theme and its first-person narrator, its author, madness speaking about itself. Foucault wanted to write a history of madness itself, that 1s madness speaking on the basis of its own experience and under its own authority, and nota history of madness deseribed from within the language of reason, the language of psychiatry on madness—the agonistic and rhetorical dimensions of the preposi- tion on overlapping hete—on madness already crushed beneath psychiatry, dominated, beaten to the ground, interned, that 15 to say, madness made into an object and exiled as the other of a language and a historical meaning which have Foucault says, refore, of escaping the rap or objectivist naiveté that would consist in writing a history of untamed madness, of madness as it carries itself ‘and breathes before being caught and paralyzed in the nets of classical reason, from within the very language of classical reason itself, utilizing the concepts ‘that were the historical instruments of the capture of madness—the restrained anid ing Ianguage of reason, Foucault's determination to avoid this trap 1s the most audacious and seductive aspect of h , producing admirable tension. But 18 also, wath all seriousness, the maddest aspect of project. And it 1s remarkable that this obstinate determination to avoid the the trap se by classical reason to catch madness and which can now he attompis to write a history of madness itself without repeat- ing the aggression of rationalism—

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