Critical reproblemization Foucault and the task of modern philosophy

Michael Schwartz

It was a matter of analyzing … the problemizations by ʻbring[ing] to light the domain where the forma- through which being offers itself to be, necessarily tion, development, and transformation of forms of thought – and the practices on the basis of which experience can situate themselves: that is, [in] a history these problemizations are formed. of thought.ʼ8 It appeared to him that ʻthere was one , The Use of Pleasure1 element that was capable of describing the history of Michel Foucault is well known for having periodically thought: this was what one could call the element of redescribed his previous studies in light of his current problems or, more exactly, problemizations.ʼ9 Foucault project.2 A case in point is the two introductions to The came to view all his work as having been concerned Order of Things. The 1970 ʻForward to the English with problemization. Editionʼ frames the book as an analysis of discursive As the crux of Foucaultʼs final redescription, the practices;3 yet the original 1966 ʻPrefaceʼ makes no notion of problemization can be grasped as a crea- mention of the rules of discourse, but foregrounds the tive reworking of Heideggerʼs account of equipmental study of ʻthe modes of being of things, and of the deficiency. Foucault was explicit in his last interviews order that divided them up before presenting them to that for him Heidegger was ʻan overwhelming influ- the understanding.ʼ4 In the later introduction, Foucault enceʼ,10 ʻthe essential philosopherʼ who determined his was redescribing The Order of Things in terms of the ʻentire philosophical developmentʼ.11 He operated with theory of discourse set forth in his 1969 methodologi- a more or less Heideggerian construal of the practi- cal tract The Archaeology of Knowledge. But this does cal constitution of our modes of being. According to not mean that this redescription is simply a distortion.5 Foucault, subjectivity emerges only in the event of a For even if this sort of account can readily mislead, it problemization when thought comes to reflect upon and can also open paths for rethinking and amending the offer responses to tensions, difficulties and problems in prior study so that it might complement and cohere a gathering of practices. Foucault seems to suggest that with the new line of inquiry. we cannot even think about our ways of existence until If we grant this, then there is an issue of how best they have become problematized, much as Heidegger to evaluate and make use of such redescriptions. The posits that becomes conscious of objects only question is most pressing for those redescriptions from in the advent of an equipmental breakdown. Phil- the early 1980s when Foucault offered thoughtful ret- osophy for Foucault is a special engagement with rospective accounts of his work as a whole. He charac- problemizations: what he styled a critical history of terized his projects as forming three interrelated axes thought oriented toward disclosing (and transgressing) of the analysis of human being as a subject of reason the contingent limits of our modes of being. This and truth.6 In 1983 he enriched this redescription by article offers an account of Foucaultʼs conception of introducing the notion of problemization.7 Foucault problemization; it concludes with a brief exercise in had been wondering whether ʻit would not be possible the redescription of the sexualité series as a critical to consider the very historicity of forms of experienceʼ reproblemization of the modern experience of sex.

Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) 19 The practical foundation of subjectivities position of the subject can be assigned. To describe a formulation qua statement does not consist in Like many contemporary , Foucault analyzing the relations between the author and what rejected the Cartesian view of human being as an he says (or wanted to say, or said without wanting invariant subject that grounds the order of things: ʻI to); but in determining what position can and must do indeed believe that there is no sovereign, founding be occupied by any individual if he is to be the subject, a universal subject to be found everywhere. I subject of it.20 am very sceptical of this view of the subject and very In this formulation there is a reversal in the traditional hostile to it.ʼ12 Nevertheless, the subject of modern status of the knowing or intending subject. The subject thought was at the heart of Foucaultʼs enterprise. In the is not the foundation of rationality and knowledge, but 1982 essay ʻThe Subject and Powerʼ, he explained that is dispersed as a variable position in discourse. What ʻthe goal of my work during the last twenty years … must be stressed is that Foucault here is bracketing all has been to create a history of the different modes by nondiscursive activities, all ʻlived experienceʼ, to see which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. to what extent he can isolate discourse as a topic of My work has dealt with three modes of objectification inquiry.21 ʻThe analysis of statements operates there- which transform human beings into subjects.ʼ13 In fore without reference to a cogito. It does not pose contradistinction to , Foucault explored the question of the speaking subject … [but instead] the historicity of subjectivity. Because this endeavour is situated at the level of the “it is said”.ʼ22 Even as was avowedly involved with the history of reason and words like ʻsystemsʼ, ʻrulesʼ and ʻformationsʼ absorb truth,14 the subject of Foucauldian history is a subject and dissipate human agency, the terms of ʻpracticeʼ of knowledge.15 stand as a placeholder for the bracketed activities of Now, Hegelʼs Phenomenology of Spirit is also a the historical individuals who engage in discourse. history of the knowing subject. But Foucault was By the early 1980s, the quasi-structuralist orienta- explicitly opposed to any universal history of reason.16 tion of the archaeology of knowledge had given way For Foucault, there is no metasubject of history that to the broader investigation of experience and its can encompass a progressive or regressive develop- conditions: ment of universal truth. The subject is not the ground, source or terminus of reason, but is itself founded The discourses of mental illness, delinquency, or upon contingent social practices. Rather than positing sexuality say what the subject is only within a very a singular Subject of History, Foucault investigated particular truth game; but these games do not im- pose themselves on the subject from the outside in the historical practices that have been the condition accord with necessary causal or structural determi- for the emergence of diverse forms of subjectivity and nations. Instead they open up a field of experience rationality. In this regard, Foucault was an expressed in which subject and object alike are constituted pluralist.17 only under certain conditions, but in which they go To be sure, Foucaultʼs early studies on The History on changing in relation to one another, and thus go 23 of Madness (1961) and The Order of Things (1966) on modifying this field of experience itself. 18 retained vestiges of an epochal subject. But in The More emphatically than with the archaeology of Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) he unequivocally knowledge, practices are now said to ʻprovide the asserted the dispersion of subjectivities, theorizing key to understanding a correlative constitution of the discourse neither as a system of signs nor as a logic of subject and objectʼ.24 The rationality of a given truth- propositions, but as founded upon practices regulated game, the reason inherent in the correlative constitu- 19 by contingent rules. The basic unit of any discourse tion of subject and object, rests ʻupon a foundation is the statement; a statement posits not only discursive of human practices and human facesʼ. Human prac- objects but also an enunciating subject: tices in their non-anonymity and specificity are what The subject of the statement should not be regarded found and constitute the fields of experience proper as identical with the author of the formulation to the transformation of human being into a subject – either in substance, or in function. He is not in of knowledge.25 fact the cause, origin, or starting-point of the phe- Foucaultʼs axiom of the practical formation of sub- nomenon of the written or spoken articulation.… If jectivities has affinities with Heideggerʼs existential a proposition, a sentence, a group of signs can be called ʻstatementʼ, it is not therefore because, one analytic of Dasein. Like Foucault, Heidegger did not day, someone happened to speak them or put them accept phenomenologyʼs foundationalist conception of into some concrete form of writing, it is because the the knowing subject. In , he propounded

20 Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) a radical critique of Husserlian intentionality.26 Prior Such circumstances occasion, but do not determine, to and deeper than the directedness of theoretical a problemization: consciousness towards its objects is Daseinʼs being-in- Problemization doesnʼt mean representation of a the-world. Dasein is not primordially a mind removed pre-existing object, nor the creation by discourse from an external reality but exists amidst people and of an object that doesnʼt exist. It is the totality of things in the world. Existence is first and foremost discursive or non-discursive practices that intro- nonconscious. One does not usually or primarily form duce something into the play of true and false and a theory upon which one then acts, but rather is always constitutes it as an object for thought (whether in already engaged in a delimited but creative under- the form of moral reflection, scientific knowledge, political analysis, etc.).33 standing (Verstehen), a ʻknowing-howʼ to deal with the situation at hand (and this includes language practices). Problemization is neither the realistʼs representation of The destined ways of existence, the everyday practices external things nor the semiotic idealistʼs creation of 27 of a people, reflexively define Daseinʼs selfhood; the objects. Foucault is cautioning us to distance the notion ʻessenceʼ of Dasein is constituted and reconstituted of problemization from the assumptions of modern 28 in the course of existence. Dasein is not a selfsame . He is propounding a novel philosophical substance, not a ʻsubjectʼ, but embodies practices that account of the sociality of knowledge. found modalities of selfhood, including the self as a Problemization is the subjectification and objecti- knowing subject. fication of our practical affairs in games of truth that Similarly for Foucault, the ʻknow-how and com- constitute specific fields of knowledge. These knowl- 29 petenceʼ embodied in practices can open up fields edge-domains enable and condition responses oriented of experience where human being is constituted as a towards coping with the designated problem. subject. This subject is not a substance but a mutable form that is ʻnot above all or always identical to To one single set of difficulties, several responses can be proposed. And most of the time different itselfʼ.30 Human being is neither fixed to nor exhausted responses actually are proposed.… It is problem- by any particular form of subjectivity. Moreover, sub- ization that responds to these difficulties, but by jectivity is not the only modality of self, but the form doing something quite than expressing them or proper to knowledge.31 Those instances when human manifesting them: in connection with them it devel- being is transformed into a subject of knowledge are ops the conditions in which possible responses can what Foucault termed ʻproblemizationsʼ. be given; it defines the elements that will constitute what the different solutions attempt to respond to.34

Problemization A problemization is in the end an ʻanswerʼ to the For Heidegger, practices are nonconscious; only under difficulty it has itself defined.35 certain conditions does Dasein enter into a knowing There are three moments of a problemization, each engagement with and explicit thematization of its ways an instance of practice: (1) the practical tension itself, of existence. Likewise for Foucault, our forms of life which may entail (but need not be restricted to) class enter into genuine reflection only in the case of a struggle and social conflict; (2) the stepping back problemization: from, reflecting upon, and thematizing this difficulty in games of truth; and (3) responses that institute for a domain of action, a behavior, to enter the field corrective or compensatory procedures.36 All three of thought, it is necessary for a certain number of factors to have made it uncertain, to have made it moments of a problemization intertwine as sites in the lose its familiarity, or to have provoked a certain social fabric, weaving specific fields of what Foucault number of difficulties around it. These elements termed experience – the experience of madness, the result from social, economic, or political processes. experience of sexuality, the experience of health, and But here their role is that of instigation. They so on.37 can exist and perform their action for a very long We can get clearer about the Foucauldian notion time, before there is effective problemization by thought.32 of problemization by comparing it to the Heideg- gerian conception of equipmental deficiency. Dasein Another way to put this is that the general coher- is always already absorbed in its everyday dealings. ence of a gathering of practices comes under pressure A ʻbreakdownʼ in the relative ease or smoothness of from tensions and difficulties within and amongst this ongoing coping is the precondition for becom- those practices. This amounts to the possibility, or ing conscious of the world as a realm of objects. actuality, of the fraying of existing forms of life. Heidegger posits three modalities of breakdown that

Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) 21 curtail Daseinʼs comportments.38 The first is conspicu- a certain conduct and gives it meaning; rather, it ousness (Auffallen) when an item of equipment in a is what allows one to step back from this way of holistic contexture becomes unusable (the hammer is acting and reacting, to present it to oneself as an object of thought and question it as to its meaning, broken). The second is obtrusiveness (Aufdringlichkeit) its conditions, and its goals. Thought is freedom in when an item of equipment is lacking (the hammer relation to what one does, the motion by which one is missing). The third is obstinacy (Aufsässigkeit) detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, when something obstructs the task at hand (the small and reflects on it as a problem.39 confines of the closet prevent one from using the Thought is not a representation or system of repre- hammer). Each modality of breakdown disrupts our sentations, not ʻwhat inhabits a certain conduct and everyday dealings and modifies our relation with gives it meaningʼ, as in modern cognitivist accounts.40 the equipmental contexture. One may ʻstand backʼ Rather, it is what receives and gives shape to the prob- from the world, thematize the deficiency, and perhaps lemizations arising from certain ways of existence. It is develop a view of its objective reality. But even when distinct from ideas, mentalities and brute behaviours, forming an instrumental theory, this is only within an activity of detachment from and reflection upon and against the background of ongoing existence. The our practices to the extent that they have become knowing subject is only a modification of Daseinʼs ʻproblematicʼ.41 being-in-the-world. Moreover, thought is an activity of freedom that Like the Heideggerian conception of deficiency, the maintains a relative autonomy from the dictates Foucauldian notion of problemization accounts for the of social relations and forces.42 It is not that we emergence of knowledge and subjectivity. But whereas are mechanical and unfree in our practical affairs Heidegger locates temporary breakdowns in the use of – Foucault speaks of the ʻknow-howʼ and ʻopen strate- equipment, Foucault analyses how an array of practices giesʼ embodied in our interactions – but that however complicate their own smooth operation. Heidegger creative our actions may be, they are regularly con- points out deficiencies in the immediate environment; strained within a delimited range of norms. By prob- Foucault focuses upon tensions in the general coher- lematizing what we do, thought conditions responses ence of a gathering of practices. Foucaultʼs approach to our current practices and thereby opens up new allows for the examination of the emergence of knowl- possibilities of conduct. edge-domains that extend well beyond the temporary Foucaultʼs position at the Collège de France was consciousness of a missing or broken tool. It entails titled ʻChair in the History of Systems of Thought.ʼ rethinking what it means to think. Like the later Heidegger, he was concerned with Thought the character of thinking.43 Both refused to equate representation with the essence of thought. Heidegger Problemization is how our modes of being offer viewed representation (Vorstellung) as the forma- themselves to be thought. Without problemizations, tion of ideas that ʻpictureʼ the world as an objective Foucault seems to suggest, we cannot even think about realm for human control and domination; he saw the practices that constitute who we are. Thought representation as the hegemonic mode of thought in (pensée) is the movement of stepping back from and modernity.44 Seeking ways of thinking otherwise, reflecting upon our ways of existence. Heidegger reminded us that, unlike modern scientific In an interview conducted in May 1984, only weeks theory which sets forth the real as an object-domain before his death, Foucault laid out his view of thought of calculable order, ancient Greek theoria was more and its relation to problemization: directly a way of life (bios theo¯re¯tikos) devoted to For a long time I have been trying to see if it looking ʻupon the pure shining-forth of that which would be possible to describe the history of thought presencesʼ.45 He advocated that we moderns ʻpractiseʼ as distinct both from the history of ideas – by which I mean the analysis of systems of represent- at freeing ourselves from the horizonal-transcendental ations – and from the history of mentalities – by disclosures of representation via a path of the non- which I mean an analysis of attitudes and types willful thinking of releasement (Galessenheit).46 of action. It seemed to me there was one ele- In formulating the notion of problemization, ment that was capable of describing the history of Foucault also came to distinguish thought from a rep- thought: this was what one could call the element resentation or a system of representations.47 Although of problems or, more exactly, problemizations. What distinguishes thought is that it is something quite the subject–object relation is most commonly taken to different from the set of representations that under- be proper to representation (as for Heidegger), Foucault lies a certain behavior. Thought is not what inhabits

22 Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) maintained that domains of knowledge have variable tions, and thought abounds in our everyday lives. What forms of subject and object that are to be differentiated is the upshot of this constellation of claims? from the representation of ideas. He viewed thought By suggesting that thought accompanies our com- as an extraordinary activity of freedom, semi-autono- portments, Foucault was not reverting to some pre- mous in relation to historical circumstances, and never Heideggerian species of . Rather, he seems confined by the existing games of truth which it has to have meant that problemizations are common, itself invented.48 ubiquitous and ongoing in engendering patterns and once remarked that it is ʻdefinitely systems of the subjectification and objectification of Foucault, along with Heidegger but in a quite dif- human being.52 Moreover, with the notion of prob- ferent way, whoʼs most profoundly transformed the lemization, Foucault was able to recast the dialectical image of thought.ʼ49 As the above remarks suggest, conception of societal contradiction. In the Archaeol- however, Foucault was closer to and more engaged ogy of Knowledge, he had already entertained the with Heideggerʼs image of thought than Deleuze possibility that contradictions were the precondition acknowledged.50 The notion of problemization can for discourse: even be taken as a response to a lacuna in the later Such a [fundamental] contradiction, far from being Heideggerʼs conception of thinking. In Being and Time, an appearance or accident of discourse, far from consciousness is seen as a temporary manifestation being that from which it must be freed if its truth is against the background of nonconscious practices. at last to be revealed, constitutes the very law of its In the later works, however, there is little talk about existence: it is on the basis of such a contradiction that discourse emerges, and it is in order both to existence and much about thinking. Although in the translate it and to overcome it that discourse begins “Letter on Humanism” Heidegger indicates that he had to speak … it is because contradiction is always not abandoned the insights gleaned from the analytic anterior to discourse, and because it can never of Dasein, it remains cloudy in the later writings how therefore entirely escape it, that discourse changes, modalities of thinking, such as modern representation, undergoes transformation, and escapes of itself from its own continuity. Contradiction, then, functions are occasioned by and relate to broader historical throughout discourse, as the principle of its historic- practices. Contrariwise, Foucault advanced that even if ity.53 thinking was not a representation, thought accompanies our comportments.51 Practices constitute our modes of In this proposal for the archaeology of knowledge, being, subjectivities are occasioned by problemiza- contradictions are the impetus for and motor of dis-

Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) 23 cursive formation and change. Likewise for the later mas.59 This was the strain of modern philosophy that theory of problemization, knowledge-domains emerge was not an analytics of truth, but what Foucault styled on the basis of and establish responses to ʻcontra- a critical of ourselves.60 dictionsʼ (i.e., problems) in a gathering of practices. As a critical mode of thought, modern philosophy Only whereas in a schematic dialectical account there discloses the practical conditions of knowledge and is a singular contradiction for each stage of history, in subjectivity. And in clarifying who we are, this the Foucauldian construal there is always a dispersion of thinking adopts a special relation to the present: of tensions and difficulties throughout the social fabric. And where for vulgar Hegelian Marxisms there is an If one sees philosophy as a form of discursive eventual resolution of the contradiction, dialectically practice that has its own history, it seems to me leading to a higher stage of history with its own - that with this text on the Aufklärung [Kantʼs ʻWhat is Enlightenment?ʼ] we see philosophy … problem- damental contradiction, for Foucault there are multiple atizing its own discursive contemporaneity.… And responses to a given difficulty, none of which need in doing so we see that when the asks overcome the problem. how he belongs to this present it is a quite dif- The Foucauldian notion of problemization would ferent question from that of how one belongs to thus seem to posit: (1) webs of first-order practice; a particular doctrine or tradition; its is no longer simply the question from that of how one belongs and (2) a dimension of thought that reflects upon and to a human community in general, but rather of 54 responds to tensions in these practices. Thought is how one belongs to a certain ʻusʼ, to an us that not exclusively exterior to the first-order comportments, concerns a cultural totality of oneʼs own time. It is but on the contrary is woven into them as games of this ʻusʼ that is becoming for the philosopher the truth and procedures of correction in constituting the object of his own reflection. By the same token, the philosopher can no longer avoid the question of forms of experience. Unlike the sublation of a contra- the specific way in which he belongs to this ʻusʼ. diction a problemization does not so much resolve All this – philosophy as the problemization of a 55 as modify a given problem. This alters the array present, and as the questioning by the philosopher of first-order practices, establishing new conditions of this present to which he belongs and in relation for further problemization by thought. Modification to which he has to situate himself – might well be leads to modification; thinking assumes patterns and said to characterize philosophy as the discourse of modernity on modernity.61 shapes over time. Whence Foucaultʼs efforts to write a history of thought.56 Modern philosophy problematizes the present to which But even if thought tends to become habitual, it it belongs. This is not the first time Western phil- remains an activity of freedom. Thought cannot only osophy has concerned itself with its own present; respond anew but also can reflect upon itself and only now this concern seeks a ʻway outʼ (Ausgang) its own habits by disclosing the ʻconditions so to inaugurate new ways of being and thinking.62 under which certain relations between subject and Philosophy is the discursive practice of critical reprob- object are formed or modified.ʼ57 Thought can be lemization.63 It rethinks contemporary problemizations critical of itself. And this criticality, which further that ʻare as concrete and general as possible, problems lifts us from immersion in our everyday affairs, is that approach politics from behind and cut across exemplified in modernity by the discursive practice societies on the diagonalʼ.64 In embracing the ʻusʼ of a of philosophy. cultural totality, philosophy explicates those conditions of experience that are historical and general rather Modern philosophy than constant and universal.65 As a radical exercise in thinking, philosophy is ʻthe discourse of modernity In a 1978 interview with Duccio Trombadori, Foucault on modernityʼ. was emphatic that ʻI donʼt consider myself a philoso- Foucault conducted philosophy as a mode of his- pher. What I do is neither a way of doing philosophy torical inquiry.66 His strategy was to ʻeventalizeʼ the nor a way of suggesting to others not to do it.ʼ58 By present.67 He invented archaeology, and the the early 1980s, however, having reformulated his study of ethics as modes of critical history that map project as concerned with problemizations, Foucault the events the have led up to and constitute present- pronounced that he was working in a philosophical day problemizations. In clarifying the conditions and tradition that included Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, stakes of an existing problemization, Foucaultʼs philo- Weber, Husserl, Heidegger, Horkheimer and Haber- sophical practice offered a ʻhistory of the presentʼ; we

24 Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) come to see how a present-day problemization is not A way out from the experience of definitive of some universal scheme of truth, but is sexuality itself a singular event that could be otherwise: Foucault recounted that the ʻnotion common to all the work I have done since Histoire de la folie is that of The work of the intellect is to show that what is, does not have to be, what it is.… Therefore the problemization, though it must be said that I never return to history makes sense in the respect that isolated this notion sufficiently. But one always finds history shows that which is was not always so. It what is essential after the event; the most general unites casual movements into threads of a fragile things are what appear last.ʼ72 Given the incisiveness and uncertain history. Thus things were formed of the notion or problemization, it is instructive to which give the impression of the greatest self-evi- see how some of Foucaultʼs mature projects can be dence. What reason considers its necessity or much more what various forms of rationality claim to be understood in this light. their necessity, has a history which we can deter- According to the account in Volume I of The History mine completely and recover from the tapestry of of Sexuality, Freudʼs problemization of the difficulties contingency. But this doesnʼt mean that these forms of human sexual relations was decisive for modern of rationality are irrational. They rest upon a foun- European culture. Freud theorized sexual repression dation of human practices and human faces, because as a principal cause of neurosis and responded by they are made they can be unmade – of course, assuming we know how they were made.68 inventing the talking cure of therapy as a method for restoring mental health. Psychoanalysis is a game of It is crucial to know ʻhow they [the forms of ration- truth that transforms human being into a subject of ality] were made.ʼ For reform movements always arise. sexuality, while psychotherapy is the corrective prac- But tice that implements this knowledge in curing neurotic illness. Foucault implies that we have inherited much if at the base there has not been the work of of this experience of sex. thought upon itself and if, in fact, modes of thought, Although Foucault questions the soundness of the that is to say, modes of action [which thought al- ways accompanies if not directs], have not been al- hypothesis of repression, he does not simply disagree tered, whatever the project for reform, we know that with Freud. Instead, he seeks to clarify the historical it will be swamped, digested by modes of behavior conditions that led up to and inform the psychoana- and institutions that will always be the same.69 lytic problemization. Countering the view that the Oedipal conflict is a transhistorical constant of all The way out from the jurisdiction of an existing civilized peoples, Foucault argues that neurosis is problemization requires more than reform – it calls for peculiar to the modern institution of the conjugal a history of the present to perform the critical task of family. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centu- reproblematizing experience. ries, marriages based on alliances gave way to those Let us now bring together some of the threads of based on ideals of domestic love. Yet the conjugal Foucaultʼs final redescription. Problemization is what family, whatever its merits as a site of earthly hap- first brings our ways of being into thought by dealing piness, was founded as an institution of biopower. with practices that constitute ʻcontradictoryʼ (hence Biopower enhances life so to maximize human relatively unstable) sites in the social fabric. Thought productive and reproductive energies. Its procedures invents games of truth and conditions procedures of include disciplining docile bodies, policing the state, correction that together with the first-order practices maintaining standards of health, and increasing the establish the forms of experience. Even though a given size of the population. problemization and its effects are thoroughly historical The conjugal family was the node of maximization and singular, we are habituated to think about our of the population. This required a ʻdeployment of sexu- reigning modes of being and forms of experience alityʼ. Descending from sixteenth-century confessional as universal. Philosophy is parasitic on this state of reforms, discursive practices of speaking the truth of 70 affairs. By offering a critical history of the present, oneʼs desires – of ever more precisely articulating oneʼs philosophy strives to: (1) debunk the universalizing libidinal impulses and fantasies – proliferated in the pretensions inhering in our forms of experience; (2) eighteenth century, becoming proper to the life of the dehabituate how we think about who we are; and (3) conjugal family. Under the imperative of exorcizing the disclose a contradictory weave in the social fabric individual from desire, the incessant speaking the truth from which we may find a way out from the binding of sex produced desire. Within the cramped confines 71 imperatives of modernity. of the nuclear family this deployment of sexuality

Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) 25 bred incestuous attachments that, given traditional a return to a nostalgic past, which he deemed impos- proscriptions, could not be acted upon: sible, but instead a repetition, a folding of histori- cal practices into our present ones, producing newly It [incest] is manifested as a thing that is strictly modernized modes of ʻaestheticizedʼ life. Rather than forbidden in the family insofar as the latter func- tions as a deployment of alliance; but it also is a turning to psychoanalysis and its offshoots in self-help thing that is continuously demanded in order for manuals, Foucault advocated that we experiment with the family to be a hotbed of constant sexual incite- pre-modern practices so to denormalize our current 73 ment. modes of being.76 Whereas the first volume clarifies the conditions and stakes of the modern experience of Between the taboos inherited from practices of alli- sex, opening a way out from the dictates of biopower, ance and the new intensity of sexual energies there the ethical studies mine resources for denormalizing developed tensions in family life. Inadmissible desires our interpersonal relationships. threatened the happiness and functionality of the conjugal family. Freudian psychoanalysis problema- Notes tized these tensions as neuroses that required psycho- Earlier versions of this article were presented at the therapeutic treatment. Georgia Circle, Mercer Univer- Now, Foucault does not say that people might not sity, Atlanta, Georgia (March 1997) and the Thirty-sec- be repressed; what he stresses is that the psycho- ond Annual Meeting of the Society for Phenomenology therapeutic response is normalizing. However much and Existential Philosophy, University of Kentucky, Lexington (October 1997). For helpful comments I am the talking cure might help one overcome or redirect indebted to Tim Craker, Hubert Dreyfus, and the mem- repressed desires toward more acceptable partners, it bers of the editorial collective of Radical Philosophy, was yet another discursive practice of speaking the among whom I wish especially to thank Peter Osborne for his shepherding of this article towards publication. truth of sex (albeit geared toward liberating rather 1. Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure: The History of than negating desire). In the process of redressing Sexuality Volume Two, trans. Robert Hurley, Pantheon, the problem of incestuous attachments, psychoanalysis New York, 1985, p. 11. mobilized and intensified libidinal energies. In the end 2. For discussion, see Thomas R. Flynn, ʻTruth and Subjec- the Freudian problemization was itself a deployment tivation in the Later Foucaultʼ, Journal of Philosophy 82, 1985, p. 352; and Thomas McCarthy, ʻThe Critique of sexuality that aligned with the normalizing forces of Impure Reasonʼ, in Ideals and Illusions: On Recon- of biopower. struction and Deconstruction in Contemporary Critical In the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Theory, MIT Press, Cambridge MA and London, 1991, Foucault can be said to have developed a critical p. 221 n. 29. 3. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology reproblemization of the modern experience of sex. of the Human , Vintage Books, New York, 1970, But even if he locates sites in the social fabric from p. xiv. which we might find a way out from the dictates of 4. Ibid., p. xxii. 5. There are significant differences between the histori- biopower, he offers no counter-response. It was only in cal ontology of language as presented in The Order of the subsequent studies on ethics that Foucault explored Things and the character of discourse as presented in The ways to transgress the modern experience of sex. Archaeology of Knowledge. For discussion, see Gary In the second and third volumes of The History of Gutting, ʻIntroduction. Michel Foucault: Userʼs Man- ualʼ, in Gary Gutting, ed., The Cambridge Companion Sexuality as well as in numerous late interviews and to Foucault, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, essays, Foucault turned his attention to practices of 1994, pp. 16–18. self-transformation, what he termed ethics. How does 6. See Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, p. 4; Michel an individual work on herself to transmute desire? Foucault, ʻWhat is Enlightenment?ʼ, in The Foucault Reader, ed. , Pantheon, New York, 1984, By what techniques has the individual constituted pp. 48–9; and Michel Foucault, ʻOn the Genealogy of herself as an ethical subject who, in knowing the truth, Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progressʼ, in ibid., transforms herself into a certain kind of moral agent? pp. 351–352. See also Michel Foucault, ʻThe Subject and Powerʼ, in Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Going back to the ancient Greeks, Foucault began Michel Foucault: Beyond and Hermen- 74 mapping a history of Western ethical practices. In eutics, 2nd edn, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, the midst of publishing these studies, however, he did 1983, p. 208; Michel Foucault, ʻTruth, Power, Self: An something he had not done before: Foucault began rec- Interview with Michel Foucault October 25, 1982ʼ, in of Self: Seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. ommending that we appropriate and experiment with Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton, some of the historical practices he was investigating, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1988, p. most notably what he took to be the ancient Greek 15; Michel Foucault, ʻThe Return of Moralityʼ, in Poli- of existence.75 Foucault was not proposing tics, Philosophy, Culture: Interview and Other Writings,

26 Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) 1977–1984, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman, Routledge, New James Goldstein and James Cascaito, Semiotext[e], New York and London, 1988, p. 243; and Maurice Florence York, 1991, pp. 44–6. [Michel Foucault], ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, in Cam- 17. Foucault, ʻHow Much Does It Costʼ, p. 251. bridge Companion to Foucault, pp. 315–16. 18. Foucault acknowledged this for The History of Madness 7. The ʻIndexʼ, in Michel Foucault, Dits et écrits, 1954– in the ʻIntroductionʼ to The Archaeology of Knowledge, 1988, ed. Daniel Defert and François Ewald, Éditions p. 16. Gallimard, Paris, 1994, vol. 4, p. 875, lists only two 19. Ibid., pp. 46–8. instances of this term prior to 1983, both of which have a 20. Ibid, pp. 95–6. markedly different use and sense to subsequent usage. 21. For a stimulating and important discussion of the diffi- For a different assessment of Foucaultʼs late notion culties with this bracketing of nondiscursive practices, of problemization than the one I shall be advancing, cf. see Dreyfus and Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Robert Castel, ʻ“Problemization” as a Mode of Read- Structuralism and , pp. 79–100. See fur- ing Historyʼ, in Jan Goldstein, ed., Foucault and the ther Gary Guttingʼs remarks that Foucault is not so much Writing of History, Blackwell, Oxford and Cambridge dealing with serious speech-acts as analysing discourse MA, 1994, pp. 237–52. As will become clear, I do not from the outside (Michel Foucaultʼs Archaeology of see ʻproblemizationʼ as at bottom a method for doing Scientific Reason, Cambridge University Press, Cam- history. Rather, a problemization is itself the condition bridge, 1989, p. 241). of possibility of engaging in a special kind of philo- 22. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 122. sophical history – what Foucault termed ʻa critical his- 23. Foucault, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, pp. 317–18. tory of thoughtʼ. For a comparable view, see Charles E. 24. Ibid., p. 318. Scott, On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethics 25. Foucault, ʻHow Much Does It Costʼ, p. 252. See also and Politics, University Press, Bloomington and Foucault, ʻThe Ethic of Careʼ, p. 10; Foucault, ʻPreface Indianapolis, 1996, pp. 115–16 and passim. to The History of Sexuality, Volume IIʼ, p. 335; Foucault, 8. Michel Foucault, ʻPreface to The History of Sexuality, ʻAn Aesthetics of Existenceʼ, pp. 50–51; and Foucault, Volume IIʼ, in The Foucault Reader, p. 334. The Use of Pleasure, p. 5. 9. Michel Foucault, ʻPolemics, Politics, and Problem- On the status of practices in Foucault, see Dreyfus izations: An Interviewʼ, in ibid., p. 388. and Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism 10. Foucault, ʻTruth, Power, Selfʼ, pp. 12–13. and Hermeneutics; Flynn, ʻTruth and Subjectivationʼ, 11. Foucault, ʻThe Return of Moralityʼ, p. 250. p. 539; and Thomas Flynn, ʻFoucault and Historical 12. Michel Foucault, ʻAn Aesthetics of Existenceʼ, in Poli- Nominalismʼ, in Phenomenology and Beyond: The Self tics, Philosophy, Culture, p. 50. and its Language, ed. Harold A. Durfee and David F.T. 13. Foucault, ʻThe Subject and Powerʼ, p. 208. See also Rodier, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1989, Foucault, ʻWhat is Enlightenment?ʼ, p. 49. pp. 135, 144, n. 9. Flynn correctly notes that ʻFoucaultʼs 14. Michel Foucault, ʻHow Much Does It Cost for Rea- concept of practice seems close to that of his colleague son to Tell the Truthʼ, in Foucault Live (Interviews, at the Collège de France, Pierre Bourdieuʼ; I suspect that 1966–1984), ed. Sylvère Lotringer, Semiotext[e], New this is due to both Bourdieu and Foucault having looked York, 1989, p. 238; and Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, to Heideggerʼs non-intellectualistic account of human pp. 6 ff. activity (cf. Dreyfus and Rabinow, pp. 122–5). 15. The sense of the word ʻsubjectʼ has shifting inflections 26. , Being and Time, trans. John Macquar- in Foucaultʼs writings. Nevertheless, it is my contention rie and Edward Robinson, Harper & Row, New York, that in the final redescriptions centred on problemization 1962, Division I. See also The Basic Problems of Phe- the term ʻsubjectʼ most often signifies an individualʼs nomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter, Indiana University relation to (or readiness for) some form of knowledge Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1988, pp. 21, 58 – from institutions of specialized domains of to ff., and 154 ff. solitary acts of self-recognition that incite one to self- 27. Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 85, 149–68; Basic Prob- transformation. For an explicit and clear explanation that lems, pp. 158–61. the subject of a problemization is a subject of knowl- 28. Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 152. See also Martin edge, see Foucault, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ. See also Heidegger, ʻLetter on Humanismʼ, in Basic Writings, ed. Michel Foucault, ʻThe Ethic of Care for the Self as a David Farrell Krell, Harper & Row, New York, 1977, Practice of Freedomʼ, in The Final Foucault, ed. James pp. 206–10. Bernauer and David Rasmussen, MIT Press, Cambridge 29. Foucault, ʻThe Subject and Powerʼ, p. 223. MA and London, 1988, p. 1. So construed, the subject 30. Foucault, ʻThe Ethic of Careʼ, p. 10. of a problemization is a more or less conscious (and 31. ʻI will call subjectivization the procedure by which one self-conscious) agent, its actions more or less intentional obtains the constitution of a subject, or more precisely, (see Foucault, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, p. 318, and of a subjectivity, which is of course only one of the Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, p. 10). I shall argue, given possibilities of a self-consciousnessʼ (Foucault, however, this does not mean for Foucault that a par- ʻThe Return of Moralityʼ, p. 252). ticular mental state is the ʻcauseʼ of our actions, nor that 32. Foucault, ʻPolemics, Politics, and Problemizationsʼ, p. our practices (in the existential-ontological sense of the 388. See also Foucault, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, p. term) are a function of consciousness. 315, and Michel Foucault, ʻThe Concern for Truthʼ, in 16. On the importance of escaping Hegel, see Foucaultʼs Politics, Philosophy, Culture, p. 256. For an earlier, more 1970 lecture ʻThe Discourse on Languageʼ, in The Nietzschean conception of knowledge as the product of Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Lan- human confrontation and battle, see Michel Foucault, guage, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith, Pantheon, New York, ʻLa vérité et les formes juridiquesʼ, in Dits et écrits, vol, 1972, pp. 235–7. See also Michel Foucault, Remarks on 2, p. 252 (this text dates from 1974). Marx: Conversations with Duccio Trombadori, trans. R. 33. Foucault, ʻThe Concern for Truthʼ, p. 257. On Foucaultʼs

Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) 27 practical holism, see Hubert L. Dreyfus, ʻHolism and Foucault, ʻDébat sur le romanʼ, in Dits et écrits, vol. 1, Hermeneuticsʼ, Review of Metaphysics 34, 1980, pp. p. 139). 3–23. 44. Martin Heidegger, ʻThe Age of the World Pictureʼ, in 34. Foucault, ʻPolemics, Politics, and Problemizationsʼ, p. The Question Concerning and Other Essays, 389. trans. William Lovitt, Harper & Row, New York, 1977, 35. Michel Foucault, Discourse and Truth: The Problem- pp. 115–54; Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche. Volume IV: ization of Parrhesia, comp. Joseph Pearson, notes to a , trans. Frank A. Capuzzi, Harper & Row, New seminar given by Foucault at the University of Califor- York, 1982, pp. 102 ff.; and Martin Heidegger, What Is nia at Berkeley, 1983, pp. 115–16. Called Thinking?, trans. Fred D. Wieck and J, Glenn 36. Cf. the earlier formulation in The Archaeology of Knowl- Gray, Harper & Row, New York, 1968. edge of a ʻsystem of real or primary relations, a sys- 45. Martin Heidegger, ʻScience and Reflectionʼ, in The tem of reflexive or secondary relations, and a system Question Concerning Technology, p. 164. of relations that might properly be called discursiveʼ 46. Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking, trans. John (p. 45). M. Anderson and E. Hand Freund, Harper & Row, New 37. Michel Foucault, ʻSexual Choice, Sexual Actʼ, in York, 1966. Foucault Live, p. 212; Foucault, ʻPreface to The History 47. Foucault, ʻPolemics, Politics, and Problemizationsʼ, p. of Sexuality, Volume IIʼ, pp. 333–7; Foucault, The Use of 388; Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, pp. 3, 10; Foucault, Pleasure, pp. 4 ff.; Foucault, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, ʻThe Concern for Truthʼ, p. 256; and Michel Foucault, pp. 315–18; and Foucault, ʻThe Return of Moralityʼ, p. ʻLe style de lʼhistoireʼ, in Dits et écrits, vol. 4. p. 654. 253. Cf. Foucault, Discourse and Truth, p. 48. 48. Foucault, ʻPracticing Criticismʼ, p. 155, and Foucault, 38. Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 102–6. For discussion, ʻIs It Really Important to Think?ʼ, p. 33. see Hubert L. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World: A Comment- 49. Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations, 1972–1990, trans. Martin ary on Heideggerʼs ʻBeing and Timeʼ, Division I, MIT Joughin, Columbia University Press, New York, 1995, p. Press, Cambridge MA and London, 1991, pp. 70 ff. 95. For more extensive remarks by Deleuze on the rela- 39. Foucault, ʻPolemics, Politics, and Problemizationsʼ, p. tion between Heidegger and Foucault, see his Foucault, 388. See also Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, pp. 10–11; trans. Séan Hand, University of Minnesota Press, Min- Foucault, ʻThe Concern for Truthʼ, p. 256; and Foucault, neapolis, 1988, pp. 107 ff. Discourse and Truth, pp. 47–8. 50. For a compelling comparison between Foucaultʼs no- 40. Foucault, “Preface to The History of Sexuality, Volume tion of déchiffrement and Heideggerian Denken, see IIʼ, p. 335. David Ingram remarks that this passage Hubert L. Dreyfus, ʻBeyond Hermeneutics: Interpreta- ʻseems incompatible with the strong, practical holism tion in Late Heidegger and Recent Foucaultʼ, in Gary Dreyfus attributed to Foucaultʼ; ʻFoucault and Habermas Shapiro and Alan Sica, eds, Hermeneutics: Questions on the Subject of Reasonʼ, in Cambridge Companion to and Prospects, University of Massachusetts Press, Am- Foucault, p. 256 n. 30. However, between this earlier herst, 1984, pp. 80–81. Of course there are important draft of a ʻPrefaceʼ to The Use of Pleasure and the much and decisive differences between the later Heidegger and changed ʻIntroductionʼ included in the book, Foucault Foucault, e.g. the formerʼs stress on ʻpassiveʼ attunement formulated the notion of problemization, which clarified to the historical sendings of Being is to be distinguished his views of thought and action in ways that validate from the latterʼs more local and detailed genealogies that Dreyfusʼs ascription of practical holism. See now above, promote new ways of (actively) speaking the truth. note 33. 51. Foucault, ʻPracticing Criticismʼ, p. 155; Foucault, ʻTruth, 41. ʻProblematicʼ is a term that appears in the writings of Power, Selfʼ, pp, 9–10; Foucault, Is It Really Important , especially in his work in the phil- to Think?ʼ, pp. 33–34; Foucault, ʻPreface to The History osophy of science (e.g. Le Rationalism appliqué, 1949). of Sexuality, Volume IIʼ, pp. 334–6; and Foucault, ʻLe For critical discussion, see Dominique Lecourt, Marx- style de lʼhistoireʼ, p. 654. ism and Epistemology: Bachelard, Canguilhem and 52. Foucault, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, p. 318. On Foucault, trans. Ben Brewster, New Left Books, Lon- Foucaultʼs sense of the systematicity of his own critical don, 1975, pp. 79–81. One of the fundamental differ- enterprise, see ʻWhat is Enlightenment?ʼ, pp. 47–9. ences between the Bachelardian notion of the problem- 53. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, p. 151. Cf. atic and the Foucauldian notion of problemization is that Foucault, ʻLa vérité et les formes juridiquesʼ, p. 552. a problematic is internal to a particular epistemological 54. Earlier, in The Order of Things, Foucault had developed field (thereby accounting for the specific ʻdoubtsʼ that a related analysis of the fissure in the modern episteme govern a given line of scientific inquiry) whereas a prob- between the ʻI thinkʼ and the ʻI amʼ (pp. 324–5). lemization is occasioned by a tension in a gathering of 55. Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, p. 12. social practices that precedes and conditions but does not 56. Foucault, ʻTruth, Power, Selfʼ, pp. 10, 14; Foucault, determine thoughtʼs invention of a truth game proper to ʻPreface to The History of Sexuality, Volume IIʼ, p. 334; and definitive of the problem. Foucault, ʻThe of Telling the Truthʼ, p. 89; Foucault, 42. Foucault, ʻTruth, Power, Selfʼ, p. 10; Michel Foucault, ʻThe Concern for the Truthʼ, p. 256; and Foucault, ʻPracticing Criticismʼ, in Politics, Philosophy, Culture, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, pp. 314 ff. pp. 154–5; and Michel Foucault, ʻIs It Really Important 57. Foucault, ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, p. 314. See also to Think? An Interviewʼ, Philosophy and Social Criti- Foucault, ʻPracticing Criticismʼ, p. 156, and Foucault, cism 9, 1982, p. 33. ʻIs It Really Important to Think?ʼ, pp. 33–4. 43. In a round-table discussion on the novel conducted in 58. Foucault, Remarks on Marx, p. 29. 1963, Foucault expressed his fascination with that ʻ[non- 59. Michel Foucault, ʻThe Political Technology of Individu- psychological] niveau dʼune expérience très difficile à alsʼ, in Technologies of the Self, p. 145; Foucault, ʻThe formuler – celle de la penséeʼ, posing the questions: Art of Telling the Truthʼ, p. 95; and Foucault, ʻWhat is ʻquʼest-ce que cʼest que penser, quʼest-ce que cʼest que Enlightenment?ʼ, p. 32. cette expérience extraordinaire de le pensée?ʼ (Michel 60. Foucault, ʻThe Art of Telling the Truthʼ, p. 95, and

28 Radical Philosophy 91 (September/October 1998) Foucault, ʻWhat is Enlightenment?ʼ. See also Foucault, Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. Gra- ʻPolitics and Reasonʼ, in Politics, Philosophy, Culture, ham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller, Univer- pp. 59 ff.; Foucault, ʻThe Subject and Powerʼ, p. 216; sity of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991, pp. 76–8. Michel Foucault, ʻAn Ethics of Pleasureʼ, in Foucault 68. Foucault, ʻHow Much Does It Costʼ, p. 252. See also Live, p. 269; Foucault, ʻThe Art of Telling the Truthʼ, ʻIs It Really Important to Think?ʼ, p. 34. p. 95; Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, pp. 8–9; Foucault, 69. Foucault, ʻPracticing Criticismʼ, p. 156. This passage ʻFoucault, Michel, 1926–ʼ, p. 314; and Foucault, ʻThe pre-dates the notion of problemization (and presents a Ethic of Careʼ, p. 20. somewhat different account of thought), but it is never- 61. Foucault, ʻThe Art of Telling the Truthʼ, p. 88. theless germane to Foucaultʼs final redescription. 62. Foucault, ʻWhat is Enlightenmentʼ, pp. 33–34. See also 70. Cf. Foucault, ʻThe Subject and Powerʼ, p. 211. For Michel Foucault, ʻPower and Sexʼ, in Politics, Phil- earlier remarks on the status of philosophy in modernity, osophy, Culture, p. 121; Foucault, ʻThe Subject and cf. The Order of Things, pp. 219–21. Power, p. 216; Foucault, ʻThe Political Technology 71. On the imperatives of modern knowledge, see Foucault, of Individualsʼ, p. 145; Foucault, ʻHow Much Does It The Order of Things, pp. 327–8. My thanks to Jason Costʼ, p. 251; Michel Foucault, ʻCritical Theory/Intellec- Wirth for refocusing my attention on this passage. tual Historyʼ, in Politics, Philosophy, Culture, pp. 35–6; 72. Foucault, ʻThe Concern for Truthʼ, pp. 257–8. See also Foucault, ʻThe Art of Telling the Truthʼ, pp. 87–90; and Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, pp. 11–12. Michel Foucault, ʻThe Masked Philosopherʼ, in Politics, 73. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume I: An Philosophy, Culture, p. 330. Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, Pantheon, New York, 63. For an instance of Foucaultʼs use of the term ʻreproblem- 1978, p. 109. Cf. Michel Foucault, ʻSexual Choice, Sex- izationʼ, see Michel Foucault, ʻA propos de la généalogie ual Actʼ, in Politics, Philosophy, Culture, p. 230; and de lʼéthique: un aperçu de travail en coursʼ, in Dits et Foucault, ʻThe Concern for Truthʼ, p. 262. écrits, vol. 4, p. 612. For a brief explication of reprob- 74. Foucault also began explicitly employing the notion of lemization, cf. Graham Burchell, ʻLiberal Government problemization in his last historical studies. For exam- and the Techniques of Selfʼ, in Foucault and Political ple, the second chapter of the introductory section of The Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Rationalities Use of Pleasure is entitled ʻForms of Problemizationʼ, of Government, ed. Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne and while part one of the main body of the same study is Nikolas Rose, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, designated ʻThe Moral Problemization of Pleasuresʼ. 1996, p. 31. Further, the subtitle of his 1983 Berkeley lectures on 64. Michel Foucault, ʻPolitics and Ethics: An Interviewʼ, in ancient truth-telling is The Problemization of Parrhe- The Foucault Reader, p. 376. sia. 65. On the ʻweʼ of politics, see Foucault, ʻPolemics, Politics, 75. See Andrew Thacker, ʻFoucaultʼs Aesthetics of Exist- and Problemizationsʼ, p. 385. enceʼ, Radical Philosophy 63, Spring 1993, pp. 13– 66. Michel Foucault, ʻA propos des faiseurs dʼhistoireʼ, in 21. Dits et écrits, vol. 4, p. 313. 76. See my ʻRepetition and Ethics in Late Foucaultʼ, forth- 67. See the 1980 text ʻQuestions of Methodʼ, in The coming, Philosophy and Social Criticism.

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