History of Madness

Cover Page i History of Madness Praise for this new edition: ‘One of the major works of the twentieth century is finally available in English. This comprehensive translation finally overcomes one of the great divisions within the world of reason; an occasion to revisit Madness and Civilization as it was written.’ Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkeley ‘With this beautiful and moving book, Michel Foucault transformed our understanding of the processes that had made psychiatry possible – the process which had brought its object, mental illness, into existence, and which inscribed it into our modern imagination as pathology, negativity, incompetence and deficiency. In studying the history of madness in this way, Foucault also taught us crucial lessons about the assembling of what we have come to call ‘civilization’. Now, at last, English speaking readers can have access to the depth of scholarship that underpinned Foucault’s analysis: I have no doubt that this long awaited translation will have a transformative effect on a new generation of readers.’ Nikolas Rose, London School of Economics Reviews of the original French edition: ‘A thick manuscript arrived: a philosophy thesis on the relations between madness and unreason in the classical age, by an author I did not know. I was dazzled when I read it.’ Philippe Ariès ‘This magnificent book … requires a mind that is capable of being in turn a historian, a philosopher, a psychologist, and a sociologist … never simply one of these … This is not a method that could be offered as an example; it is not within the reach of just anybody. Something more than talent is necessary.’ Fernand Braudel, Annales Page ii Page iii Michel Foucault History of Madness Edited by Jean Khalfa Translated by Jonathan Murphy and Jean Khalfa LONDON AND NEW YORK Page iv First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. First published in French as ‘Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique’ Librarie Plon, Paris, 1961. This edition is a translation of ‘Histoire de la Folie à l’âge classique’ © Editions GALLIMARD, Paris, 1972 Appendices ‘Mon corps, ce papier, ce feu’ and ‘La folie, l’absence d’œuvre’ © Editions GALLIMARD, Paris, 1972 Appendix ‘Reply to Derrida’ from Michel Foucault, Dits et Ecrits Vol II © Editions GALLIMARD, Paris, 1994 This English Translation © 2006 Routledge Introduction and Editorial Matter © 2006 Jean Khalfa Foreword © 2006 Ian Hacking Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la culture – Centre National du Livre This edition is published with the help of the French Ministry of Culture – National Book Centre All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-64260-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0-415-27701-9 (Print Edition) ISBN 10: 0-203-64260-0 (Print Edition) (eBook) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-27701-3 (Print Edition) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-64260-3 (Print Edition) (eBook) Page v Biography of Michel Foucault Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers on 15 June 1926, the son of a doctor. He finished his secondary education in Paris at the Lycée Henry IV in 1946 and went on to study philosophy at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure, attending in particular the lectures of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and working with Jean Hyppolite, on Hegel, and with Louis Althusser. Despite suffering from sporadic bouts of depression and a suicide attempt in 1948, Foucault secured degrees in philosophy in 1948 and in psychology in 1950. He passed his agrégation in philosophy in 1951. He joined the French Communist Party in 1950 and quit in 1952. Lecturing at the École Normale Supérieure and working as a psychologist at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne, in the early 1950s, he became dissatisfied with the confines of French academic life and held diplomatic and academic posts in Sweden (where he met and worked with Georges Dumézil), Poland and Germany, whilst working on his thesis Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique. Initially rejected by Gallimard, it was published in 1961 by the great historian Philippe Ariès at Librairie Plon, the publisher of Claude Lévi-Strauss. It was hailed as ‘magnificent’ by Fernand Braudel. Several other now famous works followed, including The Birth of the Clinic, The Order of Things, and The Archaeology of Knowledge. In 1968, Foucault was appointed to a chair at the new, experimental, University of Vincennes and, in 1970, was elected to a prestigious chair at the Collège de France where he taught the History of Systems of Thought. While producing a very large and influential body of research during the 1960s and 1970s, Foucault threw himself into political and social activism. He campaigned in particular on behalf of homosexuals and for prison reform. In 1975 he published one of his most famous works, Discipline and Punish: Birth of the Prison. Foucault travelled to North America in the late 1970s and early 1980s, teaching annually at the University of California at Berkeley. Freely experimenting with LSD and the liberal sexual environment, he lived what he termed ‘limit experiences’. During that period, in addition to many articles (published posthumously in four volumes), he wrote the three volumes of his History of Sexuality. Fatally ill with AIDS, Michel Foucault died in Paris on 25 June 1984 in the Salpêtrière Hospital at the age of fifty-seven. After his death, the French prime Page vi minister issued a tribute and memorial homages featured on the front pages of all the national press. In his obituary, Georges Dumézil wrote, ‘Foucault’s intelligence literally knew no limits.’ Page vii CONTENTS Foreword by Ian Hacking ix Introduction by Jean Khalfa xiii Preface to the 1961 edition xxvii Preface to the 1972 edition xxxvii PART ONE I Stultifera Navis 3 II The great confinement 44 III The correctional world 78 IV Experiences of madness 108 V The insane 132 PART TWO Introduction 163 I The madman in the garden of species 175 II The transcendence of delirium 208 III Figures of madness 251 IV Doctors and patients 297 Page viii PART THREE Introduction 343 I The great fear 353 II The new division 381 III The proper use of liberty 419 IV Birth of the asylum 463 V The anthropological circle 512 APPENDICES I Madness, the absence of an œuvre. Appendix I of 1972 edition 541 II My body, this paper, this fire. Appendix II of 1972 edition 550 III Reply to Derrida (‘Michel Foucault Derrida e no kaino’. Paideia (Tokyo) 575 February 1972) Endnotes 591 ANNEXES I Documents 649 II Foucault’s original bibliography 665 III Bibliography of English works quoted in this translation 674 IV Critical bibliography on Foucault’s History of Madness 677 Index 695 Page ix FOREWORD Ian Hacking Thank goodness this enormous book is finally available in English. A masterpiece needs no foreword, so I shall hardly go beyond the title. The original one is a bit like Alice’s Cheshire Cat, of which nothing is left but the grin. It starts out as Madness and Unreason: History of Madness in the Classical Age, and fades away so that we are left with our present History of Madness. I shall go through the steps. It is a gradual disappearing act, and I shall point you in the direction of the disappeared ‘unreason’, not to explain it, but to encourage you to notice it. In the tale of the titles and of unreason, there are all the signs of Foucault changing his mind about madness. The exact title in 1961 was Folie et Déraison. Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique. Very often only the first word of a French title is capitalised. In 1961 the second noun, déraison, was also given a capital letter. Daniel Defert, Foucault’s longtime intellectual colleague, companion, and posthumous editor, laid emphasis on the exact title of the original. He does so in his incredibly valuable date list, far richer than any ordinary chronology, at the beginning of Dits et écrits, the collection of Foucault’s published essays, interviews, speeches and prefaces. ‘Unreason’ was right up there alongside ‘Madness’. The big book of 1961 was severely abridged, and appeared as a paperback in 1964. Half of the first preface was suppressed. On the cover we see only Histoire de la folie. On the title page the full 1961 title appears in block letters, but with Folie et Déraison in smaller print than the subtitle. Fading, like the cat. This version Page x was translated into many languages, while only an Italian publisher did the unabridged book. For the 1965 English version, Foucault restored a little material that he had cut from the 1964 French abridgement. For a moment, a flicker more of the cat’s face came back. For here are the most vivid assertions about Unreason to be found in the entire work. They will hardly make sense out of context, so I refer you to the pages in question which were suppressed and then restored (pp.

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