The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)

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Summary: Important commentaries on an important philosopher
Review: In various interviews and commentary on his work, Michel Foucault had constantly offered conflicting interpretations and elusive pronouncements exemplifying the complex and dynamic nature of meaning which was a critical subject of his writings. In the positive spirit of this tendency, the twelve essays in the Cambridge Companion to Foucault provide differing and illuminating considerations of Foucault's thought as well as incisive descriptions of the greater philosophical debates which have been affected by Foucault's work. Editor Gary Gutting offers an instructive introduction to the volume which provides a valuable framework for interpreting Foucault in general, and the subsequent commentaries in particular. Following Foucault himself, Gutting describes the need for a (re)thinking of the concept of interpretation. Instead of engaging in a futile search for the essential interpretation of a text, multiple and conflicting accounts of a work should be lauded as the outcome of a process of critical consideration. As such, Gutting invokes a conception of esthetics--redolent of the trajectory of Foucault's last works--to orient a consideration of Foucault and his commentators. He likens Foucault to an artisan whose histories and narratives are valuable in their specific context as products of a particular intellectual endeavor; like any work of art, however, they are subject to varying uses and interpretations when they are presented to an audience. Thus the essayists in this volume represent an audience of admiring critics who provide unique insight into Foucault's work. The essays by Flynn, Gutting, Canguilhem and Rouse confront the major issues of Foucault's early career: most notably what kind of "histories" was he writing and how do concepts of subjectivity, power and knowledge operate in these histories. Perhaps the most illuminating essay in the book is that on "Power/Knowledge" by Joseph Rouse. Rouse's intention is to clarify Foucault's position on the relationship between power and knowledge and answer criticisms as to the source of sovereignty in Foucault's thought. Rouse demonstrates how Foucault conceived of power not as an entity ontologically exogenous to social relations but rather as a dynamic process which is conceived and executed in a multiplicity of social locations. Knowledge, similarly, is born of distinct social relations and likewise mutable. Rouse grounds Foucault's conception of power in an embodied lived existence which finds its ethical legitimacy from historical experience without resorting to universal essentialisms which concepts like sovereignty intimate. The chapters by Davidson and Bernauer and Mahon illuminate Foucault's notions of ethics in a useful fashion. Davidson discusses Foucault's debt to ancient Greek philosophy in elucidating the self's relationship to itself by placing this relationship in the realm of a lived style of life. This chapter and Bernauer and Mahon's complement each other in that the former outlines the fundamental workings of a Foucauldian ethic and how it is grounded in lived experience while the latter illuminates the political ramifications of such an ethic in light of criticisms of it being essentially apolitical. This theme of defending Foucault from criticisms of postmodern nihilism is evident throughout the book. Bernauer and Mahon, Rouse, Norris, Ingram, and Davidson all make strong arguments on Foucault's behalf with references to explicit theoretical concerns of ethics, reason, and the Enlightenment. Similarly, Sawicki discusses how Foucault can be useful for conceiving a certain form of feminist identity politics regardless of certain androcentric predilections. The final essays of the volume investigate the Foucault's interjection in fundamental philosophical debates. Norris' article elucidates Foucault's fragile relationship with Kant and the Enlightenment, Rabinow draws fundamental distinctions and similarities between Foucault and Heidegger with specific regard to modernity, while Ingram examines the Foucault-Habermas debate on reason concluding that the two were similar in their advocacy for an empowered subject. The book concludes with a philosophical dictionary entry written under the pseudonym of Maurice Florence which Gutting attributes to Foucault himself as one of his last writings. In a characteristically Foucauldian manner, this last essay attempts to somewhat obliquely synthesize all of his previous works by placing them in a grand project of discussing subjectivity and objectivity. While this last essay presents a brief interpretation of a seemingly disparate group of works, its theoretical position underscores the vitality and mutability of Foucault's thought which made him one of the more enigmatic and fascinating philosophers of the twentieth century.