Foucault News

Michel Foucault, What is Critique? & The Culture of the Self
Edited by Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Daniele Lorenzini.
Introduction and critical apparatus by Daniele Lorenzini & Arnold I. Davidson
Translated by Clare O’Farrell, The University of Chicago Press
Forthcoming late 2023, early 2024

This volume is part of The Chicago Foucault Project

Description (adapted from the French).

On May 27, 1978, Michel Foucault gave a lecture to the Société française de Philosophie situating his approach within the perspective opened up by Kant’s article, “What is the Enlightenment?” (1784). He strikingly defines critique as an ethico-political attitude which adopts the art of not being governed quite so much. This volume presents the critical edition of this lecture for the first time. In English, this is a new translation of this important text with an extensive critical apparatus.

This volume also presents a previously unpublished lecture titled “The Culture of the Self”, delivered in English at the University of California, Berkeley on April 12, 1983. This is the only instance in which Foucault establishes a significant link between his reflections on the Aufklärung and his analyses of Greco-Roman antiquity. In the days following this lecture, Foucault also took part in three public discussions with the Departments of Philosophy, History and French at Berkeley – the first two in English and the third in French. In these, he elaborated on his lecture and returned to several aspects of his philosophical journey. These previously unpublished discussions are appearing for the first time in English.