Michel Foucault's "My Body, This Paper, This Fire" 

Regarding the accuracy of Descartes’ depiction of madness, there are two footnotes I’d make. Firstly, Descartes is to some degree correct to portray the madman as incapable of doubt, since in most cases of delusions the individual cannot be reasoned out of their delusion (there are of course exceptions; for instance, delusions associated with schizotypal personality disorder sometimes occur alongside with an awareness that the beliefs are delusional). Secondly, dreams are less distinct from madness than Descartes thinks. The hallucinations I’m familiar with, both through personal experience of psychosis and discussions with people I’ve met in the local psych ward, are extremely similar to dreams; if anything, dreams are usually more bizarre. My hallucinations are usually along the lines of people touching me, shadowy figures following me, man-sized spiders, bugs crawling over me, and so on. We’ve all had dreams that are far further from reality than that.

I would first say that I have very little knowledge of Derrida and Foucault, having touched on 5 Derrida essays/lectures and only Michel Foucault's The Subject and Power so my strength of both is limited and subject to change. That being said, I believe in this debate Derrida was far stronger since he didn't define reason/unreason on a mere binary. Derrida also draws upon Heideggerian terms of absence and presence far more, while Foucault is too Nietzschean for me, although Derrida still uses Nietzschean methods as well.

Hi David I ask that you cover Derrida's last text on the debate, "To Do Justice to Freud": The History of Madness in the Age of Psychoanalysis! I found it an interesting text and shows that My Body, This Paper, This Fire was not the last text of the debate. it was also confusing so I would like a knowledgeable person's opinion. Please, David!

Postmodernists always have the coolest essay/book titles.

Thank you for covering both works. I felt like I was going insane listening to the Derrida part of this, and now I am reasonable again lol Also, very interesting about two french words for power. Does Foulcault use both words through his works depending on what he is talking about? If so, that sounds like something important to take into consideration when reahing him. (I am finishing my chronological all Nietzsche marathon and getting started with Foulcault).

Interesting choice of text to cover. Thank you for introducing me to it. Has it ever been published on its own? BTW, why do you pronounce Descartes as Descaltes?

Couldn't we say that Descartes has to exclude madness - by refusing to doubt 'this body' etc , - precisely because he is a little crazy himself?

Derrida's thought is perhaps more internally consistent yet less convincing because of the inherent flaw in postmodern theory (which Foucult escapes by being less rigid). In the former, the tools to escape ones frame of reference/set of given binary values must be denied, for if they existed the entire theory falls apart.. which is why he only vaguely suggests that the only way to overcome the given reference binary is to follow the madman down his path.. Foucult recognizing the unfruitful nature of this brand of Theory, assumes that if the nonstandard speech is allowed room, at some point the two reference points may benefit through a kind of cross talk. Derrida is more static while Foucult is dynamic.

David thanks for this video, it has given me a lot to Meditate (haha, get it!) on. In the end, Foucault attempts to speak on behalf of the silenced, which is contradictory, so while he raises good criticisms of Derrida, he also seems to be repudiating psychology and psychiatry as a whole. This is an all too easy sleight of hand in my opinion.

Very interesting! Thanks. Does F intend to say that even ‘madness’ that we know it as , is governed by some dominant power structures ?

I reconcile both Foucault and Derrida very successfully.

foucault shows he is still too structuralist here.