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Foucault: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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Written in an easy-read, yet perfectly scholarly manner, Foucault: A Very Short Introduction is a great jumping-off point for the student or interested scholar of literary, cultural, and/or political theory. While brief (as promised) and cursory, it nevertheless goes to the heart of much of Foucault's work as it has influenced that of other modern thinkers. An enjoyable read that will no doubt point in many directions for further study. Contains a good bibliography as well.

Gary Gutting's brief survey of the thought of Michel Foucault is not merely one of the best books in Oxford UP's Very Short Introductions series, but one of the clearest, most insightful pieces on Foucault that I've read. I haven't read much Foucault since working my way through most of his books in the late eighties. To prepare for a re-reading of those books I decided to read this book as a refresher/quick overview. Most of the secondary works on Foucault that I read back when where usually borderline impenetrable. Although Foucault is infinitely more lucid than many other French writers -- there is a world of difference between, for instance, Baudrillard and Foucault -- he is unfortunately too prone to linguistic obfuscation. Too many of Foucault's would-be disciples attempt to write in a prose style that is as opaque as anyone on the Left Bank. Gutting is in contrast a model of clarity. He writes insightfully about Foucault while making the analysis no more difficult than it needs to be.

The chapters of the book are constructed around discussions of Foucault's major works. They are thematic to the degree that those books dealt with specific ideas or subjects. In every case Gutting does a marvelous job of establishing the context of these works, how they depart from traditional discussions, how they provided innovative new ways of understanding our world, and what some of the more problematic aspects of the works are. Gutting clearly (and justifiably) believes that Foucault made some very important contributions that enable us to understand how problematic many of our unexamined assumptions about society are, but at the same time refuses to be a blind disciple. There are shortcomings to Foucault's work as well as some misconceptions. Gutting is as willing to acknowledge the former as he is to battle the latter.

I strongly recommend this to anyone wanting to read Foucault for the first time, as well as anyone (like myself) who haven't read him in a while but would like a refresher. To be frank, I believe I would have made better use of my reading of Foucault had I had an introduction this clear and insightful when I was reading him in the late eighties.

I wish I'd found this little volume before embarking on an attempt to digest Foucault's major works whole - it might have saved considerable frustration. Don't expect a categorical analysis of any of them from Gutting's survey, that's not what this is for. Do expect a more distant perspective from which the forest is no longer obscured by the trees.

Neither is this a Cliff Notes version of Foucault's work - if you haven't taken the trouble to place that within a larger philosophical context the book likely won't be of much use to you. For what it is, however, it succeeds brilliantly within the few pages allotted, and Gutting has performed a minor miracle of concision and clarification. Given the occasional verbosity of Foucault and the more than occasional turbidity of his works, that's worth the purchase price alone.

It was a good read, but I was hoping for a solid introduction to many of his ideas. The book details the progress of many of Michel's thoughts, but it does not define them very well. I was hoping that this would help me do further research into Foucault by illuminating some of the ides I have been working with for a paper, and thus allow me to concentrate on certain concepts and search those out in his literature. However, that being said, I enjoyed reading it because it was nice to learn about him. This book is half biography and half academic.

According to Gayatri Chakravority Spivak, Gary Gutting is part of a wider Anglo-American trend who want to "save [Foucault] for Philosophy... One feels the tension of making Foucault fit for the consumption of American students and colleagues; the will to regularize him, normalize him, disciplinarize him." Gutting is one of a select few philosophers -alongside Christopher Norris- who seem fairly at ease both with Anglo-American Philosophy and its Continental counterpart. Like Norris's attempts to utilise and explain Derrida in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Gutting attempts to 'save' Foucault from the many common misconceptions of his work, including the common charge that he is an epistemic relativist or a moral nihilist. Indeed, whilst there is some truth in Spivak's charge that the American appropriation of Foucault and Derrida (thanks in no small part to the works of Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty) have misrepresented their wider projects, Gutting himself manages the deft trick of showing that, while there can be multiple 'readings' of Foucault -of his life and his work- there are still ways to read him against the grain of his intentions. As such, Gutting offers a frank discussion of Foucault's life and work, and teases out the contradictions, difficulties and strengths of a brilliant but opaque individual. And he does a wonderful job, giving the limits of the format and the obtuseness of much of Foucault's work.

Gutting doesn't get it pitch-perfect. This book often requires a little background knowledge from the reader- a section on a discussion about limit-experiences and the public/private dichotomy that involves a critique from Richard Rorty moves too fast for the uninitiated. Similarly, readers more familiar with Continental Philosophy might find Gutting's discussion of whether or not Foucault commits the Genetic Fallacy a tad too analytical. But these are small blips in a book that is lucid, honest, and open.

In the end, I think Spivak's charge against Gutting is unfair and possibly even ignorant. Simplicity and clarity can be political tools just as easily as obscurantism and multiplicity, and if this book exposes people to the 'toolbox' that Foucault attempted to provide to allow them to resist oppression then so much the better. (On the topic of Foucault's often difficult prose, Daniel Dennett recounts a discussion between John Searle and Michel Foucault: 'John Searle once told me about a conversation he had with the late Foucault: 'Michel, you're so clear in conversation; why is your written work so obscure?" To which Foucault replied "That's because, in order to be taken seriously by French Philosophers, twenty-five percent of what you write has to be impenetrable nonsense."I have coined a term for this tactic, in honor of Foucault's candor: eumerdification.') This book is not impenetrable nonsense, but learned, scholarly, and a worthwhile read, both for the uninitiated and the Foucault scholar.

I cannot say I`m scholar on Foucault. However, I`m preparing myself for two presentations in two doctoral seminars. I was hoping this book help me to prepare. It is clearly, for me, pretty weak philosophically. You don`t have any interest to read Foucault by reading this, neither it opens you on the important subjects of this authors. I stop after 2 chapters, what is a honest chance to give to a book. The second chapter of the book, entitled Politics, focus on the personal involvement of Foucault in politics and its problem with Sartre on that matter. I understand that life and subject are interelated with Foucault, but I don`t want to read a biography! Give me the real stuff, what is his damn theory of power! What his understanding of politic is! I can`t believe they permit to publish such scrap!