BETWEEN FOUCAULT AND DERRIDA

Description

Derrida and Foucault are without question two of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Both share a similar motivation to challenge our fundamental structures of meaning -in texts, political structures and epistemic and discursive practices – in order to inspire new ways of thinking.

Between Foucault and Derrida explores the notorious Cogito debate and includes: the central articles, an important piece by Jean-Marie Beyssade, along with a letter Foucault wrote to Beyssade in response – both these pieces available for the first time in English translation. In the second part of the book, 10 essays written by some of the most well-known scholars working in contemporary continental philosophy address the various philosophical intersections and divergences of these two profoundly important thinkers.

Yubraj Aryal is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Montreal and Visiting Scholar at New York University. He is also the editor of Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry.

Vernon W. Cisney is Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Philosophy at Gettysburg College. He is the author of Deleuze and Derrida: Difference and the Power of the Negative (Edinburgh University Press, 2018) and Derrida’s Voice and Phenomenon: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).

Nicolae Morar is Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Environmental Studies and an Associate Member with the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon.

Christopher Penfield is Postdoctoral Scholar in Philosophy at Purdue University. He is the author of several articles on or related to Foucault, including those appearing in Foucault Studies (2014), The Cambridge Foucault Lexicon (2014), Tate Research (2016), and Understanding Foucault, Understanding Modernism (2017).

REVIEWS:

In bringing together the key texts in Foucault’s and Derrida’s ground-breaking intellectual confrontation, alongside the insights of some of their most astute readers, Between Foucault and Derrida attests to the ongoing force of their philosophies in the present. Each has provided us with ways of thinking about language, knowledge and power that have defined our age but also oriented it in very different, even contrary, directions. This book is a careful analysis of the wide-ranging implications of this most unusual of encounters. – Elizabeth Grosz, Duke University

These outstanding essays by leading scholars open up productive new ways of reading the Derrida-Foucault debate. This is an essential collection for all those interested in this epochal exchange between two of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers. – Paul Patton, University of New South Wales