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 Michel Foucault
Philosopher and Historian of Thought
French
1926-1984
Foucault, like many began his philosophical career considering psychological phenomena. In
Mental Illness and Personality(1954), he developed an existential phenomenology within
the boundaries of Marxist thought.
His interest in philosophical science and history led him
to write extensively on the middle ages and the "archaelogy of knowledge."
Shifting to a more
geneological explanation of the transitions between major stages of human development
led him to consider the causal effects of non-related causes upon the development of
new thought.
His major works also include: History of Madness in the Classical Age(1961), The
Birth of the Clinic(1963), The Order of Things(1966), and The Archaeology of Knowledge(1969).
His later works dealing with sexuality and religion, as well as modern thought include Discipline and Punish(1975),
History of Sexuality(1976), The Confessions of the Flesh(unpublished), The Use
of Pleasure(1984), and The Care of the Self(1984).
His later works clearly show the major thrust of his thought: he sought the liberation of
man from contingent conceptual constraints masked as unsurpassable a priori limits and the adumbration
of alternative forms of existence.
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