The History of Reason in the Age of Madness : Foucault’s Enlightenment and a Radical Critique of Psychiatry

__The History of Reason in the Age of Madness__ revolves around three axes: the Foucauldian critical-historical method, its relationship with enlightenment critique, and the way this critique is implemented in Foucault's seminal work, __History of Madness.__Foucault's exploration of the origins of psychiatry applies his own theories of power, truth and reason and draws on Kant's philosophy, shedding new light on the way we perceive the birth and development of psychiatric practice. Following Foucault's adoption of 'limit attitude', which investigates the limits of our thinking as points of disruption and renewal of established frames of reference, this book dispels the widely accepted belief that psychiatry represents the triumph of rationalism by somehow conquering madness and turning it into an object of neutral, scientific perception. It examines the birth of psychiatry in its full complexity: in the late eighteenth century, doctors were not simply rationalists but also alienists, philosophers of finitude who recognized madness as an experience at the limits of reason, introducing a discourse which conditioned the formation of psychiatry as a type of medical activity. Since that event, the same type of recognition, the same anthropological confrontation with madness has persisted beneath the calm development of psychiatric rationality, undermining the supposed linearity, absolute authority and steady progress of psychiatric positivism. Iliopoulos argues that Foucault's critique foregrounds this anthropological problematic as indispensable for psychiatry, encouraging psychiatrists to become aware of the epistemological limitations of their practice, and also to review the ethical and political issues which madness introduces into the apparent neutrality of current psychiatric discourse. This text revolves around three axes: the Foucauldian critical-historical method, its relationship with enlightenment critique, and the way this critique is implemented in Foucault's seminal work, 'History of Madness'. The History of Reason in the Age of Madness revolves around three axes: the Foucauldian critical-historical method, its relationship with enlightenment critique, and the way this critique is implemented in Foucault's seminal work, History of Madness. Foucault's exploration of the origins of psychiatry applies his own theories of power, truth and reason and draws on Kant's philosophy, shedding new light on the way we perceive the birth and development of psychiatric practice. Following Foucault's adoption of l̀imit attitude', which investigates the limits of our thinking as points of disruption and renewal of established frames of reference, this book dispels the widely accepted belief that psychiatry represents the triumph of rationalism by somehow conquering madness and turning it into an object of neutral, scientific perception. It examines the birth of psychiatry in its full complexity: in the late eighteenth century, doctors were not simply rationalists but also alienists, philosophers of finitude who recognized madness as an experience at the limits of reason, introducing a discourse which conditioned the formation of psychiatry as a type of medical activity. Since that event, the same type of recognition, the same anthropological confrontation with madness has persisted beneath the calm development of psychiatric rationality, undermining the supposed linearity, absolute authority and steady progress of psychiatric positivism. Iliopoulos argues that Foucault's critique foregrounds this anthropological problematic as indispensable for psychiatry, encouraging psychiatrists to become aware of the epistemological limitations of their practice, and also to review the ethical and political issues which madness introduces into the apparent neutrality of current psychiatric discourse Michel Foucault is regarded by many as a postmodern anti-psychiatrist, an anti-Enlightenment theorist whose lifelong preoccupation with power, knowledge and discourse is viewed as antithetical to psychiatric reason and truth. The present study offers a critique of this reading of Foucault, demonstrating how his theoretical approach does not oppose either the Enlightenment or psychiatry tout court but rather illustrates that what mental health professionals have inherited from the Enlightenment is not its forms of rationality, but the anthropological confrontation of reason with the irrational, the inhuman. In Foucault’s line of thought, this anthropological critique does not seek to expand, refine or refute the domain of psychiatric knowledge, but to locate its limitations and to trace its weak points where the foundation of psychiatric rationality can appear most vulnerable so that it may be overturned. This is not to imply an irrationalist method of approach but, on the contrary, a sceptical stance where psychiatric rationality questions its own sovereignty and its claims to universality. Following and systematizing Foucault’s method through an extensive discussion of his influences and his main interlocutors (Deleuze, Derrida, Baudrillard, Virilio, Žižek) the aim of the present study is not to present a general rational theory which will supposedly ‘enlighten’ psychiatrists, but to place the mental health worker in a position to challenge not only the psychiatric institution but more generally the rational framework of the society in which he functions. Through the anthropological worldview, the psychiatrist can become a diagnostician of his present reality inside and beyond the psychiatric institution This book revolves around three axes: the Foucauldian critical-historical method, its relationship with enlightenment critique, and the way this critique is implemented in Foucault's seminal work, History of Madness. Foucault's exploration of the origins of psychiatry applies his own theories of power, truth and reason and draws on Kant's philosophy, shedding new light on the way we perceive the birth and development of psychiatric practice. Following Foucault's adoption of 'limit attitude', which investigates the limits of our thinking as points of disruption and renewal of established frames of reference, this book dispels the widely accepted belief that psychiatry represents the triumph of rationalism by somehow conquering madness and turning it into an object of neutral, scientific perception. It examines the birth of psychiatry in its full complexity: in the late eighteenth century, doctors were not simply rationalists but also alienists, philosophers of finitude who recognized madness as an experience at the limits of reason, introducing a discourse which conditioned the formation of psychiatry as a type of medical activity. FC -- Half title -- Also available from Bloomsbury -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- 1 What Is Enlightenment? -- 2 The Historical Critique of Phenomenology -- 3 Foucault's Epistemology: Subjectivity, Truth, Reason and the History of Madness -- 4 Is Foucault an Anti-psychiatrist? -- 5 The Simulation of Hysteria at the Limits of Medical Rationality: Foucault's Study of an Event -- 6 Foucault and Psychoanalysis: Traversing the Enlightenment -- 7 The Psychiatrist as an Intellectual -- Notes -- References -- Index