Foucault’s Hegel Thesis: The “Tragic Destiny” of Life and the “Being-There” of Consciousness

Auteurs-es

  • Oliver Roberts-Garratt University of Exeter

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.i36.7227

Mots-clés :

French Hegelianism, Jean Hyppolite, early Foucault, Husserl, Eugen Fink

Résumé

In this paper, I offer an intellectual-historical reading of Foucault’s unpublished master’s thesis. In contrast with other recent scholarship on the pre-1961 period of Foucault’s career, the purpose of this paper is to grapple with the philosophical content of this thesis on its own terms, distinguishing it as far as possible from his mature work. This allows forgotten concepts to re-emerge in the course of reading the text and for a novel engagement with such neglected facets of Foucault’s oeuvre. Indeed, the key concept which I argue emerges from Foucault’s early thesis is that of language as the être-la of thought. By closely following Foucault’s Husserlian reading of Hegel, and his response to Eugen Fink’s paradoxes of phenomenology, it is possible to see how Foucault briefly lands upon a novel kind of scepticism about the reality of history and minds. In the same way, I will also show why Foucault was unable to fully develop or commit to these sceptical positions during this part of his career. The article concludes by briefly suggesting contrasts between my reading of this early text and the way Foucault’s oeuvre is more generally understood.

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Oliver Roberts-Garratt, University of Exeter

Oliver Roberts-Garratt is a political-theory and philosophy tutor at the University of Exeter. He recently completed a PhD in Politics at the University of Exeter entitled “The Philosophy of the Early Foucault (1949-1955)”. This thesis tests if it is possible to regard Foucault’s early works as discontinuous with each other and with his mature work. This approach enables the derivation of a set of novel philosophies that are irreducible to one another, or to Foucault’s later output, and which are not explicable in terms of an intellectual-historical “trajectory”. Other research interests include French Hegelianism, speculative realism, and esoteric/mystical aspects in modern philosophy. 

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Publié-e

2024-09-01

Comment citer

Roberts-Garratt, O. (2024). Foucault’s Hegel Thesis: The “Tragic Destiny” of Life and the “Being-There” of Consciousness. Foucault Studies, (36), 443–469. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.i36.7227