Abstract
In this paper, I’ll discuss the philosophical debate that took place between Michel Foucault and his student Jacques Derrida on Rene Descartes’ doctrine of cogito. In my exposition, I shall discuss Descartes’ contributions to modern philosophy in twofold manner, namely the central and the marginal doctrines. At the centre of Cartesian modernity, there is cogito and the emergence of human subjectivity, reason and rationalism, truth in terms of clearness and distinctness and the existence of God. On the margins, we come across madness, deception, demon and so forth. These are the issues, which are subjected to rigorous criticism and rejection by Foucault on the one hand, and Derrida on the other. The debate tries to reallocate the central and the marginal themes by overemphasizing the marginal issues and thereby moving one step forward. However, in the process of doing that they have under-emphasized the central doctrines and have gone two steps backward. The ambition lies in paving the way for an internal departure from Cartesian modernity to Foucauldian–Derridean postmodernity. Instead of going to a critical reading of Derrida’s interpretation of the Cartesian text step by step and his debate with Foucault, the present paper hopes to provide some of the basic issues involved in Descartes and Foucauldian–Derridean reaction to those issues. In my attempt to articulate the debate, I shall furnish some clarifications, annotations and summations that may be useful for the limited end of preliminary acquaintance with Descartes on the one hand, and Foucault and Derrida on the other.
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Notes
Singh, R.P. 2002, Philosophy: Modern and Postmodern. New Delhi, Om Publications, Introduction, p. 15.
Ibid., p. 20.
White, S. K. 1991. Political Theory and Postmodernism. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. p. 4.
Rorty, Richard. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, Princeton University Press. p. 328.
Ibid., pp. 330-01.
Descartes, Rene. 1979. Discourse on Method and the Meditations, trans. by F.E. Sutcliffe. Penguin Books. p. 96.
Ibid., p. 102.
Ibid., p. 102.
Michel Foucault, Folie-et-de’raison : L’Historie de la folie a I’age classique, quotation from Dalia Judovitz, ‘Descartes and Derrida: Economizing Thought’, in Continental Philosophy II (ed) H.J. Silverman (New York & London, Routledge, 1989), p. 44.
Descartes, Method and Meditations, in ‘Objections and Replies’, trans. Robert Stooth (Cambridge, CUP, 1988), p. 228.
Ibid., p. 44.
Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 51.
Judovitz, Dalia, ‘Descartes and Derrida: Economizing Thought’, In Continental Philosophy II, etc., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 103.
Ibid., p. 41.
Derrida, Writing and Difference, etc., p. 38.
Descartes, Method and Meditations, trans. Robert Stooth (Cambridge, CUP, 1988), p. 134.
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Trans, John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff & Dugald Murdock, Vol. II (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 19.
Judovitz, Dalia, ‘Descartes and Derrida’, etc., p. 49.
Heraclitus says, ‘If we speak with intelligence, we must base our strength on that which is common to all (i.e. logos), as the city on the laws (nomos), of the society ethos. B114 ‘Those who would speak with understanding must ground themselves firmly in that which is common to all, just as a city does in its law, and even more firmly! For all human laws are nourished by one law, the divine; for it rules as far as it wishes and suffices for all, and is still more than enough’. (Stobaeus III.1.179)Logos has introduced a systematic inquiry, by way of rational argumentation from what is better known to what is less known on ‘big questions’, and then from general principles to particular conclusions. But this assessment does not go for long. The contradictory status of reason as developed by Kant could not solve the antinomies of pure reason. It is Hegel’s notion of reason as a unifying agency that can overcome the contradictory state of existence. This has been the historical process of the development of the notion of reason. For details, please see Singh, R.P., 2008, Consciousness: Indian and Western Perspectives. New Delhi, Atlantic Publications. pp. 206–318.
Gutting, Gary, 1990 Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Scientific Reason Cambridge, Cambridge University-Press, p. 198.
Derrida, Writing and Difference, etc., p. 42.
Judovitz, Dalia, ‘Descartes and Derrida’, etc., p. 49.
Kearney, Richard, Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers, etc.
Derrida Positions trans. Allan Bass, etc., p. 8.
Descartes, Discourse On Method and the Meditations, etc., pp. 152–153.
Ibid., p. 153.
Einstein, Albert, 1989 Ideas and Opinions New Delhi, Rupa & Co., p. 266.
Descartes, Discourse On Method and the Meditations, etc., p. 119.
Ibid., p. 119.
Descartes, 1967, The Philosophical Works, Trans. by E.S. Haldane and R.T. Rose (London, Cambridge University Press), p. 181.
Derrida, Writing and Difference, etc., p. 53.
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Singh, R.P. Foucault–Derrida Debate on Cartesian Cogito: One Step Forward and Two Steps Backward. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 37, 243–256 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-020-00197-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-020-00197-4