The Debates Between Madness And Reason-An Inquiry Into The Reading Of Descartes's "First Meditation" Explained By Foucault And Drrida

This paper discusses the debate between Foucault and Derrida on a history of madness,which has two points of confrontation.First,at the beginning of the chapter "the great confinement" of a history of madness,Foucault thinks that Descartes excluded "madness" in the first meditation,while Derrida thinks that it did not.The second is about the language involved in the writing of a history of madness.Whether Foucault can write a history of madness and silence and let "madness speak",as he said in the preface.As for the first point of confrontation,the author tries to respond to the two men by sorting out Descartes' meditation after introducing their key arguments.Foucault's interpretation of the madness of the subject of meditation is very important,but Descartes does not reject madness.At the same time,Derrida understood pre-cogito as a state of madness,and said "I think,therefore I am mad" was also a kind of creation.As for the second question,the author mainly focuses on the history of madness and other works of the two philosophers,and compares their differences in language,reason,truth and other issues,so as to understand the difficult problem involved in "madness opening to speak".Foucault later change the show in the history of "madness",in attempt to hold a higher truth,for inaccessible and the thought of "The other",we can't going reach rational "external" cross the line,even once said that the border is the existence of the "out",but we can also transgress to pursue them,"transgression" behavior and "boundaries" spiral miraculously package,along with each other,this is the modern writers(eg.Bataille)pursuit.