Michel Foucault and the anthropological disposition of modern philosophical thought

• Grant number: 12/23689-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2013
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Maurício Cardoso Keinert
• Grantee: Dyogo Henrique Machado Gontijo Silva Leão
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/07855-4 - Michel Foucault and the anthropological disposition of modern philosophical thought, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

According to Michel Foucault, the Man emerges in the Western thought solely towards the end of the XVIII century. This "new figure" appears as the subject of knowledge and, at the same time, a possible object of knowledge. Playing this double role, the man constitutes the historical a priori on which the modern philosophical thought develops itself. Taking this into account, the main concern of this research is to understand the critical diagnosis of the philosophical Modernity carried out by Foucault through the archaeology of knowledge. To that purpose, two books by Foucault, Les motes et les choses (1966) and Introduction à l'Anthropologie de Kant (1961) are to be confronted, what is justified by the fact that both texts illuminate the main themes around which Foucault articulates his critique on the modern philosophical thought. It shows that this thought, under the form of an "analytic of finitude", has fallen into an "anthropological sleep", by trying to turn the man into the fundament of his own limitations. Therewith the modern philosophical thought turned out to be a spread of pre-critical dogmatism. Furthermore, the book of 1961, in which Foucault closely analyses Kant's philosophy, seems to explain the ambiguous position of the German philosopher in Les mots et les choses.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

LEÃO, Dyogo Henrique Machado Gontijo Silva. Archaeology of a tension: the diagnostic of the present in The Order of Things. 2016. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.