Foucault

This collection of articles on Michel Foucault confirms his position as one of the most influential thinkers in this last quarter of the century, and simultaneously demonstrates the current ambivalence among philosophers and social scientists about the actual grounds for such an assessment. Preface

Introduction

Part I: The Evolution of Empiricism

1. Language and the World

2. Rules and Rationality

3. Naturalism, Realism and Pragmatism

Part II: Logic and Reality

4. Physicalism and Objectivity

5. Logic: Canonical Notation and Extensionality

6. Intensionality

7. Necessity: Logic and Metaphysics

Part III: Mind and Meaning

8. Indeterminacy of Translation

9. Translation and explanation

10. Holism, interpretation and the autonomy of psychology

Part IV: Knowledge and reality

11. Nature and Experience

12. Physicalism and Reality

"Here at last is a collection of articles on Michel Foucault which confirms his position as one of the most influential thinkers in this last quarter of the century and yet simultaneously demonstrates the current ambivalence among philosophers and social scientists about the actual grounds for such an assessment ... Content alone would make this collection an essential choice for graduate work. Its overall stylistic clarity, even in the face of Foucault's denser formulations, makes it, however, compulsory reading for anyone else who wishes to assess how near Foucault came to chronicling what Richard Rorty calls those speculative possibilities that exceed our present grasp but may nevertheless be our future." Laurie Taylor, Times Higher Education Supplement

David C. Hoy is the author of Foucault: A Critical Reader, published by Wiley. This collection gives a complete picture of Foucault's importance as a thinker and social critic who transcended academic boundaries to challenge entrenched, institutionalized models of theoretical rationality and practical normalcy.