Your complimentary articles
You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please
If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.
To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.
If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.
Books
Foucault’s Fictions
Paul Royall reviews Didier Eribon’s new biography of an anguished French genius.
Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers, France in 1926, the second child of a wealthy family. His life was extraordinary, perhaps one which is hard to empathise with. Foucault, living his life like a ‘work of art’, flitted from a zest for life to melancholy and suicide attempts. He appears to have constantly forged unique relationships while at the same time infuriating established friends. He was, for a while, a Marxist, then a Maoist, yet his radical politics did not prevent him occupying one of the premier posts of French education at the College de France.
…