Foucault on Freedom

Freedom and the subject were guiding themes for Michel Foucault throughout his philosophical career. In this clear and comprehensive analysis of his thought, Johanna Oksala identifies the different interpretations of freedom in his philosophy and examines three major divisions of it: the archaeological, the genealogical, and the ethical. She shows convincingly that in order to appreciate Foucault's project fully we must understand his complex relationship to phenomenology, and she discusses Foucault's treatment of the body in relation to recent feminist work on this topic. Her sophisticated but lucid book illuminates the possibilities that Foucault's philosophy opens up for us in thinking about freedom.

Introduction; Part I. Language: 1. Philosophical laughter; 2. The Foucaultian failure of phenomenology; 3. The anonymity of language; Part II. Body: 4. A genealogy of the subject; 5. Anarchic bodies; 6. Female freedom; Part III. Ethics: 7. The silence of ethics; 8. The freedom of philosophy; 9. The other; Conclusion.

This clear and comprehensive analysis of Foucault's thought identifies the different interpretations of freedom in his philosophy and examines three major divisions of it: the archaeological, the genealogical, and the ethical. It also discusses Foucault's treatment of the body in relation to recent feminist work on this topic.