On the Politics of the Living : Foucault and Canguilhem on Life and Norms.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Testa, Federico, author.

Contributor:

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984--Criticism and interpretation.

Foucault, Michel.

Canguilhem, Georges, 1904-1995--Criticism and interpretation.

Canguilhem, Georges.

Social sciences--Philosophy.

Social sciences.

Political science--Philosophy.

Political science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (372 pages)

Edition:

1st edition.

Place of Publication:

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

Bringing the philosophies of Michel Foucault and Georges Canguilhem into dialogue, Federico Testa examines the notions of life and norms underlying our modern experience of politics. Today's global health crisis acts as a stark reminder that life is at the core of our political debates and dilemmas. We can no longer think of forms of political organization, citizenship and participation without considering the materiality and precarity of our own organic life. Ours is a politics of the living. Within this context, this book examines Foucault's work on the politicization of life and biopolitics through the lens of Canguilhem's notion of norms. Testa extracts from Canguilhem's philosophy the conceptual tools to re-interpret Foucault's ideas on power, and reconceptualises normativity as a process of the creation of norms that provide tools for political and social analysis and for thinking resistance. In so doing, he uncovers new and important possibilities for biopolitical resistance. Demonstrating not only Canguilhem's underexplored social and political concerns but also the intellectual osmosis between the two thinkers, On the Politics of the Living is an urgent examination of the ever-increasing significance of the concepts of life, care and health in today's political discourse.

Contents:

Intro

Half Title

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Part I: REVISITING A PHILOSOPHICAL ENCOUNTER

Introduction: Foucault, Canguilhem, and the Power of Life

Chapter 1: From Foucault to Canguilhem

1.1. 'An Invisible College': Canguilhem and the Definition of an Intellectual Field

1.2. Life: Experience and Science

Chapter 2: Canguilhem and Foucault beyond Historical Epistemology

Part II: LIFE AND NORMS IN GEORGES CANGUILHEM

Chapter 3: Canguilhem, Philosopher

3.1. Philosophy, Medicine, and the "Concrete Human Problems"

Chapter 4: The Normal and the Pathological

4.1. Pars destruens: The Quantitative Thesis

4.1.1. The Quantitative Thesis and Its 'Philosophy of Order'

4.1.2. The Normal as 'Accomplished Fact'

4.1.3. Quantitative Thesis and Medical Information

4.1.4. 'Drama' vs. 'Dogma'

4.2. "Pars construens": The Qualitative Thesis

4.2.1. Disease's Vital Wonder

Chapter 5: Vital Normativity

5.1. Disease and Experimentation with Norms

5.2. Struggle and Mobility: Canguilhem's Tragic Health

5.3. Disease and Subjectivity

Part III: FOUCAULT AND THE POWER OF NORMS

Chapter 6: Vital and Social Norms

6.1. Social Norm and Normalization in the "New Reflections"

Chapter 7: Foucault and the "Archaeology of Normalizing Power"

7.1. Abnormal and the Problem of Normalization

7.2. Abnormality, Conduct, and Life as a Biographical Unity

7.3. Canguilhem and the Project of the History of Sexuality

7.4. Intermezzo: The Contingency of Norms

Chapter 8: The Itinerary of the Norm

8.1. Beyond Confinement: The Good Use of Freedom and the Birth of the Asylum

8.2. Discipline as Norm

8.3. Biopolitical Governmentality and Normalization

8.4. Toward an Immanentization of Power

8.5. From Normalization to Normativity.

Part IV: NORMATIVITY AND CRITIQUE

Chapter 9: Normativity and the Arts of Life

9.1. Life as Bios

9.2. Foucault's Inventorial Attitude

9.3. The Critical and Ethopoetic Task of Philosophy

Chapter 10: The Political "Awe" of Genealogy: On Critique as an Art of Listening

10.1. Foucault and the 'Normativity Debate'

10.2. Toward a Political Art of Listening

Notes

General Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-350-29930-8

1-350-29931-6

1-350-29929-4

OCLC:

1500764674