DOI: 10.4231/xq1k-3q66
title: Foucault: Lecture 4, 12 November 1985

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&quot;Foucault&quot; was a 26-lecture seminar given from October 1985 to June 1986. In these lectures, Deleuze offers his interpretation and analysis of French philosopher Michel Foucault&#39;s work. Examining the theoretical foundations and major themes of Foucault&#39;s philosophy, Deleuze dedicates several lectures to each of what he calls the &quot;three axes&quot; of Foucault&#39;s thought. This seminar coincides with the publication of Deleuze&#39;s book &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the 12 November 1985 lecture, having previously considered the flip side of the question &ldquo;what is a statement?&rdquo; by examining visibilities, Deleuze insists on the importance of determining the corpus of knowledge, the criteria resting in power which is thus immanent to knowledge. So Foucault seeks the sites of power and of resistance to power in the 19th century, with experience always conditioned and gridded by power relations. Such relations are discussed, says Deleuze, in Foucault&#39;s essay &quot;The Lives of Infamous Men&quot; (&lt;em&gt;La vie des hommes inf&acirc;mes&lt;/em&gt;), after which, in Foucault&rsquo;s last books, &lt;span style="mso-spacerun:yes"&gt; &lt;/span&gt;he seeks to &ldquo;cross the line&rdquo;. Remaining within this reflection on knowledge-power through the constitution of one&rsquo;s corpus, Deleuze also reflects on how Foucault examined visibilities, how for Foucault, the &ldquo;one sees&rdquo; is light while the &ldquo;one speaks&rdquo; is language. Exploring how these distinctions emerge in &lt;i&gt;The Birth of the Clinic&lt;/i&gt;, Deleuze then pursues them with examples from different regimes of visibility, notably figures of light for the painters Robert Delaunay and Paul C&eacute;zanne. Deleuze then delineates four levels of difference between statements and the group of words, sentences and propositions: first, the inherent mixture of systems in speech; second, the necessary choice to be made within this multiplicity, with Foucault&rsquo;s own position regarding the subject being that statements have no author, but an &ldquo;author function&rdquo;, also emphasizing the example of free indirect discourse as a means of short-circuiting subject positions. Deleuze indicates that the statement refers to variable subject positions, all ordered according to a &ldquo;one speaks&rdquo;. As the session ends, Deleuze indicates a third level, within the proposition, referring to a state of affairs to which he will return in the next session.&lt;o:p&gt;&lt;/o:p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset for the new version includes four files, the translation and transcription of the session in Open Data Text (odt) format, an aggregate version of the audio recordings in a single mp3, and the original Paris-8 French transcription of the recorded lecture. The aggregate audio file has been downsampled.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;-&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze&lt;/em&gt; sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&laquo;Foucault&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 26 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; d&#39;octobre 1985 &agrave; juin1986. Dans ces conf&eacute;rences, Deleuze offre son interpr&eacute;tation et son analyse de l&rsquo;&oelig;uvre du philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Michel Foucault. En examinant les fondements th&eacute;oriques et les th&egrave;mes majeurs de la philosophie de Foucault, Deleuze consacre plusieurs conf&eacute;rences &agrave; chacun de ce qu&#39;il appelle les &laquo;trois axes&raquo; de la pens&eacute;e de Foucault. Ce s&eacute;minaire co&iuml;ncide avec la publication du livre de Deleuze &lt;em&gt;Foucault&lt;/em&gt; (1986).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dans la conf&eacute;rence du 12 novembre 1985, les sujets de discussion comprennent: la d&eacute;finition d&#39;une &eacute;nonc&eacute; dans la philosophie de Foucault; le pouvoir comme strictement immanent au savoir; les foyers du pouvoir et de la r&eacute;sistance concernant la sexualit&eacute; au XIXe si&egrave;cle; l&#39;essai de Foucault &lt;em&gt;La vie des hommes inf&acirc;mes&lt;/em&gt;; &eacute;nonc&eacute;, visibilit&eacute; et le corpus; visibilit&eacute;s comme complexes d&#39;action et de r&eacute;action; l&#39;artiste fran&ccedil;ais Robert Delaunay; &lt;em&gt;Naissance de la clinique&lt;/em&gt; de Foucault; les r&eacute;gimes de visibilit&eacute; et le pouvoir; &eacute;nonc&eacute;s et visibilit&eacute;s captur&eacute;es; Richard von Krafft-Ebing et sa &lt;em&gt;Psychopathia sexualis&lt;/em&gt;; le linguiste am&eacute;ricain William Labov, des syst&egrave;mes h&eacute;t&eacute;rog&egrave;nes et passages dans la phrase; &eacute;nonc&eacute; et multiplicit&eacute;s; linguistique, &eacute;nonciation et les positions des sujets; le discours indirect libre; le linguiste et s&eacute;mioticien fran&ccedil;ais &Eacute;mile Benveniste; Blanchot, le destitution de la personnologie linguistique, et le &lt;em&gt;on&lt;/em&gt; et le &lt;em&gt;je&lt;/em&gt;; et l&#39;&eacute;nonc&eacute; se d&eacute;finit comme variable intrins&egrave;que. Deleuze passe aussi beaucoup de temps au milieu de la conf&eacute;rence sur la lumi&egrave;re. Parmi les sujets abord&eacute;s dans cette discussion particuli&egrave;re, il y a: que la lumi&egrave;re n&#39;est pas un milieu physique ni Newtonienne, mais qu&#39;elle est premi&egrave;re, une condition indivisible, un &lt;em&gt;a priori&lt;/em&gt;; le sens de la lumi&egrave;re de l&#39;&eacute;crivain allemand Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; cette lumi&egrave;re tombe sur le corpus et le capture; la lumi&egrave;re au XVIIe si&egrave;cle et l&#39;&oelig;uvre de l&#39;artiste espagnol Diego Vel&aacute;zquez; les visibilit&eacute;s et la peinture comme des lignes de lumi&egrave;re; que le &lt;em&gt;on voit&lt;/em&gt; est un &eacute;tat de lumi&egrave;re, pas des choses; les luministes de la litt&eacute;rature; et les &eacute;nonc&eacute;s et la lumi&egrave;re dans l&#39;&oelig;uvre de l&#39;auteur am&eacute;ricain William Faulkner.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 12 November 1985. This is lecture 4 of a 26-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and June 1986.