DOI: 10.4231/r7348hkt
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 25-lecture seminar given from October 1985 to May 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, topics of discussion include: the definition of a statement in Foucault&#39;s philosophy; power as strictly immanent to knowledge; the focal points (&lt;em&gt;les foyers&lt;/em&gt;) of power and of resistance in relation to sexuality in the nineteenth century; Foucault&#39;s essay &quot;Lives of Infamous Men&quot; (&lt;em&gt;La vie des hommes inf&acirc;mes&lt;/em&gt;); statement, visibility and the corpus; visibilities as complexes of action and reaction; the French artist Robert Delaunay; Foucault&#39;s &lt;em&gt;The Birth of the Clinic&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Naissance de la clinique&lt;/em&gt;); regimes of visibility and power; captured statements and visibilities; Richard von Krafft-Ebing and his &lt;em&gt;Psychopathia Sexualis&lt;/em&gt;; the American linguist William Labov, heterogeneous systems and passages in the sentence; statement and multiplicities; linguistics, enunciation (&lt;em&gt;&eacute;nonciation&lt;/em&gt;) and subject positions; free indirect discourse; the French linguist and semiotician &Eacute;mile Benveniste; Blanchot, the dismissal of linguistic personology (&lt;em&gt;personnologie linguistique&lt;/em&gt;), and the one (&lt;em&gt;on&lt;/em&gt;) and the I (&lt;em&gt;je&lt;/em&gt;); and the statement defined as an intrinsic variable. Deleuze also spends significant time in the middle of the lecture discussing light (&lt;em&gt;la lumi&egrave;re&lt;/em&gt;). Among the topics in this particular discussion are: that light is not a physical environment nor is it Newtonian, but rather it is first, an indivisible condition, an &lt;em&gt;a priori&lt;/em&gt;; German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe&#39;s sense of light; that light falls on the corpus, and captures it; light in the seventeenth century and the work of Spanish artist Diego Vel&aacute;zquez; visibilities and the painting as lines of light; that the &quot;we see&quot; (&lt;em&gt;on voit&lt;/em&gt;) is a state of light, not of things; the luminists (&lt;em&gt;les luministes&lt;/em&gt;) of literature; and statements and light in the work of American author William Faulkner.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes: four mp3 recordings of the lecture (total time, 2:11:57), an aggregate version of the audio recordings into a single mp3, the complete French transcription of the recorded lecture in both pdf (25 pp) and plain text, and an image file (JPEG).&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 25 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; d&#39;octobre 1985 &agrave; mai 1986. 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 25-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between October 1985 and May 1986.