Abstract

Foucault's works, according to Dreyfus and Rabinow, “represent the most important contemporary effort both to develop a method for the study of human beings and to diagnose the current situation of our society” (p. xiii). They conclude that his position is “…the most powerful, plausible, and honest option available” (p. 125). I must confess that I agree with them in both judgments.

There is an inescapable methodological conundrum in writing a book, especially a sympathetic one, on Michel Foucault, Foucault's method calls for constituting unities of discourse on the basis of disciplines, not individual authors. He presents strong arguments for his case in the Archeology of Knowledge and he exemplifies his position in his concrete studies, most notably in books on the clinic, sex and prisons.