Foucault in Warsaw by Remigiusz Ryzinski

Author:Remigiusz Ryzinski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Letter
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Illusion

Knowledge about madness is the illusion of knowledge about anything. Such an illusion, such knowledge about the lack of knowledge, can provoke feelings of anxiety and dismay. Yet it can also make us aware of our freedom. Foucault says: now there’s nothing I cannot do, nothing I should do, I can do anything.

Was Foucault lonely in Warsaw?

Did he feel trapped?

Could he be happy, even sometimes?

In the preface to his book he mentions his gratitude to three people—Georges Dumézil, Jean Hyppolite, and Georges Canguilhem.

No one Polish.

And yet. The closing paragraph of the preface to History of Madness reads: “I should also name many others who appear not to matter. Yet they know, these friends from Sweden and these Polish friends, that there is something of their presence in these pages. May they pardon me for making such demands on them and their happiness, they who were so close to a work that spoke only of distant sufferings, and the slightly dusty archives of pain.”16

“Distant sufferings” and “archives of pain.”

Is that what Poland was to Foucault?

What could these words mean within the dual otherness and feelings of exclusion Foucault must have been experiencing? He was spending time with friends and young men, but he was a stranger. With every step, at every moment of the day and night. Now that he had all that behind him, he saw this as a long-ago suffering, an experience of pain with the potential to bear fruit as a dissertation on madness.

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